The Guaranteed Cure for “Grumpy Guy” Syndrome

Action #2: Avoid “helpful” comments unless they are truly essential

Giving what we think of as “helpful” comments is a sneaky but huge way we sabotage the happy man we most want. “Oh honey, thanks for doing the dishes but they don’t go in the dishwasher that way,” is surprisingly annoying and painful to a guy. As one morose husband told me, “It’s the ‘no thank you’ thank-you.”

Why? Because remember: he’s already doubting himself. And if he’s already feeling inadequate, it makes perfect sense that instead of hearing “helpful,” he’ll likely translate your words into the very thing he dreads hearing the most: “You’re not doing it right. What you did wasn’t good enough. You don’t measure up.”

It might sound odd to us as women, but when a guy feels inadequate he often begins to think “Why should I even try? Nothing I do is good enough for her.” If it happens consistently, he’s likely to move from frustrated to grumpy to total shut down.

Now, of course, some helpful comments are truly essential. If he’s dressed the kids in swim gear, but you’d learned that they are going to the movies instead, well, yes, that would be a time you need to say something!

But most of the time, those ‘helpful’ comments are not truly essential. So instead of asking why he did a task in a certain way or pointing how you would do it differently (or getting annoyed that “he’s so oversensitive!”), look for the good in his efforts and appreciate them. After all, even though he may have loaded the dishwasher differently, the dishes were still cleaned!