Hill, tread lightly on the PMS talk. MrNiceGuys wife might be okay with it but I find it frustrating when my H blames me being upset on PMS. It feels like he is dismissing my concern.

I think it's okay to be aware of mood changes if your wife has them and you can talk about them if she openly talks about them. But, don't blame an issue she brings up on PMS, still listen to the concern.

Oh i agree ... you DEF have to feel it out on how you mention it ... I usually bring it up that PMS is approaching BEFORE it happens(90% of the time). Its TABOO to mention it during a HEATED conversation .. its best to zip the lip and say nothing instead if the heat is already turned up for whatever reason is generated. DOnt want to get BURNED.

Mind you I have mentioned on occasion that my wifes attitude is just PMS (especially when you can prove it after months of following the patterns and then show her) ALOT of women are in denial during this time and THAT can cause some un necessary drama in and of itself (especially if the dont want to hear it or their attitudes are blown out of proportion). MANY times it IS in fact PMS (yes their concerns are valid) but you must maintain control of your emotions during this time. Be consistantly and emotionaly stable!

So yes .. i agree .. use caution when you mention the PMS issue. CHOOSE your battles wisely. Here is a few Bible quotes for you to absorb.

Proverbs 27:15

A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rain storm; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with your hands.

-This is where us guys must LEAD the home with our calm assertive approach and not let our wives emotional outbursts get to us and bring us into an emotional outburst of our own in retaliation. Be strong .. but calm. If not .. watch out for the next verse!

Proverbs 26:21 As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire; so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife.

(sorry ladies its true for the most part)

Seriously, I personally am finding all of this placing the blame on PMS stuff very insulting (and by the way, I just finished my period about a week ago, so no, this opinion is not the result of PMS).

I know some women suffer from bad PMS. If your wife is suffering this badly for 2 weeks out of every month, then she needs to go to the doctor, because that isn't normal.

I have suffered from some level of PMS occasionally, but never to a level where things like this were happening. In fact, last month, my period just showed up with no warning at all. Not a lick of PMS. I felt no different emotionally or physically than normal. Actually, I've been having a much rougher time emotionally this week than I did the week prior to or during my period, mostly because of issues going on in my life, not hormones.

Hormones can be a problem for some women, but if it's truly this severe, have your wife go to the doctor and get some help. I resent MrNiceGuy's assumption that all women are emotional wrecks for 2 weeks out of every month.

I approach things differently from Mr Nice Guy and I understand that relationships are all very different. The take away for me is to be aware of my wife's cycle so that I can adjust and adapt as needed, not to bring it up, in fact bringing it up unsolicited could be taken as a DJ by her part anyways.

Also, the only blaming that has gone on in the past in regards to PMS is my wife. I don't believe it is ok for the wife to run roughshod when she is PMSing, just like I don't think it is ok for the husband to blame anything and everything on PMSing rather than his wife's behavior. Awareness can only help.

I understand. No major issues related to PMS here. For the most part my wife can get grumpy several times per day because of kids, house, etc. I've mentioned before she gets overwhelmed extremely easily so I've hired a handyman and explored the fluff and fold laundry service as two possible solutions. We decided the fluff and fold was just way too expensive, but the handyman starts this morning to do 3 hours a week worth of stuff indefinitely. I bartered with him to do some marketing for a lower hourly rate to make it affordable. I've learned to find solutions to my wife's problems outside of my own physical participation as I'm only one man and there are only so many hours in the day. If I can remove some of the things that overwhelm her then she'll be less grumpy which will give me other opportunities to fill her love bank.

****Yesterday Was Day #4 of the NO DJ Zone****

NO KIDDING! I don't think this is Marriage Builders advice. Any time you start psychoanalyzing your spouse, or saying that their feelings are "just" because of whatever cause (e.g. PMS), you are probably saying something that your spouse would find highly disrespectful!

There used to be some humorous poster/T-shirt in the nineties about "the rules" for dealing with women. It was all about PMS, and basically amounted to "PMS is an excuse for anything; only the woman can declare when PMS is occurring." Well, no joke, it's offensive to ladies for men to blame stuff on PMS. In fact in the days when I was coming of age it was deemed sexual harassment by most women.

