I spend a lot of time thinking about the kind of wife I never want to be. I have my parents' trouble-filled union to thank, in part, for this preoccupation, but I also see and hear a lot of women making a lot of mistakes that alienate the men they love.

It's been said that every man has both a king and a fool inside him, and that the one you talk to is the one who will respond. Most people respond to praise more than to negative criticism, and I'm not suggesting that one should not address areas that need improvement, but the way these things get addressed and with whom [outside the marriage] is where things can go awry.

1. I never want to be the kind of wife who belittles her husband in conversations with other women, family members, coworkers, to his own face, etc.

I have heard women "jokingly" undermine their husbands via discussions of his domestic bumbling or ineptitude in some other area, such as handywork or the ever-emphasized department of "romance," as in he's not romantic enough.

[Sidebar: Ladies, if you are with a man who has never been romantic, then please don't bemoan the fact that he isn't after you are seriously dating or married to him, okay?]

Essentially, a lot of man-bashing goes on under the guise of teasing, and of course I have participated in this socially acceptable brand of belittling in the past. There was a very timely article in "Glamour" magazine last month which posits that male-bashing accomplishes three things:

a) it actually enables less than glowing male behavior
b) it furthers the very helplessness in emotional and relational landscapes that women are trying to better negotiate with the men in their lives, and
c) just makes women who do it more bitter and less attractive to really excellent men

2. I never want to be the kind of wife who nags.

The Bible says that it is better to live on the corner or a roof than with a contentious wife, that a nagging wife is like a constant dripping.

I have heard women, in an effort to make a point, maybe even a legitimate point, berate a man within an inch of his dignity and his sanity. Nagging may produce a short-term result, but at the cost of intimacy.

It's an easy habit to slip into. No one aspires to be a nag; most nags probably don't hold their behavior against the stark light of truth. Nagging kills the spirit.

3. I never want to be the kind of wife who makes herself an obstacle to her husband's pursuit of passions and hobbies that do not include her.

If you've ever caught an episode of MTV's "Newlyweds" with Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, you know what I'm talking about. It is a pet peeve of mine when women turn their lovers into their sons by intimating that permission is necessary for him to go off and do something with friends. It is a hallmark of insecurity to begrudge your spouse time to himself. I especially hate it when wives insinuate themselves in a man's sacred territory... be that his home office, or his outings with pals, or into the metaphysical sanctum of his solitude.

The German Imagist Rilke posited that the greatest benefit of marriage is that it provides one with a guardian of one's interior life. A spouse should demand that his or her other has room to think, breathe, and be...

Finally, I never want to be the kind of wife who does any of the following:

4. Makes my spouse responsible for my happiness (requiring him to be everything to me)
5. Fails to celebrate his idiosynchrasies and complexities
6. Does not know what he needs from me
7. Fails to call him on something that might threaten his integrity, our marriage, or other principal concerns.