From Sheri & Bob Stritof,
Your Guide to Marriage.
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Ask yourself these questions to see if your wife falls into the category of a maternal gatekeeper.

Does your wife:

• Redo a task you just finished?

• Criticize the way you accomplished the task?

• Create unbending or unrealistic standards for you to meet?

• Demean or undermine your efforts at being an authority figure in your children's lives?

• Oversee the chores that you work on?

• Do all the organizing, delegating, planning, and scheduling in your home?

• Become reluctant to let go of some of her responsibilty for caring for your family?

• Need a great deal of validation of her identity as a mom, both from you and from outside your marriage?

• Believe in the traditional roles assigned to husbands and wives?

• View you as a helper when it comes to household chores and child-care responsibilities?

• Ask you for help and then gives you explicit directions on how to accomplish a task?

Maternal Gatekeeping - page 1
Questions for Wives - page 2
Giving Up Control - page 4
Gatekeeping Study Press Release - page 5