There are two women I know through work who suffer from what I call “harpy syndrome” to the detriment of all involved. Trust me -don’t go there!
With these two, both sahm, it’s never enough, it’s never right, it’s never good. Problems, problems, problems. These gals can go into minute detail over each and everything wrong in their life/spouse/property/children/etc. like a dripping faucet, the complaining just goes on and on.
From my perspective their lives actually look pretty good. They really want for nothing materially, their husbands earn the family income, they raise the children, and now that the kids are in school they have lots of time for their own hobbies and interests, too. They have nice homes, nice cars, and nice things.
Oddly I rarely hear them talk about the good things in their lives, or about any solutions to these well laid out and extensive list of negatives they see themselves suffering under. Nope, just the same old harping about all that’s wrong.
in both cases their marriages are, no surprise, “a problem.” And they tell their husbands so on a regular, if not daily, schedule.
Both fantasize that getting rid of their spouses via frivorce, and living the good life. But they have NO concept of how it will work later.
What I wish both these gals could see is that nobody’s life is perfect or easy. There are always negative, but there are always positives, too.
Focusing on ones problem like a broken record is a sure fire way to make your spouse and children unhappy and to fill a home with discord rather than joy.
Complaining, or not, is a choice. So is choosing to be positive vs negative.
If you see something wrong, try to resist the urge to harp on it. Look for the upside instead, and be cheerful and great full and happy! It works so much better.
Let those who have ears hear!
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
They both want a hard fucking and their back porch painted red
I think some people (maybe men too?) are just never really taught to look for the bright side of things. Everyone has an off day or two (or goes through an actual difficult life season), but for some people it seems to be easier to choose to focus on the negatives in life even when everything is going fairly well. I know women like that, too, Bloom, and I don’t really understand it except that they seem caught up in almost believing like there’s no other choice for them.
LOL… a while back I started acting really really bitchy – this was maybe 2008, and my husband nipped it in the bud, confronting my bad attitude and making me read this strange little book called Fish. It was about the power a person has when they change their attitude. 🙂 I still go back and re-read it, even recently!!! It’s wonderful and full of inspirational poems or quotes to help you get a hold of perspective.
I’ve also thought that it’s like cycles… that a particular attitude produces more of the same thing – like spiraling down into depressive thoughts or negativity versus looking for positive things and finding a spiral of positivity. I swear a lot of it is just understanding that you can change your attitude, that you have that power to change the way you view your life.
” a while back I started acting really really bitchy – this was maybe 2008, and my husband nipped it in the bud, confronting my bad attitude and making me read this strange little book called Fish. It was about the power a person has when they change their attitude.”
I’ve never heard of that book, but I’ll look it up! 🙂
I’ve been through stuff like that too and Mike stopped it right away as well. It can take on a life of it’s own, that negativity pattern…and it isn’t good for the kids to be around either. I think a lot of women forget their children are watching it all and learning from it.
Is this it?
http://www.amazon.com/Remarkable-Boost-Morale-Improve-Results/dp/0786866020
It sounds good!
Lol ton, I will suggest it to them! Ha!
@ dragonfly very true. It almost seems like these gals got into this bad habit. Nag,nag, nag. Complain, complain, complain. They don’t seem interested in fixing things, it’s either the current or leave. I know I get tired of hearing it and I only see them now and again. I can only imagine listening to that daily. Their husbands are both good guys but (surprise!) they have tuned their wives out.
Women are sold this idea that all they need in life to be happy is a husband that has money and children, and it doesn’t work that way. Sounds like either they are unhappy with their lives as the reality isn’t living up to their expectations, or they are both the kind of people that complain about their lives no matter what.
At least in some cases, maybe the operative principle is that things are very good…problems and challenges are now largely absent…and yet she still perceives something lacking. To quote Walter Miller’s great novel A Canticle for Leibowitz:
“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps it was easier for them to see that somethingwas missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn. Well, they were going to destroy it again, were they—this garden Earth, civilized and knowing, to be torn apart again that Man might hope again in wretched darkness.”
