Tag Archives: Roles

Mentoring

How to pick a husband who will love you for a lifetime

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One of my female Facebook friends was concerned about the way that some men seem to be able to cheat on their wives so easily, and she asked me for a piece of advice on how to avoid being the victim of adultery.

My advice for her was to choose a man who is interested in her for the right reasons – reasons that go beyond 1) her appearance and 2) her ability to be fun. The first thing to know is that a good man understands the value of women beyond superficial things. And the second thing is that a woman has to understand what men need from women in their roles as wives and mothers and then 1) take steps to prepare for those roles, and 2) be willing to improve in their abilities to perform those roles.

Choose a man who wants a woman for the right reasons

Let’s talk about the first point – finding a man who needs a woman for more than beauty and entertainment. Think of going for a job interview. Let’s say that a woman was interviewed by a man for a job as a combination of 1) housekeeper, 2) therapist, 3) investment manager, and 4) teacher. There’s more that wives do than that, but let’s leave it at those 4. Now, suppose that the man hires that woman and she is able to perform all 4 of those duties well – so well that the man really really appreciates her. Does it matter if she gets a little older? Of course not! That just means that she is even better now than she was when she started, and her value has gone up! So if the job is based on the right criteria, getting older actually makes the woman a better employee.

But what if the job description is 1) look sexy, 2) go out to nightclubs, 3) play ice hockey, 4) go parachuting. Well, now we have a problem… because getting older usually means that those things are less likely to happen well – or happen at all. And what happens with workers that don’t perform? They get unappreciated and their work gets handed off to someone else who can do the job. The thing to realize here is that there is nothing wrong with a woman who is rejected because she isn’t sexy or fun. The problem is with the man – with his wrong desires. A man who wants sexy looks isn’t really a candidate for marriage – marriage isn’t for people who want recreational sex and thrills. Marriage is for life-long love and parenting.

So the first thing that a woman needs to do is to choose a man who needs her to perform tasks that she can still perform when she is older. It’s even better if you choose a man who values you for things that you can do even better as you get older.

How to do it

So how are we going to find a man who has a requirement for a woman who will get better and better at over time?

1. How does he treat his previous girlfriends?

It’s a good idea to interview his previous girlfriends and ask them what it was like for them with this guy. Can those ex-girlfriends explain his long-term plan? Where did the ex-GF fit into that plan? What did he do to prepare her to fit into his plan? How much emphasis did he place on appearance and entertainment as opposed to talking about finances, parenting, education and moral values? What kinds of activities did he choose – fun things (ballroom dancing and yoga) or things that would prepare the couple for marriage (talking to the woman’s father)? What did he talk about – silly stuff like sports and beer, or apologetics and public policy? How did he lead on moral issues – did he just assert his view, or did he try to persuade? How was he on spiritual questions – had he thought about his religion or was it just what he grew up with? How did he evaluate ex-GF for his plan? How did he lead – did he just give her orders or did he try to persuade her? How did he try to explain to her what men are like and what men need from women, practically and emotionally? What was his plan for having children? How did a woman fit into that plan to have children? What was the goal for having children at all?

If we are specifically worried about not getting cheated on, then the only way to judge that IS by having each of his previous girlfriends come forward and tell you that he was opposed to sex outside of marriage. I think absolute chastity is required, because what it says to you is 1) the man can control himself, 2) the man wants to retain his judgment during courting, 3) the man does not think that relationships are for recreation but for commitment, 4) the man is child-focused – he thinks that marriage is the safest place for raising babies. If a man does not believe that the place for sex is in a marriage, then he is basically going to have affairs whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Either he knows what sex is for, or he doesn’t. Either he is serious about having a stable, loving marriage, or he isn’t. Either he has a purpose for women that is not just for recreation, or he doesn’t. Either he can control himself or he can’t.

2. What decisions has he made to prepare for marriage?

The best thing to do here is to make a list of the roles that men play in marriage and just ask the man point blank – what have you done to prepare for these roles? The roles are 1) provider, 2) protector and 3) moral/spiritual leader.

