How Practical is it for Women to be Submissive to Their Husbands in Modern Society

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babochka said:
I don’t disagree, but I have learned that subtlety is utterly lost on my husband. He’s made it pretty clear that he needs more direct communication.
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I feel like that’s more the rule than the exception.
 
Of course! You learn what works and what doesn’t.

Lest you all believe I only communicate by twirling my hair and batting my eyes. I typically mention my birthday a few weeks ahead of time and normally flat out ask what we are doing for our anniversary.
 
We have come full circle.

Husband has the final say…until his wife talks him out of it.

Look, I am going to be blunt, do you have a way for me to make my 6’4” husband do something he doesn’t want to do without using my words or charm to convince him? Please share.
 
KathleenT said:
Look, I am going to be blunt, do you have a way for me to make my 6’4” husband do something he doesn’t want to do without using my words or charm to convince him? Please share.
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I’m all for using your words.

But I have to ask, shouldn’t he do the right thing because it’s the right thing rather?

I have no doubt that you are good at what you do, but like AmazingGrace I don’t think I’d ever be able to pull it off. It’s contrary to my nature and too much work for a gal with three kids (two special needs). Plus, I think my husband would be squicked out by it. (Like, who are you, and what have you done with my wife?)

I get excellent results by saying what I mean and then stopping. I’m nice (I’m working that 5:1 ratio hard), and I say yes a lot, but I’m really clear.
 
Ephesians 4 talks about “speaking the truth in love” with regard to the Christian community and I think that’s an excellent model for Christian husbands and wives.
 
Xantippe said:
…Going to the doctor against your husband’s wishes is unsubmissive, isn’t it?..
…A lot of people would say that was unsubmissive of your wife…
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Methinks you have a non-real, almost cartoonishly pantomimed visualization of the concept. Like what headship would look like if you asked a kid to “draw” it. If so, that may be what’s at the heart of the matter.

You’re obviously free to disagree and voice those disagreements, just as my wife is. You’re not his slave. You’re his wife. Sophomoric conflations aside, they’re obviously not the same thing.

But he is the head of the household and that means something. And that is Catholic teaching. 🤷‍♂️
Thank goodness he doesn’t do that anymore!
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Glad it worked out for ya. I hope it works out for him too. I hope he’s not just disengaging from a quarrelsome mate.

“They make it a desert and call it ‘peace’”.

Anywho, we’re spinning at this point. Last word is yours.
 
Vonsalza said:
Methinks you have a non-real, almost cartoonishly pantomimed visualization of the concept. Like what headship would look like if you asked a kid to “draw” it. If so, that may be what’s at the heart of the matter.

You’re obviously free to disagree and voice those disagreements, just as my wife is. You’re not his slave. You’re his wife. Sophomoric conflations aside, they’re obviously not the same thing.

But he is the head of the household and that means something. And that is Catholic teaching. 🤷‍♂️

Glad it worked out for ya. I hope it works out for him too. I hope he’s not just disengaging from a quarrelsome mate.

“They make it a desert and call it ‘peace’”.

Anywho, we’re spinning at this point. Last word is yours.
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I still don’t understand what you mean by wifely submission. If the husband tells his wife not to go to the doctor and she goes, isn’t she being unsubmissive by your book? So confusing!

I told you that my husband was the person who was picking fights over nothing. He would literally argue with me about me going to the grocery store more than once a week (even when it had nothing to do with him because I was taking the baby). Eventually, I arrived at the solution of just telling him and refusing to argue about it. “I’m going to the store. Bye!”

He has stopped doing that, thank goodness, and my temper is under much better control. We’re doing much better. I’m serious–the amount of disagreement at our house is down about 80% at least. If you knew us in real life you’d think, my what a fine submissive wife Mr. Xantippe has!

By the way, I just noticed that you dropped a link to Dalrock. Naughty, naughty!


Those are some of the worst people on the internet who call themselves Christian. I know exactly what they would say about my wifely submission examples–they believe in no questions no exceptions obedience.

By the way, I always suspected that that CAF post from the wife and the followup from the husband were some sort of troll setup.
 
