Complaint Department

Marriage is like a corporate partnership where each spouse assumes different department roles: Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Director of Human Resources, etc.

Of course, conflicts sometimes arise when there’s confusion about who’s in charge of which department.

Take, for example, a familiar scenario: A wife voices her dissatisfaction about something her husband said or did. The husband, caught off guard, may wonder why he’s being confronted; after all, he sees himself as head of the Rewards Department, not the Complaints Department.

His solution? Assign his wife as the head of the Complaints Department; after all, she’s got the most experience in that area.

Alternatively, when complaints arise, the wisest course may be to simply listen and agree (“Yes, you’re right”), allowing her to vent until she feels better.

A common mistake is to try to address her concerns rationally, or to help her see things from a different perspective. This usually backfires, leading to the classic: “You don’t understand me.” And she’s right; if you truly understood her, you might not have married her in the first place.

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