Feminine 101

I think it’s time we drill down on some of the finer points regarding men. I have probably belabored the point that men are very different animals than women. From their physicality, to the way their brains are wired, to the things that just matter to them, they are more different than you can imagine. When I talk about someone who makes me comfortable, there is an element of safety and a need to be cherished or treasured. The term trophy wife is not just a masculine term. I want to be a trophy wife. I want to be precious and even revered by him. The sacredness of the marriage vow needs to apply liberally to how he views me. 

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But a man is different. Safety and love for him are characterized by admiration, trust, and reverence. I remember as a child hearing lyrics to songs like “she thought I walked on water” and “she thinks I hung the moon.” They whisper a desire to be lionized by a woman. We talked about not nagging earlier, and this is really the “why” behind it. To nag is to express doubt. But to trust him, to follow his lead, to be confident in him and his abilities yields an entirely different result. It’s why the Apostle Paul tells the women of Ephesus they are to submit to their husbands. I know that we want to find every possible excuse to wriggle out of this one. We want to redirect attention to the immediate precedent (“Submit yourselves to one another”) or to the immediate following (Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church), or simply to argue (but what if he tells me to do something contrary to God?). We want to do anything, but what we’re actually told to do. 

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Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands as to the LORD. 

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There is a reality where a wife is in the unique position to make or break her husband. Do you want to break your husband? If so, step one should be to doubt him. When he has an idea, or dream, be sure to throw up every objection you can think of. If he makes a decision and it blows up in his face, make sure to tell him, “I told you so.” Under no circumstances are you to let it go. Anytime he makes a move, be sure to explain why he was wrong and how he could have done better. At no point, are you to quietly follow along despite your misgivings. Let those babies fly! …your misgivings, not your actual babies.

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Step two would be to mock him. Consider the story I recounted where he dumped me out of my chair. What exactly did I do to make him so mad? I mocked him. I treated him as though he were a child–no, as though he were stupid. I patronized him. No wonder it made him mad! I remember reading a really awful book about a woman in an arranged marriage. Her husband wasn’t a bad man, but he was not what she wanted or hoped for in a husband. In order to exert control over a life in which she felt powerless, she laughed at him during intimacy. It had the desired effect: he never touched her again. 

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Step three would be disdain. Pick a flaw, any flaw. Is he bad at fixing things? Is he overweight? Is his hair perpetually unkempt? Choose your poison and express your disappointment in his shortcomings. Be sure to tell your friends or put it on social media. Gossip with the ladies at work or the moms at the playground. Be sure to make “mean-girl” faces at him. 

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Step Four? The final nail in the coffin: stop having sex. You want to kill your relationship and ruin your husband? Cut him off from physical intimacy. You get bonus points for making him feel inadequate, or unable to satisfy you. If he’s ever had a tough time “getting it up,” now is your chance to throw it in his face. Or…

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If you can visualize the trainwreck that would be your marriage if you implemented any combination of the above, and I strongly suspect you can, then perhaps we ought to consider a different–dare I say?–a better approach.

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Genesis declares that, in marriage, a man and a woman are to become one flesh. Why, then, would we seek the destruction of our own flesh? Let me reiterate: a wife is in the unique position to make or break her husband. I gave you the playbook to break him. So how do we make him?

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Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands as to the LORD.

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That is the roadmap. Far from putting women in their place, or telling them to sit down a shut up, Paul gives wives the secret to building a man into greatness. Trust him. Despite your misgivings, trust him. If you are truly uneasy about something, expressing doubt will be such a rarity that he will take your concerns very seriously. Trust his judgment. If he believes your freshly-licensed teen can drive five hours, then follow his lead. If he believes the car you really want to buy is too expensive or not a good fit, then get in line. 

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Your confidence in him is such a powerful thing! When my husband insisted he quit his job to start a new business, it scared me to no end. For me, security is an expression of his love. For him, trust is. I did my best to stifle my fears. Mr. Right did his best to overcome them. And God provided. I am convinced that God’s faithfulness is most apparent when we do what He calls us to do…like subject ourselves to our respective husbands. 

