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Husband Husbandry
We’ve been talking a lot about marriage and divorce around here lately. As someone who’s been married for almost 13 years with some very rough spots along the way, I feel like this is a topic about which I can speak authoritatively. In particular, I’d like to talk about a duty that primarily — though by no means exclusively — falls to wives: ego management.
I like to nap in my car over lunch, particularly during lovely weather like we’ve had lately in Kansas City. As I was trying to drift off Thursday afternoon, I heard a woman screaming into her phone. She was informing her husband in a vulgar fashion that his family hated her for no reason, she hated them, and that — while it was his responsibility to defend her — he was refusing to because he lacked testicular fortitude. I was sorely tempted to scream back in an equally vulgar fashion that if she wanted her husband to have testicles, she should stop performing double orchidectomy surgery.
The temptation to state that complex problems have in fact simple solutions is always present, but my life experience has taught me that a simple solution to many marriage challenges is proper ego management of one’s spouse. No matter how frustrated, how annoyed, how angry one may be with him, tearing him down is never the solution. The dishes will not get washed or the baby changed if he feels he cannot meet her standards. Resumes will not be sent out and job interviews will be wastes of time if he feels like a failure. If he feels like he has to ask permission for every penny, he will be far less inclined to work as hard or may spend extravagantly on the theory of “might as well earn my tongue-lashing.” And without feeling attractive to his wife, the marriage bed will be a place of frustration and disappointment.
Husbandry is an old term for the care and cultivation of crops and animals. Husbands need husbandry too, and that is our job as wives. If we want men who will go out into the world and earn for us, protect us, and support us, we have to nurture and care for not only their bodies but also their egos. Whether through words of praise, tender caresses, performing chores without complaint, or joining him in hobbies, we have to let our man know that we appreciate his sacrifices, believe in his goals, and desire him physically. (For more suggestions on the practical aspects of this, I highly recommend The Five Love Languages.)
Martin Luther said, “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let the husband make his wife sad to see him leave.” Ladies, we can’t make the latter part happen, but if we work on the former, it generally happens.
Published in Culture, Marriage
That is frickin’ hysterical!
A mole is a unit used in Chemistry. It is equal to the number of atoms in a gram of Hydrogen. It equals 602,214,129,000,000,000,000,000.
I’ve never been dissatisfied with my marriage – May 24 will mark 29 great years. But this book provided a great boost about 10 years or so ago.
Triple Dog Like?
She’s a math professor getting her grad students to do her work for her.
And it’s not like most women don’t have a natural impulse to submit… about some things, that is…
During dating, that natural impulse must be fought in order to maintain one’s self respect. (I would have gotten into galaxies of trouble if I didn’t fight it with every fiber of my being when I was single.) But to continue fighting it in marriage is bad.
Maybe that’s one of the distinctions that’s been lost between dating and marriage.
We’re getting close to Avogadro’s number of likes here. Pretty soon we can dilute it, market it as homeopathy, and solve the problems of the human race. Like cures like.
Hey, star-nosed moles are cute! And that mole could be someone’s husband!
He needs his ego stroked. Or at least his many nose-tentacles.
I’m so having nightmares tonight.
My stinkin’ Chemistry teacher flunked me . . . “and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you’re at it, why don’t you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?”
But I digress – – I do sincerely like this post, which brought to mind, of course, quite a number of similarly cringe-worthy episodes I’ve witnessed between partners over the years. But rather than share any of those sad scenes, I’ll just applaud Amy’s sage advice and say, [fill in current tally here]-like!
Star nosed moles were an ancient society’s attempt at GMO crossbreeding of a squid and a normal mole.
I think you should stick to reptiles Midge.
I’m just glad she said tentacles.
I am afraid to ask…
“To Wives and Sweethearts” (may they never meet)
I say that all the time. Best movie ever.
I feel like there’s a joke here I’m not getting …
I’m not familiar with Dr. Laura’s biography, but I hope she didn’t have to learn this the hard way as I did. Trust me, I was *not* a good wife before I figured this out. But when one has been so humbled by life that when one’s engineer husband comes home and says “I have a job as a dishwasher” and one is happy to hear it, spousal “failures” like not having weekly flowers or a big rock on one’s finger seem far less relevant.
I picked up that particular bit of terminology from David Weber. It’s one of his preferred euphemisms.
That was certainly a virtue of old fashioned courtship rituals — one would generally not be in a position where submitting to his suggestions would be especially problematic, and both parties had rules to help with that.
I have found so much happiness in casting off the cultural programming that says I have to be independent and instead allowing myself to submit. (And some anger about being thoroughly brainwashed into thoughts and behaviors that didn’t make me or my husband happy.) A couple can’t dance with two leads, and neither can a marriage work.
Why do marriage threads have to be so contentious? The level of abuse being thrown at the original poster, the hurtful comments about star nosed moles, why can’t people just be nice?
Husband Husbandry OR
Amy, Amy
Far from Tame-y
How Does Your Garden Grow?
{REDACTED}
A friend gave me a book a long time ago that I remember nothing of, except the tag under the title: What if marriage is meant to make us holy rather than happy?
Sometimes marriage seems like a cross to bear, but crosses have been turned to glory. Besides, my beloved is getting better with age.
Thanks for the lift today!
By the way, I thought the opossum who almost bit my dog’s face off was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. No more.
I apologize in advance, but the above quote immediately brought to mind this post from long ago.
E.J., I may have to hurt you.
I’ve heard that expression before. It is a pretty common evangelical marriage concept. There’s also this book by Ricochet’s own Kate Braestrup. I recommend it as a very good read. I didn’t agree with every line in it, but it was still a very good, thought inducing read.
It’s worth noting, I think, that, especially if you’re a woman who’s put up with a lot of disrespect yourself, you might not always notice what your husband perceives of as disrespect.
For example, I come from a very polite, but gloomy and hyper-critical family, and grew up in a milieu where subtle ways of putting others down was common. So common that I don’t even notice the put-downs. People will say stuff about me that might make my husband furious, but it doesn’t even register with me – isn’t that how everyone talks? And because I don’t notice it, sometimes I do it to him. Without intending to, with no clue I’ve even done it. It’s not much of an issue, but it does become worse when I get overwhelmed.
We’re dealing with it. He’s realized he must notify me when it happens. I remind him – well, both of us really – that I have some tough [CoC] to deal with that he cannot fix: the only one who can fix it is me, assuming it’s even fixable. That’s hard for him to hear, because he so badly wants to be my hero in all things. But no one can be someone else’s hero in all things. I try to use clearer language when I get overwhelmed.
I don’t understand why this isn’t your facebook profile picture already…
Get in line. You can take a number behind Robinson, Long, Lileks, Goldberg, Delingpole, Senik, Yoo, Epstein and Doc Jay.