ANOTHER question about submission

[Eliza10]

I was married nearly twenty years and was most of that time I was Evangelical. We were taught constantly that God wanted wives to be submissive. I wanted to please God, so I being submissive to a controlling husband was my constant aim.

Therefore, like you, I submitted in many small ways - letting him decide matters in his own favor when we didn’t agree. (And, as a general rule, he did not agree with me).

I submitted in ways that caused me much emotional pain and loss, primarily: not having a baby until he “felt ready” because we “couldn’t afford it” (although we mae more money than most of our freinds, but arguing this point brough on his rage). And I submitted to him in that I worked as a professional for years and he managed all of that money, as well as what he made, and I had to appeal to him for anything I wanted or needed, and usually my asking caused strife.

Many people would hear this and say they would never do what I did. But any effort to be heard or understood, no matter how put, was ignored, and pressing the matter caused great strife. And I, like you, Malia, and other wives who have written here, wanted to keep peace. And please God.

Not having a baby for so long was the hardest thing of all for me, and regularly I would feel this was too much that “God” was asking me. So, when it seemed more than I could bear, I would check with a pastor, or pastor’s wife, or other Godly women. Always, they would assure me that obeying my husband meant obeying God, and that was a most sacred responsibility. Above all others, it always seemed. So, encouraged with scripture and prayer that I would not complain so much about God’s will for me, I would return my usual rule of life.

Often, these Christian exhorters would tell me that I only had to do God"s will in submitting to my husband, and that would, in time, “melt my husband’s heart” - and then he would finaly desire to do Gods will in our marriage! The formula was, I focus on God’s will for me, and my doing that perfectly would make my husband want to do God’s will for him.

Only, i could see what was happening all along - and it was only common sense: The more I sumitted to his sinful desire to have his own way, to exert power and control (not loving leadership) over me, the more he lusted after power and control - of which he never had enough.

The fact is, the more I submitted to him being selfish, the more selfish he became. Iron sharpens iron. In a marriage, you should help refine each other. But in ours, I really only helped to make a monster out of him. He had that lustful desire to to dominate, have power over, control and subdue. And, although I thought I was doing God’s will, I “allowed” him to do that to me. Basically, I cooperated with sin. And the the more power he had, the more he wanted. Because his desire to control me was not of God. It was a lust, like lust of alcohol, and there is not satisfaction for such lusts. The lusts get bigger and bigger.

Desire for power and control and to subdue. Its a male trait. God made men that way, and surely, He desires that it be used for the good. But surely, He does not desire it be used to dominate, have power over, and subdue his wife. Was Joseph like that with Mary? No, he served her good constantly.

Living that way seemed so wrong, and had such bad fruit, but my spiritual counselors blindly and insistedly showed me the same scripture passages that were sure “proof” that Gods plan for me was to keep submitting to my husband’s “leadership”.

God saved me by encouraging me to listen to His voice - in my conscience. Through it, I was able to learn, as a Protestant, that what I had been taught about wifely sumisssion was NOT what God intended the scripture to mean. And most wonderful, through my conscience, God led me to the greatest gift of all: to Mother, and to His truth. To the Holy Catholic Church, where He has entrusted the whole deposit of Truth.

So those were hard years, living in error, but God gave me back, in heaping abundance, when he brought me to His Church!

[Continued on next post]

 

[Eliza10]

[continued from previous post]

So I would say, Malia, that your “not feeling right” about this means something. Listen to the voice of your conscience! Look at your husband, and discern, in prayer, and asking God to speak to your conscious: are your husbands motives ones of love and service, as of Christ, or, is he being selfish, lusting for power, control, and his own way? If so, certainly you do not want to feed that. Its like why you don’t feel the wild annimals in the park. They will become persistent, and then dangerous.

One must stand up to what is wrong. Peace at any price is not a virtue. We have to answer to God someday for those times when we lazily allow sin to flourish in our home, for the sake of a bit of comfortable “peace”.