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Your admiration is the love language your husband understands. Brag about him. Probably every woman in my friend group has heard me say Mr. Right is hot. And he’s successful. He’s a considerate lover and there is no one with whom I would rather spend time. I’ll boast about that until the day I die. I don’t need to embellish. The more I talk him up, the more material I find that I have to work with. He rises to the occasion time and time again. He would roll his eyes to hear that I see greatness in him, but I guarantee you that hearing that would fill him with the warm glow of love so completely that he’ll be warming his psychological hands on it for a long time to come. I know he didn’t hang the moon, but maybe he could…just a little.

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Your gratitude is a necessity. Notice the things he does for you. When he fills your car up with gas, when he vacuums, or helps get ready for company, notice! I guarantee he is doing things for you that you don’t even realize. So pay attention! Watch for an opportunity to thank him. Or be grateful for all the things he’s not. Sometimes Mr. Right and I will watch a show with an awful husband, or a crazy wife that prompts us to turn to one another and say, “Thank you for being mine.”

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Your obedience matters. I know. I know that smarts. I know that the word “obedience” makes you squirm. It’s not silence. It’s not slavery. It’s the heart pumping blood to the brain so it can function as it was intended. It’s the hand bringing water to the lips so they can speak. Paul says so: For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the savior of the body. There is a symbiotic relationship between a husband and his wife that Paul drills down on throughout the fifth chapter of Ephesians. Do you want to see your husband thrive? Then resist the curse, and submit yourself to him in every possible way. 

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Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room. It’s easy to talk about being the body when God incarnate is the head. But, some of you are probably thinking: my husband is not deity. He’s got issues. He’s a fallen man and, frankly, I don’t buy it. I don’t believe God would ask me to subject myself to a husband who is so broken, even cruel. If you are not a believer in Christ, I understand. 

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However, to my fellow Christian wives, I point you to the cross. Incidentally, so does the Apostle Peter. “And while being abusively insulted, he did not insult in return; while suffering, he did not threaten, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously… Wives, in the same way, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your pure and respectful behavior.” I remember reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin and being blown away by the meekness of Tom, the slave, displaying his obedience to and love for Christ to his abusive master even as it cost him his life. It painted a powerful picture that echoed the work of Christ on the cross. Even in the most evil moment of history, God was performing the great work of salvation. I am convinced that our suffering under the banner of honoring Christ is not lost or meaningless. But rather, that it yields a “peaceful fruit of righteousness” in the end. That involves an intense amount of faith not in your fallen husband, but in the God who formed him.

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Now, allow me to draw a snapshot of how this looks in our lives. Mr. Right is a strict father and imposing to his children. So, when my teenage daughter once screamed disrespectfully at me, he came flying across the house to answer it. No one talks to his wife like that. All respect that my son, who now towers over me, has for his mother is entirely thanks to my husband’s reverence for me. Frankly, he scares them a little. Let me be clear: he’s not abusive in any way and rarely raises his voice to his children, let alone me. But people under his authority find him intimidating. However much our children don’t want to cross their dad, the fact that they are not afraid or resentful of him is entirely my doing. His strictness is not cruel or petty, but his expectations are high out of a desire to see his children succeed and transform into capable adults. I understand this. I know his heart and trust that he has our children’s best interests in it. So, even when he is more rigid than I would be, I just go with it. I don’t undermine him by going behind his back with our children. I sometimes try to take the sting out of interactions that I think my children may feel are harsh. And I enjoy a place of privilege in our home because I can joke and laugh with him in a way that no one else can. And, because my children see that absolute trust coupled with fond affection and laughter, they know their father cannot be a bad man. I’ll leave you with a final image.

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I climbed in the car for the short drive home from church one Sunday. My husband was in the middle of lecturing our eldest daughter for making illegitimate excuses. She copped a serious attitude in a manipulative effort to get him to back down. He didn’t and she started to cry. Then the vehicle got very quiet. The air was pregnant with tension.

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“Good job, honey,” I quipped, “Now we have to ride the rest of the way in awkward silence.”

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My son laughed in relief, my husband chuckled, our littlest guffawed, and the teen in question eventually got over it. Knowing that I have no fear of their father is a big deal especially when I back him up in discipline. If mom trusts dad even when he’s “scary,” then they can, too.

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