For 1) just ask him what he studied in school, what his resume looks like, and what his balance sheet looks like. Don’t ask him about the future – ask him about the past. A man can make up any lies about the future he wants. Remember: only money he earned counts as “provider” evidence. Beware of men who take out loans or spend a lot. Beware of men who study political science or psychology. Beware of men who drive their parents’ cars or live in their parents’ homes. Beware of men with expensive addictions to alcohol or cigarettes. Beware of men who spend a lot of money trying to appear trendy and macho.

For 2) we care more about ideas than physical brawn or weapons training. A man is far more likely to have to go to bat for his family armed with his mind than with his fists or weapons in this day and age. And that means understanding logic and evidence and having studied issues like economics, education, science and so on. It’s easy enough to spring secular leftist friends on him and see if he can handle debating them.

For 3) we are looking for a man who holds to Biblical values, whether they are popular or not. A man who can lead morally should be able to argue for Bible-based moral values using secular arguments and public evidence – preferably peer-reviewed. He needs to have a record of being to be persuasive on moral issues with non-Christians. It’s not enough to express opinions. He has to accept the Bible’s teaching on moral issues and then be able to be convincing to people who don’t accept the Bible. That’s the requirement.

The example I like to use is that he needs to be able to explain why premarital sex is morally wrong by showing the evidence that it reduces the stability and quality of the marriage, and this is unacceptable because his goals for the marriage require that the children be developed in a stable, loving marriage. Don’t listen to his opinions – demand the evidence. Why does morality matter to him? How do we know he is telling the truth? For spiritual leadership, it’s the same thing. He needs to be convincing – not just give his opinion. He needs to explain the alternative views and then refute the false ones and prove the true ones. He needs to appeal to logic and observable, testable evidence. Church attendance is not a good way to test a man for being a spiritual leader, since you learn almost nothing of value in most churches.

I think this is important because today there is a lot of pressure from people to just be nice – to back away from unpopular moral values and from exclusive theological statements. If a man cannot defend his views using public, testable evidence, then he is not safe to marry. A man who can only state his opinions and say “the Bible says” is not reliable. To make the right choices, he needs to know why. He needs to not be twisting what the Bible says just because he wants people to like him.

3. Fathers know best

It is very, very important to get to know that man’s father before you marry him. Make sure his parents are still married, then sit down and talk to the father to find out how he treats his wife. It’s also a good idea to just talk about the man’s character with the father. He will be able to think of anecdotes to show what the man is really like. Test the man’s father for his ability to provide, his ability to protect, and his ability to lead on moral and spiritual issues.

But most important of all is to let your father (the woman’s father) have all the time in the world to ask the man questions, to see his resume, financial statements, and letters of reference from past girlfriends (and past girlfriend’s fathers). The father of a woman is the one who cares the most about her – he is her protector. So he has to be given complete carte blanche to perform investigations and interviews. In my experience, the mothers of young women are not as reliable as the fathers.

4. Make him work for it

The man’s job during courting is to evaluate the woman by asking her difficult questions. But the woman also has a job – her job is to make the man prove that he is worthy by making him invest in her life. That means giving him plenty of tasks to do – tasks related to his roles. Not stupid things like being a good dancer, but important things like scheduling time with her to talk and listen about specific topics related to the relationship. And he has to do work, like solving her problems and performing tasks for her, and bringing her gifts. A man should keep a woman supplied with books and build her up so that she has confidence and strength to put forward her views convincingly.

He also needs to understand the role of emotions and do what it takes to keep her spirits up – frequent flowers, notes, poems, essays, etc. A man should know how to make a bad woman into a good woman – so that he can compliment her when he is finished building her up. That’s what men do. That could involve careful use of praise and blame to point in the right direction, or it might involve correcting her false beliefs and confirming her true beliefs with evidence. Men are supposed to make women more moral and more effective – that way the man has someone he can trust and rely on to turn to for care and help.

