Tag Archives: Wives

Commentary

The top 7 things a wife needs to be happy in her marriage

1 Comment
Do women have a plan for marriage?
Do women influenced by feminism understand marriage?

From MercatorNet.

Here’s the list, in order of importance:

  1. A husband’s emotional engagement
  2. Fairness
  3. A breadwinning husband
  4. A commitment to marriage
  5. Staying at home
  6. Shared religious attendance
  7. Traditional gender attitudes

I want to highlight #3, because it’s the one I most frequently find missing in younger, unmarried Christian women.

Here’s number three:

American wives, even wives who hold more feminist views about working women and the division of household tasks, are typically happier when their husband earns 68% or more of the household income. Husbands who are successful breadwinners probably give their wives the opportunity to make choices about work and family—e.g., working part-time, staying home, or pursuing a meaningful but not particularly remunerative job—that allow them to best respond to their own needs, and the needs of their children.

The reason I have found that the young, unmarried Christian women oppose this is because it negates the “follow your heart” Disney princess mentality that they are often raised on. They don’t want to be practical, and some of them even go so far as to shun the good advice of other married women. Women should be able to count the costs of a marriage and understand that handsomeness and confidence does not pay the considerable bills that married couples incur, especially when they have children. I think a good basic education in business, finance and/or economics for this “follow your heart”, “have no fear” women would be beneficial. It’s very important that women learn to value a man’s ability to make decisions that allow him to find work that pays well.

It’s getting common now for men to be in their late 20s and yet never have had a job that earns money. Women should not be relying on penniless students younger than they are – men who have not proved (from their past) that they can fulfill the demands of the provider role. Women should not be resting their hopes on men who have no proven record of work experience. They should not hope that things will get better in the future. Future wishes are not evidence of the ability to provide, only past performance at providing is evidence of the ability to provide. What is needed is a record of earning money, of showing up to work on time, of getting promotions, of steady long-term employment (not jumping around to different jobs), and being good at saving money that is earned.

I also liked #4:

Wives who share a strong commitment to the norm of lifelong marriage with their husband—e.g., who both believe that even unhappily married couples should stay together for the sake of their children—are more likely to have a happy marriage than couples who do not share this commitment to marriage. Shared commitment seems to generate a sense of trust, emotional security, and a willingness to sacrifice for one’s spouse—all of which lead to happier marriages for women. This shared commitment also provides women with a long-term view of their marriage that helps them negotiate the inevitable difficulties that confront any marriage.

I think the commitment ideal is something that is now very much against the grain in our culture. We want to have relationships that make us happy all the time. We don’t want to make commitments that will force us to confront the needs of that other person. We don’t want to have to deal with expectations, responsibilities and obligations, especially when they conflict with our pursuit of self-fulfillment and fun. But commitment is the opposite of pursuing fun. Commitment is about making a promise to another person to care for their needs. If caring for someone else’s needs scares you, then naturally, you’ll want to avoid commitment as much as you can.

Unfortunately, marriage isn’t compatible with obligation avoidance. Commitment is the very center of it, and if you want a good marriage, then you’d better get used to making and keeping commitments. If you are good at sensing and caring for the needs of others, and putting others above yourself, and enduring hardships and difficulties to keep your commitments, then you’re ready for marriage.

Commentary

“Five ways you are destroying your husband and killing your marriage” goes viral

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This article by Katelyn Carmen appeared on the Mormon web site “Family Share”. Katelyn’s husband must be the luckiest husband in the world, judging by this article. It’s up to EIGHT MILLION views, so a lot of people are reading it – hopefully a lot of wives, not just frustrated husbands.

Here is her intro:

When I got married, I was amazed at the instant, overwhelming sense of responsibility I felt to love and care for my husband. Suddenly, a huge part of someone else’s well-being and happiness was largely affected by my choices and actions.

Women, we need to be careful about how we are caring for our husbands and marriages. Don’t let the small stuff ruin the things that will bring you the greatest happiness in life.

Here are just a few ways you might be unknowingly destroying your husband and killing your marriage…

The list:

  1. Living outside of what you can afford
  2. Constant negativity
  3. Putting everything else first
  4. Withholding physical affection
  5. Not speaking his language

I’ll focus on the details of one that I think is important:

3. Putting everything else first

When your children, mom, best friends, talents, or career in front of your husband, you send a clear message to him that he is unimportant. Imagine having that message sent to you every day for many years. What would that do to your self esteem?