So ask God to show you what is ture and right, and He will - He wil lead you inyto all truth. And the truth sets you free!

I just wanted to comment on what you said:

And when we get into a discussion about a disageement, he assumes that if we can’t agree then it will be done his way out of respect. .

Well, what about his respect for you? Does he think respect in marriage means only respect towards him, not respect towards the wife? That is what it says here.

If I try to convince him that my way is also valid then I get accused of “wanting things my own way all the time” and being controlling.

That is a crazy statement, that he cannot possibly make about you. He cannot get into your brain and know what you want, let alone know what you want all the time. He has put false motives on you, and vey unkind uncharitable ones. It is an offense, and you should say so. Say the truth.

My husband also would say the same things of me, and I would rack my brain. I didn’t think I was selfish, or controlling. Perhaps i was, and I needed to reflect more and see it so I could root it out! I tried really, really hard to be generous and was somehow always “misunderstood”.

In my case, as hindsight is the best sight, I was able to see that he never wanted to “understand” me. In fact, he did understand: he was purposely manipulating me to have his own selfish way. He was selfish and controlling. What he accused me of was always what he was!

Often, he would crazily accuse me of doing things “just to bother him”. That was so crazy. I was so busy doing all that work plus trying so hard to avoid making him mad, how could I ever have time to think up things “just to bother him”? And why would I?? It was crazy! So confusing. Then, later, it became clear. He had both the inclination and the time to think up ways “just to bother me” (he had the leisrure time since I gradually took over the bulk of the workload, in order to keep pece, avoid agrument, and be a submissive wife to his headship). Whren I realiozed all those odd things he accused me of were in fact his own motives, my life made sense. At least I finally knew where it came from.

In some strange way, he mixed himself up with me. Like I was an extension of himself. His “worse half”, in a sense.

So this is my story. I am not projecting it to be yours. But the above statement is a wrong and crazy one, and you should speak the truth about it. He is not you. He cannot go into your head and know what your motives are. He is a separate person from you. If he wants to know why you do things, he has to ask to find out. Only you can know. Only you are the expert on you.

And as far as being controlling, that is for you to decide. Are you are or aren’t you? Listen to your conscience, and don’t let his accusations stick if they aren’t true.

 

[dulcissima]

Eliza, my story is a lot like yours, but we had husbands with disorders. What is good advice for someone with a normal husband is not good advice for a husband who is mentally ill and very selfish. Likewise, our experiences with the problems that we had with our husbands probably do not translate well to a marriage that is healthy. My husband never could have written the posts that you read from Malia’s husband. He is really thinking this through and communicating his needs as a man, and I can see that his wife is listening. They are both thinking about each other. It’s not the same thing at all that either of us went through in our marriages.

 

[Eliza10]

Eliza, my story is a lot like yours, but we had husbands with disorders. What is good advice for someone with a normal husband is not good advice for a husband who is mentally ill and very selfish… My husband never could have written the posts that you read from Malia’s husband. He is really thinking this through and communicating his needs as a man, and I can see that his wife is listening. They are both thinking about each other. It’s not the same thing at all that either of us went through in our marriages.

Yes, my husband had a major disorder, Narcissist Personality Disorder. I can’t remember if you said your husband has this too. it is a major disorder, alone the lines of Borerline. Its decetptive becaue they lead seemingly normal lives to everyone except who they live with.

He in fact could have written those posts because he had a very clear idea of the image he wanted to project to the world, and was constantly honing it based on feedback and he presented himself convincingly and charmingly. We had such discussions, too, where he’s say nice things publicly (not privately) and we seemingly listened to each other. These discoussions sounded nice, but I would be left still frustrated, and ultimately, to keep peace, I had to do what he wanted.

I was not projecting that her husband has a disorder. One can have disordered behaviors and not have a disorder. For example, narcissist behaviors, and not be a Narcissist Personality Disorder.