A woman has to make sure that the man has the habit of making commitments and following through on them when things get hard. A woman should look for evidence of long-term friendships, long-term ownership of pets or property, long-term stability in career or housing. No quitting or dropping out.

Conclusion

I hope that those ideas will at least provide some food for thought. The main point I want to make is that there are some men who are capable of love and marriage and some who aren’t. A woman cannot pick a man who is handsome and fun and penniless and non-judgmental and then nag him into making more money, being interested in religion, being able to set moral boundaries for kids, being faithful, etc. The only sure way to get a man to love you for life is to choose a man for that specific purpose, and for no other purpose.

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Commentary

Dennis Prager offers the best concise analysis of the effects of feminism ever

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Dennis Prager has summarized many of my viewpoints on this blog in a tiny, tiny little article. He calls it “Four Legacies of Feminism“.

Read the whole glorious thing and bask in its wisdom!

Full text:

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan’s feminist magnum opus, The Feminine Mystique, we can have a perspective on feminism that was largely unavailable heretofore.

And that perspective doesn’t make feminism look good. Yes, women have more opportunities to achieve career success; they are now members of most Jewish and Christian clergy; women’s college sports teams are given huge amounts of money; and there are far more women in political positions of power. But the prices paid for these changes — four in particular — have been great, and outweigh the gains for women, let alone for men and for society.

1) The first was the feminist message to young women to have sex just as men do. There is no reason for them to lead a different sexual life than men, they were told. Just as men can have sex with any woman solely for the sake of physical pleasure, so, too, women ought to enjoy sex with any man just for the fun of it. The notion that the nature of women is to hope for at least the possibility of a long-term commitment from a man they sleep with has been dismissed as sexist nonsense.

As a result, vast numbers of young American women had, and continue to have, what are called “hookups”; and for some of them it is quite possible that no psychological or emotional price has been paid. But the majority of women who are promiscuous do pay prices. One is depression. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently summarized an academic study on the subject: “A young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed and the present stability of her sex life diminished.”

Long before this study, I had learned from women callers to my radio show (an hour each week — the “Male-Female Hour” — is devoted to very honest discussion of sexual and other man-woman issues) that not only did female promiscuity coincide with depression, it also often had lasting effects on women’s ability to enjoy sex. Many married women told me that in order to have a normal sexual relationship with their husband, they had to work through the negative aftereffects of early promiscuity — not trusting men, feeling used, seeing sex as unrelated to love, and disdaining their husband’s sexual overtures. And many said they still couldn’t have a normal sex life with their husband.

2) The second awful legacy of feminism has been the belief among women that they could and should postpone marriage until they developed their careers. Only then should they seriously consider looking for a husband. Thus, the decade or more during which women have the best chance to attract men is spent being preoccupied with developing a career. Again, I cite woman callers to my radio show over the past 20 years who have sadly looked back at what they now, at age 40, regard as 20 wasted years. Sure, these frequently bright and talented women have a fine career. But most women are not programmed to prefer a great career to a great man and a family. They feel they were sold a bill of goods at college and by the media. And they were. It turns out that most women without a man do worse in life than fish without bicycles.

3) The third sad feminist legacy is that so many women — and men — have bought the notion that women should work outside the home that for the first time in American history, and perhaps world history, vast numbers of children are not primarily raised by their mothers or even by an extended family member. Instead they are raised for a significant part of their childhood by nannies and by workers at daycare centers. Whatever feminists may say about their only advocating choices, everyone knows the truth: Feminism regards work outside the home as more elevating, honorable, and personally productive than full-time mothering and making a home.

4) And the fourth awful legacy of feminism has been the demasculinization of men. For all of higher civilization’s recorded history, becoming a man was defined overwhelmingly as taking responsibility for a family. That notion — indeed the notion of masculinity itself — is regarded by feminism as the worst of sins: patriarchy.

