Wives of public office holders in Rivers State during a function in Port Harcourt, recently. Photo: Chris Monyanaga
The complexity of men has made women describe them as: “grown-up children,” in several fora men have often been viewed by their spouses as animals that require a lot of domestication in the course of cohabitation.
When man decide to spend the rest of their lives with their spouses, it often turns to be a tug-of-war at some point. At such points, there is the tendency for them to invariably revert back to their primitive irritating ways, such as being unnecessarily indifferent. It is widely believed that such feeling could be their own way of protecting their captivity by the women. Whatever the reason, men have a unique and sometimes gleeful way of irritating the ones they love most.
Some of these ways can be subtle and almost look insignificant, but not to the recipient spouse. It could be merely putting the toilet seat up after use or a few lies, often considered to be normal.
The man could also irritate his spouse when he turns her into a reminder machine, when he spends too much time in the bathroom, litter dirty clothes all over the house, have a suspect friend, or become un-understandable pokey at night when his spouse is exhausted.
In fact, there are uncountable ways in which men irritate their spouses, depending on the individual spouse.
The Tide’s Women Desk features 10 key ways, considered to be encompassing. This does not mean that women do not drive their spouses crazy with various things or attitudes.
One of the things that irritate women in men is when the man becomes too arrogant and full of themselves. Ordinarily, there is nothing wrong in a man having confidence in himself. In fact, it is considered a great trait to have, but being arrogant to a woman, and making things to always be around you as a man often becomes a big turn-off. This is because; there is hardly any woman who does not need a man who only knows how to show these qualities to himself.
This trait could be a bit contradicting to an extent, when you consider that women do not also fancy their ideal men being “too nice of a guy.”
Usually, a woman would prefer a man who can stand up for himself, show self confidence and take control at times. They abhor a “yes man,” as it was; a man that will bow down to their every need and desire and always seek permission to do something.
This does not mean that the woman prefer a man that is always forceful. On the contrary, a woman needs a man who knows when to be in charge and when to seek advice.
A woman is also irritated by a man who acts like a baby when he is sick. This is mostly because as a woman , she usually has to take care of the kids, ensure the house is clean, do the laundering, and make sure the family is duly fed in addition to a whole load of other demands, even when she has a pounding headache or any other form of illness. No matter what, it has to be business as usual for her. She must take care of all her chores. So when her man is sick, and he behaves as though he has just been given his death sentence, it can be so irritating. Some men will, in fact, do any thing, including moaning, and whinnying and lying down every where such as the couch, floor etc, just to make sure the women knows that he is not feeling well.
A woman would rather prefer a man who would realise that she had enough to do, so, babying and making sure he is covered up and taken care of should not always be one of such jobs for her.
Women also do not like men with too self grooming. A man who will always poke his nose into every bit of thing his spouse does is most likely to irritate her.
If she goes out and comes back with a well manicured fingers and pedicure toes, for instance, the woman normally expects appreciation not criticism. If she changes her perfume, she would expect her man to either say “it smells fine, or it does not smell fine,” not what kind of perfume is this?
Close to this, is the fact that it may not also be pleasant to a woman when her spouse does not notice her, even when she takes pain to dress or go out of her way to do things to impress him. It is known that there are some men who either feel that noticing such things about their woman is a sign of weakness, or that it would be too much of encouragement to the women. They will therefore, prefer not to notice it.
Again, there is hardly anything as irritating as a man who does not listen to his spouse when she talks to him about her concerns. This often occurs when there is a disagreement. The man in most cases would tend to merely nod his head, say “Ok,” or even ignore her altogether.
It is pertinent to note that communication is very important for a successful relationship without communication; a relationship can only head for doom.
Sometimes, women need to get things off their chest, especially a nasty experience, a bad day at work or even a fight with a friend, when her man ignores her at such moments, nothing can be so irritating.
A man with horrible bathroom etiquette can also be a nightmare to his spouse. Such etiquette include leaving the toilet seat up, not flushing it or peeing on the back of it and leaving it dry; leaving his mess all over the sink after shaving and brushing his teeth; and taking an hour to bath or spending an hour and above in the toilet.
Most women do not like men who do little or no work at home to assist them, especially when the woman also goes to work. Most of such women do not want to come back home from work and have to clean up everything in the house by themselves, especially those of them that have kids to cater for. A little help from their spouses with the house chores can be so relieving and can keep a woman’s sanity at level a bit longer than usual.
Also, some men have the habit of having all sorts of character as friends without taking into cognizance how their spouses feel about such friends. Sometimes, they get so carried away that when they are with these friends to the point that they don’t even notice the displeasure on the faces of their spouses. This can be so irritating.
Finally, nothing is as irritating to a woman as being taken for granted by her man. Sometimes this can occur through various means. It could be that the man prefers to hang out with his male friends and leave her at home all alone.
It could also be that the man will prefer to sit on the couch watching television rather than discussing with her as she carries on with her home chores. The bottom line is that women need attention just as men do, but they want it from the man they love not another friend.
-Tide