I do think my experience is valuable here to show how how bad things can get when they are allowed to. My ex is still a NPD but now the woman he lives and has created a new life with has a lifetime habit of being in charge and getting her way,and expecting service from her man. My ex is now in a role of submitting. I think this diordered relationship is better for his eternal soul than our disordered relationship was.

I wish I had recognized the disordered, contolling behaviors earlier in my marraige, rather than cooperating with them and encouraging them. I would have confronted reality and truth. Because confronting in truth, and seeing in truth, sets free.

In my case, because of the disorder, it wouldn’t have fixed things, but I would have cooperated less with evil and not let it flourish so. In the case of a normal marriage, with the normal disorderly way we are all prone to doing things at times - confronting the truth, living in the truth, sets free.

I also want to say I think it is disorderly, and wrong, and not the truth, to see marriage as a military order. Its *not *Gods way.

In the case where the wife had the primary responsibility for the baby, which is normal, she needs protection and support in her role as mother. And when she has, in addition, physical challenges, they need to be respected and she needs extra protection because if it. It is not Godly headship for the husband, in the case mentioned, to persist in his own way (he wants to go the the store now), and lord it over his wife, telling her she ought to submit because he is the head and he is the one who deserves respect for his desires. Then the baby falls apart, and he, in normal cases, does not feel the pain of that like the wife does, and its the strain on Mom to deal with the consequensces of his choice. Those of us who have been mothers know this is a huge, huge challenge - the struggle with bedtime routine with an upset baby. Mom is the expert on the baby’s behavior, and that should be respected.

Yes, my ex-husband has a disorder, but he said some of the same things as Malia’s husband, and they are wrong things to say. And they are wrong, disorder or not. I am not saying that because her husband says those/does such things he has a disorder.

 

[mariam1976]

i am so sorry for the pain that you went through eliza10… i can actually feel the pain in your words…

i know what u r going through as i think that my STBX husband had narcissistic personality disorder too…

i do see that Feanaro is doing his level best … i remember in the earlier posts in the parenting session where she would say that he would be taking care of the baby at night after work that he did during the day… i just think that sometimes he might just think different from her…

how about u guys do this? for instance, when she says that we should go home after this, you go home, drop the baby and complete the rest of the errands… even if it would mean a return trip of 15 mins… after all the baby is more important than anything else…

also when it comes to other decisions… try to write down the pros and cons and decide from there…

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Here’s my late two cents.

As Steven Covey says, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. I have my own saying: If the person you are considering marrying is not someone for whom you would gladly live in a house painted a color you hate, then keep looking. Either he is not your man, or you aren’t grown up enough yet to marry. It is only paint.

I value my husband’s opinion very highly, and he values mine. When we got married, I knew that there would be times when I was sure I was right and he was wrong and we’d be doing things his way, anyway–and those “sometimes” happen for me, too. Nevertheless, we live in the ideal circumstance where he makes sure that all our decisions are made jointly, preferring no one’s opinion, and where I let him keep on thinking that. (I’m sure he’d say exactly the same thing. )

The Gospel reading we had for our wedding was this:
They returned to Capernaum and Jesus, once inside the house, began to ask them, “What were you discussing on the way home?” At this, they fell silent, for on the way they had been arguing about who was the most important. So he sat down and called the Twelve around him and said, “If anyone wishes to rank first, he must remain the last one of all and the servant of all.” Then he took a little child and stood him in their midst, and putting his arms around him said to them, “Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes, not me, but him who sent me.”

This is the exact message that Jesus reiterated at the Last Supper, as we heard on Holy Thursday (John 13:1-17)

If this is the command that Jesus gave to the first princes of the Church, how much also does it not apply to husbands and wives…for are not the bishops and cardinals in the same relationship to the Holy Father as we are to our husbands, the Pope being the first among equals and the Servant of the Servants of God?