Telling your spouse what they think or why they do what they do is a love bank withdrawal. Just leave it alone. She doesn't want to feel analyzed like a lab experiment! There was a post earlier on this thread saying essentially "give her some extra grace when she's in PMS." Well, we've already established that she is going to be testing him; she's going to be disrespectful for the foreseeable future, and the only way through for Hilltopper is to not become demanding, disrespectful, or angry in response. That's the whole month round, and whether it's caused by PMS or anything else. So give her some grace all the time, if grace means not becoming abusive in response to her abuse.

By the way, a woman can certainly learn to avoid being demanding, disrespectful, or angry during PMS, and the menstrual cycle does not mean that romantic love in a relationship has to vanish for 1-2 weeks a month.

I'm sorry, MNG, this is a disrespectful conversation for a man to have with his wife!

The word "just" is minimizing and disrespectful! i.e. "Your feelings are just caused by PMS (or anything else)" is minimizing and disrespectful!

"Proving it" is disrespectful. An extremely common mistake to make is to believe that something's not disrespectful if it's true, i.e., if you can prove it. Alas, not so.

Telling your wife she's "in denial"? Even thinking it but not saying it? Disrespectful.

A wife's feelings can change from moment to moment, for any number of causes. Being respectful means accepting her feelings as real and as valid. Incidentally, a husband's feelings can also do the same thing. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Keep it up!

Please elaborate more on the literature that you've read or history behind why my wife will "test" me. I know your story, so is this just your experience or does Dr H specifically point to some kind of testing phase while in the state of conflict?

I finally found my notes about categories of disrespectful judgments. They are not as organized as I'd like, but here they are:

sarcasm
criticism
judgment: stating that their perspective is wrong
"should"
lecturing/attempting to educate
gestures, facial expressions? body language?
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2531712#Post2531712
expressing surprise or shock at an opinion or feeling or belief

guilting, shaming
hyperbolizing
always/never
exaggerated words
scolding
name-calling, labelling
saying or doing something you know your spouse identifies as disrespectful

attributing motivations
blaming, fault-finding
expecting them to read your mind


I statements help, but are not an excuse for a disrespectful judgment:
I feel like (DJ)
I feel unloved.
I feel like you don't love me.

Agreed, it doesn't have to vanish, but it would be wise IMHO to utilize tools that might assist us in understanding our spouses behavior. PMS is real, and there are times where I might need to be extra understanding to her situation should her hormones take over at times. Again, this does NOT mean she gets a free pass to run roughshod.

Yes, he says that on the radio, especially for men who've been abusive, their wives will test. It agrees very much with my experience. Prisca admits she has done it, both consciously and unconsciously.

I agree being aware of it can be helpful. But discussing it with her and telling her that "she's just having PMS"? You might as well plan to sleep on the couch.

Radio show about wives testing:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=423

She tested me last night for sure. We had a massage + xoxo date last night. Instead we stayed up later because she wanted to watch a show. I didn't show disappointment at her saying that she no longer wanted to do massages. She then snuggled up with me in bed and told me she loved me and that was our "moment." Historically I would pout or toss a DJ her way but as a brave knight I passed the test. There will surely be more to come and I'll be prepared.

Agreed. I would NEVER bring this up, but I will take my own notes to be prepared so that I don't wreck my streak. Wrecking my streak is like resetting the LB back to zero, can I get an AMEN on that?

Tough ones in here. I read this list 3 times over and will review periodically.

It was HUGE love buster when my H would say it was PMS just about anytime he thought I was out of line in something. I hated it. Sometimes PMS made me feel tense and I had to be careful about myself, but other times, it was because I was upset over something he had done or it was something else altogether.

After a while, I began to return the disrespect telling him whenever HE was grumpy or tense that he must have PMS. Kind of spiraled downward from there.

Many years ago, I learned to recognize my own symptoms and controlled myself. Now that I'm going through the whole menopausal thing, I find myself doing the same thing--doing what I need to do to overcome any feelings of tension, from whatever cause.

My H hasn't said blamed anything on my hormones in many years; it IS disrespectful. If he sees my tension, I find it so much more loving for him to simply be gentle and ask if anything is wrong and what can he do to help. Then he leaves it alone. I feel much better about him when he handles it that way.