Put your husband first.

Although it sometimes seems counter-intuitive and counterproductive, I think you’d be amazed to find that it’s often the key to the greatest happiness in marriage. So many couples get divorced these days, because they neglect to care and love one another and put each other first.

If you choose to put each other first, you will find a lot of joy.

As a man, I have tested women for this, and wow… you get quite a range of responses. Some of them are amazing at sensing your needs, preparing themselves to take action and then taking action. On my Facebook page, there is an entire photo album dedicated to the flowers I have sent to this one woman who is particularly awesome at sensing the needs of men and delivering affection, approval and attention to them. Even just contractors who come to do work in her building get the royal treatment. And she is a director who manages dozens of other people. She is the most accomplished woman I know personally, and has graduate degrees, a gapless resume, and a fabulous career with TONS of money saved. And she is great at apologetics.

I really would recommend to young women that they try very hard to study something difficult in school that they don’t like. STEM degrees are the best choices, especially ones that pay. Whatever you do, DON’T STUDY ENGLISH. You don’t want the student loan debts for doing basically nothing, and it won’t build your character. Choose computer science, nursing, engineering, economics or business administration. Or go to trade school and learn a useful trade, like dental hygienist. Pick a career that requires you to wrestle with real responsibilities, obligations and the expectations of others. That will mature you and prepare you to do things you don’t feel like doing, so that you can handle the needs of children and your husband. Marriage is hard work.

Commentary

The top 7 things a wife needs to be happy in her marriage

11 Comments
Do women have a plan for marriage?
Do women influenced by feminism understand marriage?

From MercatorNet.

Here’s the list, in order of importance:

  1. A husband’s emotional engagement
  2. Fairness
  3. A breadwinning husband
  4. A commitment to marriage
  5. Staying at home
  6. Shared religious attendance
  7. Traditional gender attitudes

I want to highlight #3, because it’s the one I most frequently find missing in younger, unmarried Christian women.

Here’s number three:

American wives, even wives who hold more feminist views about working women and the division of household tasks, are typically happier when their husband earns 68% or more of the household income. Husbands who are successful breadwinners probably give their wives the opportunity to make choices about work and family—e.g., working part-time, staying home, or pursuing a meaningful but not particularly remunerative job—that allow them to best respond to their own needs, and the needs of their children.

The reason I have found that the young, unmarried Christian women oppose this is because it negates the “follow your heart” Disney princess mentality that they are often raised on. They don’t want to be practical, and some of them even go so far as to shun the good advice of other married women. Women should be able to count the costs of a marriage and understand that handsomeness and confidence does not pay the considerable bills that married couples incur, especially when they have children. I think a good basic education in business, finance and/or econonomics for this “follow your heart”, “have no fear” women would be beneficial.

I also liked #4:

Wives who share a strong commitment to the norm of lifelong marriage with their husband—e.g., who both believe that even unhappily married couples should stay together for the sake of their children—are more likely to have a happy marriage than couples who do not share this commitment to marriage. Shared commitment seems to generate a sense of trust, emotional security, and a willingness to sacrifice for one’s spouse—all of which lead to happier marriages for women. This shared commitment also provides women with a long-term view of their marriage that helps them negotiate the inevitable difficulties that confront any marriage.

Again, I’ve noticed that young unmarried women, even those entering the period of declining beauty and declining fertility, are very alarmed by the idea of being married. Marriage is somehow seen as “boring” and they are not too keen on having to sacrifice their need to be happy to a husband and to children. Marriage can wait – it can wait till they are 40. Plenty of men around to marry them then, good men, too, they say. And so long as their friends affirm their “follow your heart” plan, cost calculations don’t enter into it.

So, to summarize, you can send a list like this to most young, unmarried woman and she can read it and agree, and then go in a completely different direction. So strong is her intuition and desire to be happy – it just overrules common sense. They don’t know enough to pursue what will really make them fulfilled (by having a meaningful life) in the long run. And that, if I may say so, is really scary. Older, married women are, of course, much wiser and more practical.

Yes, I’m being silly to get on someone’s nerves. This whole post is to annoy her. If you saw the parody of me that she wrote of me, it was even funnier than this. She is not a feminist at all, but I like telling her she is one.