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Maybe we should just stick with the Gospels and letters from the other apostles going forward. (For discussion, I mean.) 🤔
 
Vonsalza said:
But I think SAHMs (or anyone) should be fairly slow to lay the blame for any particular woe at any one person’s feet. Many western SAHMs were themselves raised in a society were they grew-up expecting nearly unlimited personal freedom and the role of the SAHM was cast in a less-than-positive light.
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I don’t know if that is really true. I’ve noted that more SAHMs are taking more time for themselves which is a healthy thing to do to stave off depression and isolation. That is a new trend and I’ve heard from their moms (“I didn’t get to take a day or weekend off”) well, I bet they could would have appreciated one and would have benefited from it. And in LDS homes girls are typically raised with the expectation that they will be wives, mothers, and homemakers and “valued” as such. But Utah has one of the highest rates of anti-depressant use.
Vonsalza said:
If you feel depressed or are on the verge of killing your children (per the article you cited), I recommend you swiftly seek professional help.
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Of course they should. Unfortunately people suffering from mental illness are not great at taking care of themselves and depression tends to distort how one views life, problems, etc. A husband who doesn’t see or respond to, or minimizes the distress of a busy mom can expect either a strong revolt or something tragic.
 
You make the best point here. Most of the issues work themselves out when you look at the issue from the perspective of self-giving love.
 
My mother is bad, but not horse-whip and breaking spoons bad. So sorry to hear you were put through that.
 
Bruised_Reed said:
Of course they should. Unfortunately people suffering from mental illness are not great at taking care of themselves and depression tends to distort how one views life, problems, etc. A husband who doesn’t see or respond to, or minimizes the distress of a busy mom can expect either a strong revolt or something tragic.
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Yes.

I think there’s a lot of room for more education of expectant and new fathers about monitoring maternal mental health.

A mom who is half-crazed with postpartum depression shouldn’t be in charge of diagnosing and treating herself.
 
These days, I think there is in a lot of places. My husband was given a list of things to watch out for.

There is a lot of emphasis PPD is not something you can power through. And docs are required to ask questions about it during your follow ups.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I personally would not want a situation where one person’s income was relied upon to support a large number of people because again, he could become disabled or die tomorrow. I went through this in my youth as my own father became seriously ill and disabled and could have died and finally did die. That experience strongly instilled in me a sense of financial responsibility for myself and any children I might have, even if my husband was the most wonderful and faithful provider in the world. While I do not think women who don’t work outside the home are “worthless” or any of that, I do think they all need to keep this in mind when making their life choices.
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I would say to that that it’s important to have a support system in place but at the same time the benefit that children get by being raised by a parent rather than a nanny/institution (at least in the early years) is greater than any financial gain you’d get from working. Personally I believe the state should provide financial incentives to allow parents to stay home for the early years with their children.

Also, in order to have a large number of children you likely will have to rely on one income as you probably wouldn’t have the money for childcare.

I just don’t get how you treat money like that though. I would have no problem paying for things like that for my wife. We are one team and my money is hers.
 
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babochka said:
I don’t disagree, but I have learned that subtlety is utterly lost on my husband. He’s made it pretty clear that he needs more direct communication.
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I feel like this sometimes. I do think women sometimes think they have made something very clear by their behaviour/wiles/whatever…sometimes that is just not the case. Men are different in this way.

It’s not that subtlety is lost on us…but unless you say what’s on your mind then how can you expect us to magically figure it out. I have a mother, three sisters, and a wife…it is something women seem to have in common as far as I can tell.
 
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That reminds me of a weird book traditional fems/cats like to pass around. I think it’s called Fascinating Woman or whatever. They encourage women to basically act like a child (they actually told them to act like a child by pouting, even stomping their feet) when they are sad/angry to get what they want instead of communicating clearly, bc ‘men like it’ when women are childlike instead of acting like a normal adult. Yikes. Honestly, people go on and on about gender roles and stereotypes and all that…but ultimately all it goes is to make men look like fools. And then they wonder why these weird feminists don’t trust men!
 
In the book, they said to look at how men fall for their baby girls. Apparently because men’s heart melt at a grumpy toddler, it MUST mean they feel like that towards all females! The book was honestly an amusing read until you realize that there are plenty of trad men and women who recommend it as a marriage resource. :confused:
 
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