Many marriages are breaking down under stress because "hen-pecking" wives cannot abide failure in their husbands. Women are unable to resist attacking their men when they are down because, while they are loath to admit it, women secretly hate "whining wimps". That's the view of William Wilkie, a 56-year-old Australian psychiatrist whose book, Understanding Stress Breakdown, now in its third edition, has just been published in the Republic.
Speaking to The Irish Times from his home in Australia, Dr Wilkie explained that women expect sympathy and support when they are sick, but not the other way around. When he is sick, his wife of 35 years gives him about 90 minutes worth of cold compresses and chicken soup, before losing her patience with him. "Ladies won't admit it, but seeing weakness in their husbands turns them into absolute bitches - but it's good they turn into bitches because this preserves and girlfriend/boyfriend relationship.
"Naggers who go yack, yack, yack are doing the family a great service," he believes. At the core of his argument is his belief that our brains have not changed since the Stone Age. While our bodies are living with 20th century stresses, women's right brains are telling them to have carnal relations only with successful hunters, so that when a man is feeling threatened and vulnerable, women turn off sexually. "Women are frightened of being tied to losers and plunged into poverty," Wilkie asserts.
Before you dismiss Wilkie himself as a throwback to the Stone Age, consider that two influential institutions - Trinity College Dublin and Accord, the Catholic marriage advisory service - have lent him credence by inviting him to speak. A devout Catholic, Dr Wilkie will also be speaking to the influential Business Spouses Association and to the Catholic parish of South Lucan, at the Archbishop Ryan Primary School. At TCD's Anti-Bullying Unit, Wilkie will be talking about bullying in the workplace and in marriage. Murray Smith, a spokesman for the unit, said he was not aware of Wilkie's views on women and that they sounded "sweeping", but that one would not dismiss a person's views on one area - bullying - because of his views in another - women. At Accord, Dublin, Penny Wilson said she had not read Dr Wilkie's book and therefore could not comment. Sources within Accord expressed the view that most counsellors would not agree with Wilkie's views.
Wilkie sincerely believes he is pro-woman. Feminism has stripped women and the world of femininity as a positive force, with the result that we have masculinity run rabid in East Timor, he says. Wilkie also thinks that most depressed new mothers are actually suffering the stress symptoms of combat fatigue, because an anti-feminine society does not give them the time and space they need to do nothing but breast-feed for the first month of their new-borns' lives. It's hard to argue with that.
Men with the workplace equivalent of combat fatigue - contract work and downsizing - have their own problems. Men under stress seem to change personality because their circuit breakers crash. Unable to process the normal stresses of life, they avoid sensory stimulation, become intolerant and prone to angry outbursts and respond so uncharacteristically that the person appears to loved ones to be changing personality. (It's easy to imagine - men coming home from work, lying on the sofa and staring at the TV while refusing to have anything to do with the children.)
"It is thus easy to see why so many couples experiencing the symptoms of stress breakdown can suddenly think that their love relationship is at an end. A good sexual relationship is difficult when you are avoiding sensory stimulation! And suddenly the endearing personality differences that once fascinated and intrigued you have become utterly irritating and intolerable," Wilkie explains. On the other hand, for the partner, communication is difficult because the stressed person no longer seems to feel as strongly about the big questions as before. This over-stressed person is a stranger to you now. You used to know exactly how he or she would react to a joke or a planned outing. Not any more."
Most married people will probably recognise this scenario, but where Wilkie gets controversial is when he starts to make judgments about women's ability to cope with this situation. In his interpretation of the ideal Christian marriage, the wife can rely on her husband's never-failing support as the faithful rely on God. "But can the situation be reversed? Can the husband rely on his wife's never-failing support when he is feeling sorry for himself? In reality, not for long. A woman seems to have difficulty knowing what to say to her husband when he has lost his self-confidence. In my experience, a wife's emotional support for a husband who has lost his self-confidence is usually provided through enrolling him temporarily as an honorary child. She then mothers him for as long as it takes. And while the wife is mothering the husband the sexual relationship is likely to be seriously affected.
"Usually, the wife soon becomes intolerant of her husband's lack of self-confidence, and may resort to taunting him with exhortations like `Why can't you be a man?' Modern husbands who believe in marriage as equal sharing and mutual support feel shocked and betrayed when their wives respond to their emotional despondency not with sympathetic encouragement, but with stinging insults."
Wilkie adds that "when a man loses his self-confidence, his wife will attack him, sooner or later. It is one characteristic of female behaviour that women themselves despise. Women have been talking to me about this for years, saying things like, `I know he can't help losing his business with the recessions and all, but I can't seem to be able to stop picking on him. I think I must be a bad-tempered bitch with an attitude problem.' "
Willie refuses to accept the argument that most women, far from undermining their husbands, will tirelessly support them, sacrificing their own happiness, even to the point of putting up with abuse. "I usually find that these cases quoted to me in rebuttal are classic examples of dysfunctional families where a co-dependent woman has continually mothered an addicted man, to the ultimate detriment of both of them," he states.
He suggests to male readers that the next time their "nagging" wives start to peck at them, they should say "Alice, don't speak to me like that! When we are successful, rich and famous, I won't be able to take you along to important social functions if you are going to speak like that."
Perhaps when Wilkie arrives in Ireland on Friday, his audiences will remind him that this is 1999, and that it may be the wife who is rich and famous. Perhaps Dr Wilkie will hear Irish women say, "Willie, now that we are successful, rich and famous in our own right, we are not going to put up with that kind of talk anymore."
Understanding Stress Breakdown by William Wilkie (Newleaf, £7.99). Dr Wilkie will give a public seminar at the Anti-Bullying Centre, Education Department, TCD, on Saturday at 10 a.m. (admission £10, students £5), and on Monday at Archbishop Ryan Primary School, Lucan South, at 8 p.m. (admission free). His lectures for Accord and the Business Spouses Association are for members only.