Men need a role, or they become, as the title of George Gilder’s classic book on single men describes them: Naked Nomads. In little more than a generation, feminism has obliterated roles. If you wonder why so many men choose not to get married, the answer lies in large part in the contemporary devaluation of the husband and of the father — of men as men, in other words. Most men want to be honored in some way — as a husband, a father, a provider, as an accomplished something; they don’t want merely to be “equal partners” with a wife.

In sum, thanks to feminism, very many women slept with too many men for their own happiness; postponed marriage too long to find the right man to marry; are having hired hands do much of the raising of their children; and find they are dating boy-men because manly men are so rare.

Feminism exemplifies the truth of the saying, “Be careful what you wish for — you may get it.”

I wish I could add something to this, but I can’t because every time I think of something to add, he says it in the next sentence.

If you like this short essay, then this medium essay arguing against feminism authored by Barbara Kay would be nice follow-up.

It might be worth forwarding these articles along to your friends. And I highly recommend books on male-female relationships and roles by George Gilder, especially “Men and Marriage“.

News

Christian men: give a Christian woman the gift of white roses

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What do white roses mean?

I actually wrote this post last year, but lately, I noticed that it’s been getting 35-50 page views per day. I think that’s a signal to me to re-post it! (I’ve changed it slightly, since I was in love when I wrote it the first time, having just sent roses to a fatherless Christian woman, and with remarkably good results!)

I wrote this post to encourage Christian men to find faithful Christian women and support them with a gift of white roses. If you know a woman who is faithful but neglected, then white roses are the perfect gift. And in the rest of the post, I want to explain why.

I’ll start with a couple of articles that explain the message I am trying to send a woman with white roses.

First, the obvious.

Excerpt:

The meaning of shimmering white roses is not very hard to decipher if you go by their appearance. The color white has always been synonymous with purity and virtue. And so, sincerity, purity, and chastity are some of the obvious meanings of a white rose. When you need to convince that your affections are straight from the heart and are as pure as virgin snow, use a white rose. But there are more hidden meanings in a white rose than meets the eye.

White has ever been a symbol of innocence, of a world unspoiled and untarnished. The meaning of a bunch of glowing white roses is innocence and spiritual love. The white rose glorifies a love that is unaware of the temptations of the flesh and resides only in the soul. As opposed to the red rose that speaks of passionate promises, the meaning of a white rose is in its simplicity and pristine purity.

That’s the standard mainstream meaning of white roses. I normally give three of them, to symbolize the Trinity. (My banner is a pure black field with 3 narrow horizontal pure white stripes)

And now, the not-so-obvious.

How about this?

It has also come to mean loyalty and faith, which can be strongly linked to purity. In true love, faithfulness and loyalty are implicit, despite distance or time. For these symbols, white roses are a perfect gift to a beloved who is far away, as they will display not only your love, but also your fidelity. White roses are also the perfect gift to send to a platonic friend, for a similar reason: constant, faithful love, mixed with the symbolism of innocence, is a wonderful way to show your love for a dear friend.

[…]At the same time, as the uses throughout history have shown, the white rose is also a symbol of strong resistance and the will to stand for one’s beliefs at any cost. Giving a white rose as a gift is a very strong gift. It is not fleeting passion or romance, which is too often what the red rose conveys. The white rose is a strong and consistent love, which is pure, faithful and sacrificial. Not many flowers have such a powerful meaning to their name. And this meaning comes to the rose not only through folklore and stories, but through true histories of brave people fighting for their cause. The white rose is a beautiful flower, with beautiful symbolism, and a friend or lover should be proud to give this flower as a gift to those they love steadily and faithfully.

White roses also stand for humility, reverence, honor and secrecy.

Desert Rose by White Heart

I like this old song by the Christian band White Heart a lot.

Desert Rose Lyrics:

Lost in a windswept land
In a world of shifting sand
A fragile flower stands apart

There in that barren ground
Feel like the only one
Trying to serve Him with all your heart

And you wonder, wonder
Can you last much longer?
This cloud you are under
Will it cover you?