When we make a decision, once we give our mutual consent, it is our decision. There is no “I told you so” when things go wrong. There is no “you got your turn last time, it is my turn to do it my way” because we each try to give each other their way whenever we have the moral strength to do it. When we don’t, when one of us is very attached to their own way, then the other gives way, in deference to the weakness of the other…and usually, the “winner” expresses some rather sheepish gratitude for that.

My husband is not Catholic, but he truly loves me and gives himself up for me. In our home, I see my husband as the leader, having David’s role, and myself as the prophet, having Nathan’s role. I am not ultimately the leader, but it is not my role to simply do as I am told. I have a responsibility to advocate for the way of God, which is for faith, hope, love, and generosity of heart.

I have another saying: no matter who you marry, there are going to be days when you look across the breakfast table and think, “This guy is nuts.” It is a choice to decide that he is a nut with whom you are willing to go over a falls, as long as he is in the same barrel. If you have that, you’ll do OK.

My sister-in-law, when turning down sweets that don’t fit in with her health decisions, says, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” You could turn that to this situation: “Getting your own way will never feel as good as loving does.” Any voice in your head that tells you anything else is lying.

And that’s my two cents.

 

[dulcissima]

Yes, my husband has NPD too, and I can see how my catering to him only made it worse. Yes, my husband knew how to say the right things to the right people at the right time. However, there is no way that he could ever take an honest look at his own shortcomings like we are seeing Malia’s husband do. There is no way I could have ever been allowed to come on here and speak my mind the way that Malia does and not have absolute hell to pay for it. I was on this website when I was married, but only very secretively, erasing my history, clearing the cache, because I would have been dead had my husband ever caught a whiff of any of my real thoughts because he wouldn’t have allowed me to have those thoughts. They have a marriage where it is safe to communicate their needs, and they are working on ways to make sure that both of their needs are met.

I am a mother of four, so yes I do understand about what it is like with a baby. I don’t have any physical disabilities, so I would not venture to tell Malia what her needs are or that she is doing anything wrong. Although, I can sympathize with Feanaro since my style of parenting tends to be less scheduled and more fluid. I always found it difficult to do things with my sister when she was a first time mom because she always wanted to stop everything whenever it was time to feed her baby or have him take a nap. I could never understand why it had to be so scheduled or why her son couldn’t just take a nap in the car or in the stroller. So, I am not saying Malia is wrong, I am just saying I can sympathize with her husband trying to finish the last of his tasks rather than stop in anticipation of the baby’s needs. I wouldn’t say that either of them are overly controlling or only thinking of themselves at the expense of the other.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Yes, my husband has NPD too, and I can see how my catering to him only made it worse. Yes, my husband knew how to say the right things to the right people at the right time. However, there is no way that he could ever take an honest look at his own shortcomings like we are seeing Malia’s husband do. There is no way I could have ever been allowed to come on here and speak my mind the way that Malia does and not have absolute hell to pay for it. I was on this website when I was married, but only very secretively, erasing my history, clearing the cache, because I would have been dead had my husband ever caught a whiff of any of my real thoughts because he wouldn’t have allowed me to have those thoughts. They have a marriage where it is safe to communicate their needs, and they are working on ways to make sure that both of their needs are met.

This is an extremely difficult situation. Sometimes, you are Nathan, and sometimes you are Jeremiah…the prophet who is going to find herself at the bottom of the well if she tells the truth.

You have to tell the truth. You have to tell it with patience, kindness, and all the handmaidens of love, you have to do it without nagging, but you have to tell the truth.

There are cases in which the immaturity of one partner is so serious or so impervious to amendment that a valid marriage is simply impossible, where a separation or annulment is the appropriate option. In other cases (which should be assumed in every case until proven otherwise), it is a matter of having married a sinner. We are all, since Adam and Eve, afflicted with narcissism, with which we afflict others in our pursuit of being “like gods” and choosing ourselves by our own version of good and bad. The difference is in degree.

The message of the Cross is that this only changes when someone becomes the instrument of God in stopping it: when someone, refusing to defend or testify to himself, keeps telling the truth even if they get nailed for it; when someone, in the midst of every kind of enmity and opposition, refuses to either capitulate or return opposition.

