The story that made the biggest impact on me when reading Debi Pearl's book was the story about a woman complaining about her husband's television viewing habits. She thought the shows he watched were not good and were going to affect her children negatively. Debi's response was amazing. She told her she could divorce her husband, go on welfare, live in a small apartment, sleep in bed alone and then have babysitters watch her children and who knows what they will be watching on television. Her advice:
"Your nagging and criticism have the opposite effect of producing righteousness. Ideally, if you could hold your standards, hold your tongue, and hold your man, in time you might be able to put forth an appeal to him that does not offend."
I have found that since I no longer nag and criticize Ken, when there is something that really bothers me, I can talk to him about it and he listens. He even wants me to keep him accountable for several areas in his life. But it was him who wanted me to keep him accountable, not me deciding he needed to be fixed. We, women, are nurturers and like to fix everybody, but we can't fix our husbands. Only God can do that. When we try to fix them, we just make a much bigger mess.
