Arguing with your wife

I was playing video games with my son tonight, and my wife said she wants to clean the entire house next weekend. Then she made some kind of joke like I could look around and see how clean it already was, but then she turned back to me and asked for my help, but I was having none of it.

"No, you can do it."
"What? Why?"
"I already clean enough of this house. You can take care of this."
"A family should help each other."

This is the emotionally manipulative response you will get almost every time from a wife who wants you to do some kind of chore or errand. If you truly haven't been pulling your weight, the conversation shouldn't have even gotten to this point; you should have simply asked for details up front. As for me...

"I already spend about twenty or thirty minutes every night cleaning the house, and I've been doing it every single night for the last three years. You never helped me then, even on Saturdays when I worked fourteen hours a day and you played computer while I cleaned."
"I mop on Saturdays!"

This is another typical response you'll get from a wife: argue from exception, and use that to defeat a general rule.

"That's only on the weekend for one day. I've cleaned the house seven nights a week for three years. Do those even compare?"

At this point about a year or two ago, my wife would have attempted to change the subject and get me on some minor point to declare herself the victor of the entire discussion, which is another common response from those with no logical leg to stand on. But she knew better this time, and just dropped the subject.

If you are still in the stage where your wife changes the subject off of something she brought up, DO NOT LET HER. Swat aside her derailing attempts with a quick response of how she's wrong, then go back to the original point over and over, hammering home how wrong she is until she concedes the point. Do not allow her to derail and move on to other topics without first accepting being wrong. For example:

Wife: You need to be nicer to me.
You: I am nice to you. We went out to dinner last night, I rubbed your feet this morning, and I gave you a lot of money last week.
Wife: You never used to do those things!
You: I do them now. I can't be much nicer to you.
Wife: So I don't matter to you?
You: I didn't say that. I am plenty nice to you already. Acknowledge that.
Wife: You don't show it.
You: I just told you three examples of how I am. I am nice to you. Stop changing the subject.
Wife: How about the way you talk to my dad?
You: That's him, not you. I am nice to you, and I'm not letting this go. Tell the truth and admit that I'm nice to you.

If this conversation goes on for too long, disengage and ignore her for a few hours until she admits fault. Eventually, she'll learn to stop doing this.

Also, dealing with women and especially a wife, you'll run into a common tactic where she will start namecalling or using loaded language during a fight to call into question your manhood, sense of responsibility, love for your family, etc... This is only her attempt to get you to play in the proverbial mud with her, and you must avoid it at all costs. She is counting on you tossing bombs of your own, after which she'll hypocritically tell you how wrong you are for being so childish, then declare herself victor over the discussion.

All of you guys out there who have never dated, co-habitated, or God forbid married, have no idea of this. Perhaps you still carry the idea that women are angelic visions of innocent heaven that aren't capable of this kind of childish behavior, when they are as imperfect as men are. Whatever the case, don't forget this advice: when she starts pushing buttons, she knows she's wrong, but is refusing to lose. You must not let her drag you down into her stupidity, and instead must hammer on the original point until she submits, only changing the subject when she admits she's wrong. If she gets you on a point, do not apologize; it is a sign of weakness, and women viscerally, genetically hate weak men, just as much as overweight women turn the stomachs of most men. Just acknowledge your error, then move on.

When the discussion is over, she'll feel sore for a few minutes, but in no time, will be back on her best behavior. For example, after I hit my wife with my final point, she got silent, then went outside to take care of the clothes, the first time in months. After that, she apologized for making me do all the chores every night for years, then she came to watch our son and me play video games for about half an hour (and gave him advice while playing), the first time she's ever, in our entire marriage, watched anybody play a game for more than ten seconds.

In return, I said I would help her sort out the junk in the kitchen, adding that I had already done it a year ago, but it was back to being messed up within two weeks. She tried to say that she didn't know how it got so bad so quick, then I said she should probably stop buying things so often if she wasn't going to use them. Knowing this was a sore point (she wastes $500 a month on useless stuff), she quickly and jokingly said that her mom was to blame. I let it go at that point, my argument made and back in the driver's seat of this marriage, and looking forward to a drama free house for at least a few months.

If you think this sounds barbaric or misogynistic, then you've obviously not read this blog (particularly the "Problems" posts), or been married or co-habitating with a woman for any significant amount of time. But it's your life; feel free to follow the advice that you need to defer to your ever suffering, smarter than you wife or girlfriend, or that "marriage is a partnership of equals." Just be sure to enjoy the condescending insults, rage and/or manipulation that follow from the endless s*** tests of your clearly superior lover.