I usually don’t watch must TV, but my wife had the “Wife Swap” show on. It was rather interesting to see who the show handpicked for the wife swap event. Two families from two alternative places and perspectives toward living altogether were chosen for the wife swap.
A family from my home state here in Florida, from the Florida keys, got grabbed for the wife swap. These parents were partiers and happy-go-lucky people, my kind of folks (although I don’t drink much). The other family was from Utah and were tremendously conservative (which didn’t bother me as I am also quite frugal at times), but what troubled me was the father was a “sweeper” (he participated in sweepstakes gimmicks from so many companies and food manufacturers).
What was most painful to watch was how the dad had little time for his wife and girls because he was so obsessed with sweeping. The sweepstake king had the kids going out each week to pick up bottle caps from the street in hopes of getting and winning the lucky prize. Unfortunately he didn’t really get much more than some DVDs and frivolous lame prizes, but was forking out all of this money on postage (not to mention giving his soul and life away for this nonsense).
When the party mom from Florida arrived, according to the rules of the wife swap, she had to comply and fit in with the dad’s rules from Utah. She felt like all of the life was sucked completely out of her. It was agonizing and tormenting to see.
Yet at the end of the week the fun mom was free to speak up and give her recommendations to improve the family. Thankfully after enduring a verbal hammering and hearing about how much his neglect (and obsession) was hurting his kids (particularly the elderly daughters who were his step-kids which he often neglected and used as house servants), he had a change of heart and let the girls throw a house party.
By the end of the show the couples were reunited with their real spouse and genuinely changed. The two couples had a face off and shared their “judgments” of each other, which both couples respectfully listened to. Both couples faced each other and the four held hands as if to say thanks for the experience.
As a life coach I was very impressed. When the wife swap show videographers returned to the respective families to see how they were doing, the dad in Utah had truly improved (let go of his obsession a bit) and had begun to spend time with his wife and kids.
It was a very uplifting and successful wife swap to say the least.
www.PaulFDavis.com – worldwide speaker and life-changing author of 18 books including “Healthy Relationships” and “Empowering & Liberating Women”
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