Man's behavior that drives a woman crazy (2)
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‘Why does a man keep on changing television channels with a remote control?’
[Allan & Barbara Pease, "Why Men Lie & Why Women Cry"]
For a woman, a remote is a device that turns a television channel from one channel to another. But for a man, the remote control is a tool that scans 55 channels every 2.5 minutes. haha. That’s how much the man just wants to sit down on a chair or a sofa and enjoy watching television when comes home after work. But the woman hates the way men swish television channels. So, among the women, this joke is widely circulated: ‘If my husband dies, I must bury him with his remote control in his hand’ (Pease). Why does the man keep on switching the TV channels? According to Allan & Barbara Pease, the man watches television to meet his two urges: ‘First, since he has a problem-oriented and solution-oriented brain, he wants to know get to the point as soon as possible. He flips the channel and analyzes it to find the solution quickly. Second, the man forgets his problem by observing the other people’s problem. Because of this, the man watches the evening news six times more than the woman (Pease).
The woman doesn’t quite understand what the man doesn’t watch commercials by swiping through television channels. The reason is that woman doesn’t mind seeing advertisements because she is relaxed watching television shows, especially programs that have lots of human and emotional scenes, after a day's work. Her brain likes to read the language of the actors' dialogue and gestures and predict the outcome of human relationships. However, the man is not interested in the program itself on television, but rather on what is aired on other channels (Eggerich). It is because he wants to get information. So when watching television, the woman wants to talk to her husband and to relax her stress, but the man doesn’t like to talk when he watches television. He cannot hear her words. He just listens to his wife’s words absentmindedly. It is not because he is ignoring his wife that he listens to his wife absentmindedly. However, from in the woman's point of view, she feels like she is rejected by him who treats her absentmindedly. Because of it, she becomes sullen or even gets mad at him. Especially when the husband doesn’t even look at her but just looks at the television without talking, the wife thinks that her husband does not love her. But that does not mean that the husband does not love his wife. It just means that he wants to have quiet time alone.
How should we solve this problem? If the woman says to her husband who sits in front of the television and who keeps on changing the channels with the remote control on his one hand ‘I cannot concentrate on the program that I am watching right now because you keep on changing the channels’ it will not do any good. Actually, it can create the problem bigger. Because of the remote control the couple can argue and fight. The woman should not nag her husband who is watching TV by sitting alone in order to get rid of the stress. One way to resolve this problem is to have two televisions at home. So when the husband watches his TV, she can watch another TV. But for some reason this method does not seem like a good idea. One of Alan & Barbara Pease’s suggestions is that the wife should by her own TV, which I think is not that good idea. They also suggest hiding the remote control, but it can make her husband angry. Of course, there is a way to get rid of the television altogether. But if the couple cannot do that, then my personal suggestion is that the husband and wife have to yield one foot each other. In other words, the wife chooses a program she likes to watch and also her husband lie to watch and sit next to her husband and watch together. And she should try not to say anything when he lifts the remote control and instantly changes the television channel in the moment of the advertisement. Instead, she should try to understand that her husband that he is just trying to get informations by keep on changing the channels. I think it's better for her to leave her husband alone instead of nagging him.
I also watch television by taking the remote control and keep on changing the channel around. So one of my kids said ‘Why are you keep on changing the channels?’ Haha. Also, once a while my wife used to say to me ‘How come you are not watching the advertisements and keep on changing the channels?’ So sometimes my wife just turns on another television with my kids and they watch a program they like together. In the meantime, at 9 pm on Monday, my wife and I used to watch the dram after we sent all three kids to their rooms. It's a drama called "24 Hours", and my wife liked this drama too. So when I sit down and watch this drama with my wife, I often see IBF martial arts on Channel 13 when there is advertisement. At that time, my wife didn’t tell me why I changed channels. She understood that I liked to watch another program for a short time during the television commercials. I think it was because we were watching the same drama that we liked together once a week. But in most cases, my wife didn’t have time to watch television. When she came home from work, she prepared dinner, check our children's homework, and so on. So I thought that I shouldn’t sit in front of TV. I should turn off TV that I was watching and go to the kitchen to help my wife and prepare dinner.
Long time ago, one of the pastors told me that when we looked at the structure of the living room, the furniture is centered on the television. That’s how great the influence of TV is. Also, there is bad influence that the couple can fight against each other because of TV. When the husband keeps a remote control and continues to turn the channel here and there, his wife who doesn’t understand it cannot withstand it. As a result, the couple can argue and fight because of one remote control. Therefore, it is a good idea for the couple to yield to each other so that they can share the programs that the whole family can watch together. And if the husband keep on turning the channels with the remote control, it would be better for his wife to understand his desire to collect the informations and to cope wisely rather than to get his back up and nagging at him. For example, maybe she can be quiet lie my wife, or maybe she can take a moment to do thing that she wants to do. And instead of using a nagging method to let her husband to put the remote control down which seems to be working at that moment, I think it’s better to try other methods. One of the methods is asking her husband to help cook meat or something when she is preparing meals (of course, the husband voluntarily has to help his wife preparing meals by turning off the TV and go to the kitchen). Or she can quietly prepare the meal. Then her husband may see her doing it may feel guilty that he may put down the remote control and go to the kitchen and help her. At dinner time, I think it is best for the husband to turn off the TV and prepare the meal with his wife and eat together with the children. I need to try more since I am not doing that good job. Since I still feel a lot of insufficiency, I am writing this article to try harder.