The Passion of Jesus is not so named because it was full of feeling. It is so named because through it all he was forced into the passive position, robbed of all power and authority, except the moral authority to tell the truth and to remain within the Will of God.

This is a terrible position for a husband to put his wife in, for he should rather be a type of Christ for her, sacrificing himself to build her up. Nevertheless, the time comes when each of us is called to accept a Cross on account of the sins of our spouses. Anyone who is in this position should get as much moral and spiritual support as they can find, and not be too proud to lean on it, for she will need it. My heart goes out to all of you in this position, for you truly are in the midst of the Passion yourselves.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Yes, my husband has NPD too, and I can see how my catering to him only made it worse. Yes, my husband knew how to say the right things to the right people at the right time. However, there is no way that he could ever take an honest look at his own shortcomings like we are seeing Malia’s husband do. There is no way I could have ever been allowed to come on here and speak my mind the way that Malia does and not have absolute hell to pay for it. I was on this website when I was married, but only very secretively, erasing my history, clearing the cache, because I would have been dead had my husband ever caught a whiff of any of my real thoughts because he wouldn’t have allowed me to have those thoughts. They have a marriage where it is safe to communicate their needs, and they are working on ways to make sure that both of their needs are met.

This is an extremely difficult situation. Sometimes, you are Nathan, and sometimes you are Jeremiah…the prophet who is going to find herself at the bottom of the well if she tells the truth.

You have to tell the truth. You have to tell it with patience, kindness, and all the handmaidens of love, you have to do it without nagging, but you have to tell the truth.

There are cases in which the immaturity of one partner is so serious or so impervious to amendment that a valid marriage is simply impossible, where a separation or annulment is the appropriate option. In other cases (which should be assumed in every case until proven otherwise), it is a matter of having married a sinner. We are all, since Adam and Eve, afflicted with narcissism, with which we afflict others in our pursuit of being “like gods” and choosing ourselves by our own version of good and bad. The difference is in degree.

The message of the Cross is that this only changes when someone becomes the instrument of God in stopping it: when someone, refusing to defend or testify to himself, keeps telling the truth even if they get nailed for it; when someone, in the midst of every kind of enmity and opposition, refuses to either capitulate or return opposition.

The Passion of Jesus is not so named because it was full of feeling. It is so named because through it all he was forced into the passive position, robbed of all power and authority, except the moral authority to tell the truth and to remain within the Will of God.

This is a terrible position for a husband to put his wife in, for he should rather be a type of Christ for her, sacrificing himself to build her up. Nevertheless, the time comes when each of us is called to accept a Christ on account of the sins of our spouses. Anyone who is in this position should get as much moral and spiritual support as they can find, and not be too proud to lean on it, for she will need it. My heart goes out to all of you in this position, for you truly are in the midst of the Passion yourselves.

 

[chevalier]

@Eliza10: I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through 20 years of such torment. To me, taking the wife’s money and making her ask for some of it back if she wants something… Well, for one, it’s plain thievery. For the other, quoting the Scripture to support that kind of thing is like ordering sexual abuse victims to shut up under the pain of excommunication.

Whatever those people told you about submission, obeying the husband and so on, they forgot that Jesus said God was to be obeyed more than men. Obeying the husband is not obeying God when there’s inconsistency between the two - husband is not God, has free will, can therefore go against God’s wishes, and to God the loyalty goes first. There are no such responsibilities as to obey someone even if his requirements are immoral or downright evil. But you’re already saying the same, so.

That is a crazy statement, that he cannot possibly make about you. He cannot get into your brain and know what you want, let alone know what you want all the time. He has put false motives on you, and vey unkind uncharitable ones. It is an offense, and you should say so. Say the truth.

