Criticism and Blame will Damage your Relationship with a Filipina

By dishonoring/criticizing -These would be words that are put downs, intended to knock the other person down a peg or two, to make them feel smaller, less important. Criticism is something no one wants to hear, I think of it as pointing out something to the wife that she probably already realizes wasn’t the way she wanted it to be, and driving home your point. It’s important to remind ourselves that marriage is a team sport so we need to work together. I think one even needs to be cautious with constructive criticism, because it takes some finesse to not have that come out the wrong way. Saying “your cooking isn’t very good again”, “the house is a mess”, or “you’re late again!” is being critical.

It may even be true but if a solution isn’t offered then it sounds like complaining to me. Dishonoring words would be minimizing the impact of her role in your marriage or her attempts to be a good wife. Obviously, no one is likely to come out and say “you are a terrible wife”, but there are backhanded ways to do that such as “’s wife doesn’t do that” or “’s wife is like this.” In fact, since communication goes beyond the spoken word, a man’s actions can be dishonoring simply by not recognizing his wife’s worth to him and telling her about it. Not being thankful is dishonoring. Not telling her you love her is dishonoring.

Not offering to make her load easier is being dishonoring. Actions speak louder than words. You don’t have to say you don’t love someone or you don’t appreciate them, your actions make that clear. It isn’t enough to say “but you know I appreciate you”, she needs to hear it, and I bet you do too, I know I do. By blaming-There will be times where we will feel like our spouse deserves to be blamed for something.

We are human after all. The key is to be cognizant of a way to express yourself without putting you at odds with your wife. For instance, I could tell my wife “why do you keep buying me this food when I keep telling you I hate it!?” or I could phrase it “honey, maybe I haven’t done a good job of letting you know why I don’t really want to eat this particular food…” Or, “why did you forget to do this again!?” when instead I could say “sweetie, did you realize this happened again? Maybe I wasn’t clear before but let me say it again…can you see why this is important to me?”

Blaming is a poor way to communicate and will increase the chance she will retaliate and start pointing out your flaws when she might not otherwise.