After writing a post on the dynamic of The Fun Guy And His Responsible Wife, I got requests to write about the gender inverse of this pairing. The idea of a guy who is the life of the party tethered to a stable and responsible woman is more prevalent in popular media, but everyone has also seen Dharma and Greg, which is the free spirited, fun loving woman and her stodgy, stable husband. Just as the fun guy/responsible wife pairing risks turning into The Man Child and his Long Suffering Wife, the fun wife/responsible husband dynamic has the risk of turning into Mr. Perfect and His Crazy Wife. But there are some indicators that the fun wife/responsible husband pairing is likely to stay healthy and, well, fun for both partners.
First, this partnership works best when the responsible husband genuinely gets a kick out of his wife’s spontaneity, passion, and enthusiasm for life. He thinks of her as someone who opens his eyes to how much fun life can be, and thinks that without her, his life would be more bland and joyless. He is usually in a very fact-centric occupation, and thinks of his wife as creative and fascinating. He appreciates that she is surprising, whether this means that he comes home to a room painted a different color, or that she tries out new hobbies regularly, or that she plans spontaneous family trips. The Responsible Husband often considers himself an introvert, or even socially anxious, and is continually blown away by his wife’s confidence in herself, and her ability to navigate social situations. He is appreciative of her ability to build a social network for their children, and enjoys seeing his children provided with a much more fun childhood than he himself likely had.
For her part, the fun wife considers her husband to be her rock, the stable guy that provides her with financial, emotional, and/or physical support, and who is a delighted audience when she tells him about her ideas. She has often felt that her family considers her irresponsible or ditzy, but her husband does not make her feel these ways. Instead, he is excited to hear about her ideas, and has confidence in her. Often, this type of husband encourages almost any venture that his wife is considering, often feeling that she has the personality and people skills to make any endeavor successful. The Fun Wife is an extrovert, most likely, or at least an extroverted introvert, but appreciates her more introverted husband’s efforts to join her in socializing. She also appreciates his focus, steadiness, and reliability, which overlaps a lot with the pairing The Stable Guy And His Sensitive Wife.
Often, the husband in this pairing makes a lot more money than his wife does. For this marriage to work out, in this case, the woman cannot ever feel that her husband looks down on her for not contributing financially, or that he considers her spending flighty or frivolous. The money is considered joint, and she feels that she can use the money she needs to subsidize her ideas for family or personal activities (within reason). Of course, in the healthiest, best case scenario, she runs major purchases past her husband and asks his input, out of respect for his opinion.
A variant of the Fun Wife/Responsible Husband dynamic is the Active Wife and Couch Potato husband. I see this increasingly often in couples counseling. The wife is very into physical and emotional health, and feels that with his down time, the husband does nothing to grow either emotionally or physically, similar to The Wife Who Wants More And Her Annoyingly Satisfied Husband. On his end, the husband often feels that he works more outside the home than his wife does, so he has less energy to go to the gym, or go hiking, or whatever she likes to do. This dynamic works when the husband feels grateful to have such an active, energetic (and often in great shape) wife, and where the wife feels that her husband is impressed by and supportive of her efforts to be active and healthy.
At its best, the Fun Wife/Responsible Husband dynamic is one where both partners feel lucky: the woman has an adoring #1 fan, and the husband has achieved the dream of going home every night with a version of the girl he would have wanted in high school: the social butterfly and life of the party. However, in a worst case, this dynamic devolves into a variation of Mr. Perfect And His Crazy Wife.
In this case, the husband begins to roll his eyes at his wife’s constant stream of ideas and her desire for a social life, telling her implicitly or explicitly to calm down, rein herself in, and focus on serious matters like parenting and finances. He may chastise her for her lack of focus, or for anything in this post about why Type A men criticize their Type B SAHM wives. The same things that he used to love about her, e.g. her ability to be the life of the party or to come up with outside-the-box ideas, start to irritate him and make him feel bored, jealous, or just “over it.” He starts to think of himself as the parent and her as the child.
For her part, when this pairing becomes conflictual, the Fun Wife can start to see her husband as the guy who can suck the joy out of anything. The same traits that she used to respect and idealize, e.g. his focus on work, his ability to plan ahead, she may start to find indicative of joylessness or rigidity. At this point, she may turn to her friends for emotional support, and, sometimes, in a worst case, starts to get her emotional needs fulfilled by an affair, emotional or otherwise. (This is usually the point at which this type of couple enters counseling.)
If this pairing describes you, and you are happily married, continue to focus on appreciating one another’s differences, and the ways that you complement one another so well. If you feel more like this used to be your dynamic, but you’re headed down a bad road, use this post to start a discussion with your partner about why things are turning tense and difficult and what you could do to right the ship (hint: couples counseling can be useful). And till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Says, Yin And Yang Pairings Can Work Out Well!