I need to disagree. Firstly, it’s probably complaining rather than an actual accusation - “all the time” is a clear indication of his impression that the opposition from his wife is habitual or at least so frequent as to make it look like it simply never ceases - “wanting things her way” is basically the opposite of “wanting things his way” - if it’s wrong for the one party, it’s wrong for the other. Secondly, it’s basically the same kind of conclusions that you draw about your husband or Malia does. It works the same for both sides of the dispute - the rules must be equal. Justice is even-handed. Also, there’s a certain inconsistency in your claim about false and uncharitable motives. If it’s false because he can’t substantiate it or because he says what he thinks or feels without being materially certain about it, then you do the same by doing guesswork about his motives here. If it’s uncharitable to impose some motives on someone, then it’s probably also uncharitable to impose the imposition of such motives… and so on. What I’m trying to show you is that one’s own perspective (in casu the wife’s) is not the end of things and she has no rights to judgement that her husband wouldn’t have. Let’s be even-handed here.

But the above statement is a wrong and crazy one, and you should speak the truth about it. He is not you. He cannot go into your head and know what your motives are.

I’m getting the impression that you’re doing a fair amount of getting into your husband’s or Malia’s husband’s head as well, so he cannot but you can? I’m not accusing you of anything here. I’m just pointing out that the rules of fair play are equally applicable to all players.

Only you are the expert on you.

Disagreed. An old principle of Roman law reads, “nemo iudex in causa sua,” that is, no one is the judge in his own case. Jesus Himself says, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,” (John 5, 37).

Malia probably knows herself better than her husband does overall, but he most certainly realises certain facts about her that she doesn’t realise, while she has a different, unique perspective on him that he doesn’t have, from which he could learn about himself. The only expert on any of us in any absolute sense is God. In a less absolute sense, the experts on people are judges and doctors. No one is his own judge and neither is really anyone fit to be his own doctor in matters of psychology or personality (you can diagnose your own bodily maladies, why not).

One example of people who think they are experts on themselves, and whose such belief is generally heeded, are gay people who are pushing the agenda that their condition is natural and their acts are just. Their inventions make way to teaching aids and curricula because they are believed to be experts on their own condition… but are they? Nope.

Please don’t read this post of mine as one of criticism, though. I primarily started writing to agree with you and express my feelings on your unhappy situation of 20 years. But what I pointed out I probably needed to, for the sake of balance and even-handedness.

Yes, my ex-husband has a disorder, but he said some of the same things as Malia’s husband, and they are wrong things to say. And they are wrong, disorder or not. I am not saying that because her husband says those/does such things he has a disorder.

It doesn’t seem to me. In fact, I don’t see so many similarities even. To me it just seems that they have a problem with who is to make the decision when they disagree or how to reconcile their opposing views if they can’t agree. In short, the directives along which they should decide.

 

[chevalier]

@mariam1976:

how about u guys do this? for instance, when she says that we should go home after this, you go home, drop the baby and complete the rest of the errands… even if it would mean a return trip of 15 mins… after all the baby is more important than anything else…

Agreed. But after let’s say, 10 instances of the wife pointing such things out, the husband may well start feeling like she’s wearing the breeches. I think it gets better when we consider the options and forget who said what because, after all, we’re deciding what to do, not who has the right to make an unrestricted decision completely according to his wishes. Right?

@BLB_Oregon:

The Passion of Jesus is not so named because it was full of feeling. It is so named because through it all he was forced into the passive position, robbed of all power and authority, except the moral authority to tell the truth and to remain within the Will of God.

Need to clarify a bit. “Passio” in Latin means suffering. If you see “passive position” as a position of suffering, then yes. But if you see passive as in the opposite of active, i.e. passive as inactive rather than suffering silently, then it doesn’t work. The ordinary understanding of “passive” these times is “inactive”, not “longsuffering”, and I have the impression you’re saying Christ was forced into an inactive position rather than made to suffer. “Passion of Christ” is “suffering of Christ”. You offer a very nice analogy, but I just think etymologies should be rigorously correct.