Micro scale here rather than the macro-scale of the book, but perhaps similar psychology.
There are people out there who have never heard of harpies. They are mythical creatures that Jason has to deal with while searching for the Golden Fleece. Really ugly with big leather wings and female. They guard and torment a blind man who has answers for Jason.
I think that redpillgirlnotes’s friends are bored, for the most part, and dwelling on the negative.
There’s no honey without running awy from bees! 😉
Wow Fuzzie!!! I remember learning that, but had forgotten. Really puts it into perspective! LOL Definitely don’t want to be a harpy!
Yes Liz, that’s it! Really great book, and very fast read. It’s supposed to be more for businesses and creating a better working environment, but in general it has some sweet lessons to really change a person’s perspective.
And you’re right about that kind of behavior being bad for marriages and kids. If it can tank a whole business to have employees with bad attitudes, making it less effective, I’m sure it can easily tank a family – which in a way, runs like a team.
Ashley, maybe it really is that they expect all their problems to go away when they have their husband and children, I know one of my best friends certainly thought that way until watching me get married and talking to me throughout the years, she came to an understanding that marriage was just another journey. But maybe a lot of single women look at marriage as a means to an end? A box to check, and then don’t put much effort into making it happy and fulfilling.
Even if one has “high expectations,” once you’re in a marriage and realize it’s still about daily (a little bit boring) life and reality, it’s their responsibility to create their own happiness – to change their attitude. Part of being a mature adult (lol maybe that’s the wrong phrase) is accepting the mundane tasks of adulthood – and not complaining incessantly about it, because complaining only makes it miserable.
Even people with lots of possessions and money can become extremely depressed and lose sight of the value or significance of their life. So a woman learning to appreciate her life that she’s chosen and created with her husband is actually really important for achieving happiness. For many in our generation, I’m sure it really is a “learning” experience- from what I’ve seen, we expect things usually to be very easy, we expect to not have to put work into the marriage, and when our expectations aren’t met, when it’s harder than we thought, when parenting isn’t all that easy as we thought it’d be, we’re upset, start to complain, and sometimes even want to quit. I think it comes from an attitude of feeling like we’re owed a life of ease.
Please my darling girl don’t tell.them. there are already enough of you lady friends lubed up for me by proxy & I am strictly a two woman kind of man these days.
All good points, I agree it’s a combo of unrealistic expectations, boredom, and not having enough to keep them too busy to worry about the one thing not going right that moment. First world problems. The sad thing is they are creating needless happiness for themselves and others. It’s frustrating to watch for sure.
And don’t worry ton I was t going to say YOU were going to, ahem. I meant that their hubbies needed to! Lol.
Needless UNhappiness I mean! 🙂
That continuous harping about nothing is an obtuse form of attention whoring. If everything “was going right” in their lives nobody would listen to them talk about it.
“Even people with lots of possessions and money can become extremely depressed and lose sight of the value or significance of their life. So a woman learning to appreciate her life that she’s chosen and created with her husband is actually really important for achieving happiness. For many in our generation, I’m sure it really is a “learning” experience- from what I’ve seen, we expect things usually to be very easy, we expect to not have to put work into the marriage, and when our expectations aren’t met, when it’s harder than we thought, when parenting isn’t all that easy as we thought it’d be, we’re upset, start to complain, and sometimes even want to quit. I think it comes from an attitude of feeling like we’re owed a life of ease.”
I think entertainment and social media and the media (I repeat myself three times) really appeals to the limbic senses. It’s obvious these messages work or advertisers wouldn’t spend multiple millions for seconds of air time to peddle their products at times when most people aren’t even paying attention (or via simple product placement during a show). Our sources of entertainment don’t just send these messages out for seconds, it’s days and hours on end and they influence a person’s perception of how life should be and how to behave. It isn’t typically edifying stuff. The mundane doesn’t entertain.
