What—no Wife Points?

In the aftermath of my provocative exposé about the little-understood Husband Points System, I've been asked many times (mostly by the voices inside my head) "Why only a Husband Points system? Isn't there also a Wife Points system? How about some way for men to reclaim some power?" Poor sods.

These questions arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of the Way The Universe Works. Here are some practical reasons a WP system (and remember, you can substitute GP for Girlfriend Points, or whatever equivalent you prefer) will never work:

The negative feedback loop
In the previous two Husband Points articles, we clarified that HP are not redeemable for anything. Instead, they exist to be lost. The very act of losing HP carries the penalty of making interactions with your sweetie Less Pleasant. Let's pretend that you have instituted a Wife Points system. You have done this surreptitiously. Why? Imagine your mate's reaction to the idea. An immediate waterfall of HP rain down on the floor.

Do you begin to see the problem? Let's take it further and imagine a case in which the wife is question is clearly ogling some attractive man. (If she is cupping her hands and mumbling something like "...could bounce a quarter off those...," it obviously exacerbates the situation.) Now imagine applying the point system: Clearly, she deserves to take a hit in WP.

Imagine that your wife now says, "You know, I'm not really feeling like Chinese tonight. Could we do Indian instead?" Springing on your opportunity to cash in on those lost WP, you say, "Well, if you really want to, I could eat Indian. I just don't see why we can't go where I want to for a while." According to the fictitious WP system, you are well within your bounds... There will never be a good outcome from this. You will begin bleeding so many HP that a tourniquet around your neck will actually sound appealing.

Do you fully appreciate the problem? The effect of a WP system would be exactly the same as the effect of the HP, but much, much more! You may as well pour gasoline on yourself and try to put out fires by stomping on them.

The... Er... affection angle
In the HP system, loss of HP can render the husband less likely to encounter the... er... affection of his beloved. This tends to make a Big Impression on us. Such impressions can be strong motivators in our perseverance and creativity in avoiding Husband Point loss.

Now compare the effect of the HP system with the effects of the WP system: you lose points, you get nothing. She loses points, you get nothing. It's the same thing. What are you, stupid?

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I hope this clears up the question of Wife Points at long last. If you wish to inflict that kind of karmic sinkhole on yourself, have party. Me, I'm going to go and sit quietly in the middle of a darkened room and try very hard to avoid losing any more HP.