Mothering Your Husband Is The Worst Thing You Could Do

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the husband in the baby carriage.

It starts innocently enough. You pack his suitcase because you do it better. You remind him about the dentist, the bill, the birthday card for his own mother. You cut up his food at a dinner party without thinking twice. Each act is small, each one done with love. And then one day you look up and realize you are not his wife anymore -- you are his manager, his secretary, and his mother, all rolled into one exhausted person.

Relationship counselors see this pattern constantly, and they almost always trace it to the same root: many women are taught that the way to show love is to do for others. The more you nurture, the better a woman you must be. So the nurturing goes into overdrive, until care quietly turns into control.

A little nurturing is harmless, even lovely. The trouble starts when it escalates. First you are tucking in his shirt, then you are wiping his mouth, and at some point the dynamic curdles. She feels unappreciated and overworked; he feels infantilized and vaguely resentful. Neither of them signed up for this version of the marriage, but neither knows how to unwind it.

The way out is not to stop caring -- it is to stop caretaking. Let him handle his own dentist appointments and his own suitcase. Say what you need directly instead of performing it and hoping he notices. A marriage works best as a partnership of two competent adults, not as a one-woman rescue operation.

Love him, by all means. Just don't raise him.