Desert rose, desert rose
Don’t you worry, don’t be lonely
Heaven knows, Heaven knows
In a dry and weary land a flower grows
His desert rose, desert rose

Sometimes holiness
Can seem like emptiness
When you feel the whole world’s laughing eyes

If it’s a lonely day
Know you’re on the Father’s way
He will hear you when you cry

And He will hold you, hold you
Your Father will hold you
He will love you, love you
For the things you do

Desert rose, desert rose
Don’t you worry, don’t be lonely
Heaven knows, Heaven knows
In a dry and weary land a flower grows
His desert rose, desert rose

Desert rose, desert rose
Don’t you worry, don’t be lonely
Heaven knows, Heaven knows
In a dry and weary land a flower grows
His desert rose, desert rose

Desert rose, don’t be lonely, don’t be lonely
Desert rose, ooh, don’t you worry
Desert rose, don’t you know He’ll be with you
Heaven knows, Heaven knows
He will call your tattered heart on
Desert rose

For all the flak I give women on my blog, you have to understand that in private, I am a love machine. I find it very easy to spend 3-4 hours talking to women face-to-face, maybe over a board game, and saying things that really make them feel loved and special. I think in public, you want to be critical of women in general, and to hold them accountable so that they are solid theologically and morally. But when you find one who is really following the Lord, in spite of the pressure and disapproval she faces from her peers, then you have to consider giving her something to build her up. And when you give the roses, give them as if you are her brother or father. Expect nothing in return. As Christian men, we really need to get used to the idea that it is our job to make authentic Christianity comfortable for women. God knows, it’s hard for them to resist the culture without support. And that’s our job. And it’s something we need to do.

You don’t have be attracted to her before you do it, either. Women have value regardless of whether you desire them or not. In any case, I can guarantee that you will feel about as good as a man can feel afterwards. It is a truly wonderful thing to act on behalf of Jesus and express platonic love for a Christian woman. We need to be conscious of the fact that every woman on the planet was made to know God in Christ. It is the man’s responsibility to lead them, to protect them by telling them the truth and explaining moral standards, and to provide them with intellectual stimulation and emotional support. It’s your job as a Christian man to put her hand in God’s hand and hold them together. Choose a woman who is willing to follow your lead, regardless of whether she meets your needs. True love is self-sacrificial. When she is bad, hold her accountable. When she is good, give her praises and compliments. How you respond affects her relationship with the Lord. This is a man’s work.

White roses are a hug without the touching
White roses: a hug without the touching

Note: This advice applies only to women who are conservative theologically and who reject moral relativism, postmodernism, universalism, radical feminism, political liberalism, etc. Be careful, and do not try to rescue people who are not already engaged, informed followers of Jesus Christ.

UPDATE: MBelina posted her thoughts about what it is like to get white roses in the comments:

I recently had the priviledge not only of visiting the USA, but of meeting WK himself in person. He gave me 3 white roses on 2 occasions.

How did it make me feel? Very blessed, appreciated, encouraged. I have a number of decent, Christian male friends. But this gesture stood out because of the thought that went into it and the meaning that stands behind these flowers. I took a whole lot of photos of the flowers he gave me. Whenever I see them, I smile.

It also made me appreciate the sort of man that we have in WK in regard to how he treats women. Bad men take advantage of women, regular men don’t take advantage of them, but good men appreciate them and build them up. WK is one of the good guys, one of the honorable guys. There is a nobility of character in his approach to women. I felt cared for as a Christian sister, not only with the flowers, but with the concern he has shown for my growth, and with the fantastic books he has sent me (and to others who frequent this blog) – the sort of books that improve my knowledge and my ability to live as a Christian in all spheres of life.

This is my favourite line in this post:
“It’s your job as a Christian man to put her hand in God’s hand and hold them together.”
I feel quite emotional (in a girly, but good way!) reading that line.

Thank you, Sir Knight. [curtseys] :)

This is very encouraging.

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