…add to that, the chick coffee clutch b*tchfest that just reinforces all that negativity.
It’s interesting, Mike was reading a book a while back that mentioned (female physician) something I’ve probably brought up. Apparently women need to periodically reset their hormones or they go a little nutty. They can do this in one of two ways (again, this is from the book written by a female physician and apparently a medically documented fact). They either have to “share” with a bunch of women (it doesn’t work the same if they talk to men, for some reason), or they need a really stiff rogering that brings them to a really good climax.
….so I guess Doctor Ton is kind of on to something with his prescription, above.
😛
LOL don’t need no med school or college degree for that bit of info, just a little life experience.
“Apparently women need to periodically reset their hormones or they go a little nutty. They can do this in one of two ways (again, this is from the book written by a female physician and apparently a medically documented fact). They either have to “share” with a bunch of women (it doesn’t work the same if they talk to men, for some reason), or they need a really stiff rogering that brings them to a really good climax.”
lol hilarious
“lol hilarious”
Explains a lot though, doesn’t it? 😛
@ Liz that is interesting, as both these women nearly brag about how seldom they are gettin’ busy. I feel for their husbands, I really do. And as frustrated as I get w these gals I feel for them too, they are so blind. It would be so easy for them to just shift their perception and find happiness. Fingers crossed they do so yet!
I hope so, Bloom.
More on harpies: http://monster.wikia.com/wiki/Harpy
They won’t get a good rogering. By establishing dominance in the relationship by controlling the frequency of sex, they have painted themselves into a corner by dialing it down to nothing. Since they would rather be “right” than happy, don’t expect them to relent.
Dread game may be the only option for the husbands. In one of his posts, Athol Kay said that it worked about half the time in personal counseling. Of the half that failed, they didn’t mind so much, better women presented themselves.
“Better women presented themselves…”
That’s always a risk women playing such games should factor in as well! Good point!
Dread is game; game is dread
If she doesn’t dread losing the man she’ll be a bitch. If.she does dread losing him.she will be to some.degree less.bitchy, depending on how much she.dreads losing the man
Redpillgirlnotes,
It’s not my place to judge. That was a thumbnail of his post. I think that since the men were treated badly, and observed to be treated so, preselection gave the men a head start.
@ fuzzie I know you were not advocating that, nor am I. But women should realize it is a risk. For example, one of the two husband’s above is an attractive, accomplished scientist. He makes great money, is faithful and loyal, and is a funny andante resting (if a bit nerdy) guy. His wife was cleaning houses when they met. Thanks to him her biggest worry is now how to redecorate the house. Yet she treats him abysmally, I mean harpy does not even adequately describe the level of contempt she addresses him with, in front of others. After such an exchange I cornered her alone and asked what was up w the “f*ck you” attitude toward her husband who she supposedly wants to save the marriage and drags him to counseling every week where I am sure she just browbeats him. She was furious, then eventually admitted I was right, her attitude sucked. She’s lucky I am a good woman bc if I wasn’t, I’d encourage her to leave him and then snag her steady Eddie for myself! Poor guy!
And like Liz pointed out in another post elsewhere, maybe a single gal like myself can do more to save these marriages by flirting w their men and triggering some possessive dread in these silly gals! Lol. I don’t dare but were I of a different personality…
Redpillgirlnotes,
I don’t know what Liz suggested but, if you are going to do that, it would be best to bring in a gal unkown to any of the parties to play “clingy” with Steady Eddie.
I am hearing more and more about stuff lke this from different sources. I think that the society we live in is encouraging women to hold all men in contempt and especially husbands. BV’s hen party story from yesterday got to me. It’s all around us.
More evidence women do not value commitment
Lol, see what happens when we admit ton is right? Only every fourth or fifth time, ladies! Lol.
LOL a woman once told me she disliked me because I understand women…. probably some sign of something or another in that