MARITAL
ADVICE FROM ANIMALS

Topics: Acceptance; Change; Divorce; Husbands; Marriage; Spouses; Wives

References: Genesis 2:18–25; Proverbs 17:9; 18:22; 19:13; 27:15; Luke 17:4; Colossians 3:13; 1 Peter 3:1

After twelve years of marriage, journalist Amy Sutherland was still irked by some of her spouse’s habits. It took some advice from animal trainers to help her. In a column in The New York Times, Sutherland wrote:

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted—needed—to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn’t keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. My nagging only made his behavior worse: he’d drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

A breakthrough came when Amy went to a school for exotic animal trainers in California to research a book. She wrote:

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I’d kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

—Amy Sutherland, “What Shamu Taught Me about a Happy Marriage,” The New York Times (June 25, 2006)