Five reasons I must do as my husband tells me...

1.) When two people try to row a boat, each in their own direction, it goes in circles or goes nowhere or sinks.

2.) Because humility and submission build strength of character and kill the ego, which is the goal of Buddhist practice as I understand it.

3.) Because faith without question in the male as head of the household injects him with the energy he needs to accomplish what is necessary. A man who is constantly questioned, made to explain himself or challenged will become frustrated, will doubt himself, will feel unsupported, and will inevitably falter.

4.) Because if I allow him to call the shots and firmly hold the reins, he also holds the responsibility and the accountability, which is infinitely more comfortable for me as wife. (here’s an aside; I had a running joke with at least three different spouses -- yes, I’ve been working on an honorary Elizabeth Taylor award -- whenever I would doubt him and almost inevitably find out he was right, I would repeat like a mantra, ‘I will never doubt you again’. And we would laugh. But now I realize, I would say it, but I would never mean it, because I was unwilling to let them --- the men --- lead. I was trained that men are untrustworthy, that they are incapable, that they will fail you, that it is better to be strong and independent and send them straight to hell if they don’t comply or behave -- thus the running string of unsuccessful relationships).

5.) It is divine order, the way things were meant to be. It’s not that woman can’t lead or call the shots, that we’re not strong enough or we’re too stupid NOOOOO! It’s that by design we were meant to be protected and cared for and when we are, when we truly feel shielded, that we have a man who would kill the bastard who touched a hair on our head, we can relax. We can lay down our weapons and our shield. We can live serenely and dedicate ourselves to loving and nurturing our spouse and our families. We are no longer in a fight or flight, adrenalin-pumped state. We can grow our hair and nails long. Create beautiful, comfortable homes. Focus on our children. Really be with them and listen to them and just hold them; not shove 5 minutes of quality time in at the end of a long day of battling it out at the office.

Talk about a topic that would be unpopular with the feminists. I repeat, I would never have dreamed in a gajillion years that I would write these words.

They come from repeated trial and error and from a scientific mind, an objective, analytical mind that had to admit after life beat the shit out of her in relationships, that something was out of balance.

By the way, I did try women.

But the answer to me balancing my overly masculine energy was not to pair up with a woman. The answer was to find a man who was man enough to be my man.

Finally.

ps.



I searched on 'obedience' in Google, and this cartoon about women trying to teach their husbands to obey was all I could come up with. May be a clue about the nature of relationships in today's world, and how obedience is a term that can only be applied to dogs and dominated husbands.