This all too familiar chain of events stems from a basic difference between men and women. This gender difference frequently is reflected in the parenting styles of moms and dads. When young children have trouble staying in their bed at night, moms tend to wonder why. Dads just want the kid to stay in the bed. With older children, moms tend to worry more about how their children feel about school.
Fathers tend to focus on grades.
While this gender difference can form a nice complimentary when it comes to parenting, it also can be the cause of marital discord. Since wives are more focused on the process of marriage, they are usually first to sense something going wrong in the marital relationship. So, when a wife approaches her husband about her concerns, he frequently reacts with genuine surprise that she would think there is a problem. Rather than improving the marriage, individual counseling often makes the situation worse. That's because an unhealthy alliance can develop between the therapist and the wife against the husband.