Oh, man. Not Schenectady. Watch out, Bobert! Don't let her send you to Schenectady!

Seriously though, all of those kinds of situations happen in relationships, and that kind of behavior is not gender specific. It's people specific. People have behavior patterns that are not always constructive, and that they usually aren't even aware of (including your friend). And those patterns, when they intrude into a relationship (as they will, if they aren't corrected), cause friction, as you have shown us yourself in the story of your friend.

It has nothing whatever to do with what women want and everything to do with the specific, counterproductive behavior patterns that your friend's wife brought into the relationship. The only way your friend can change the dynamic of the relationship with regard to those patterns, is to respond in a way that doesn't reinforce the behavior. Your friend needs to break the pattern by responding in a new way that his wife doesn't already have a programmed response to, that is emotionally neutral rather than emotionally charged, and most importantly, that doesn't reinforce the behavior.