Posted on 02/26/2014 3:16:21 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I can’t tell you where I was or who was there or when it happened. I don’t want to add to this guy’s humiliation, so I am keeping this vague and generic. I can simply tell you that, some time ago, I found myself in the same vicinity as another married couple.
I certainly can’t read their minds, and I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, all I know is that the husband couldn’t seem to utter a single phrase that wouldn’t provoke exaggerated eye-rolling from his wife.
She disagreed with everything he said.
She contradicted nearly every statement.
She even nagged him.
She brought up a “funny” story that made him out to be incompetent and foolish. He laughed, but he was embarrassed.
She was gutting him right in front of us. Emasculating him. Neutering him. Damaging him.
It was excruciating.
It was tragic.
It also was, or is becoming, pretty par-for-the-course.
The respect deficiency in our culture has reached crisis levels.
I’ve discussed at length how men should treat women. I’ve written about the lessons I plan to teach my son; lessons about how he should love, honor, respect, serve, and protect the women in his life. Indeed, men need to respect women, and we, as men, are far from perfect in that regard.
Those posts — the ones where I call on us men to improve the way we treat women — tend to be very popular. They’re popular when I write them or when anyone writes them. Proclaim that women, mothers, and wives should be respected, and a chorus will shout ‘amen.’ Every day on Facebook brings us another viral post excoriating men and supporting women. I’ve written a few of them myself.
But I’ve noticed that the corollary – a message about the respect women must give men, a message challenging wives and encouraging husbands – isn’t quite so palatable for many people. Disrespect for men has become standard practice. That scene I witnessed was sad but unremarkable; we’ve all watched that kind of thing play out a thousand times over. Men are disrespected by their wives – they’re disrespected publicly, they’re disrespected privately, they’re disrespected and then told that they have no right to be upset about it because they aren’t worthy of respect in the first place.
Disrespect for men is a joke to us now. A little while ago I stopped on the way home from work to buy my wife some flowers. As she rang me up, the cashier quipped: “Uh-oh, what’d you do?” I wasn’t particularly amused, but I chuckled. She continued. “I don’t know if this will be enough to get you off the couch tonight!”
Ah, yes, the old “husband is punished by his wife and sent to the couch” meme. I’m not sure if this actually happens in real life, or if it’s an invention of 90′s “all men are fat, witless, oafs” sitcoms, but the popularity of the stereotype is telling. Is this how we see husbands now? A man gets “in trouble” with his wife, she scolds him and puts him in time-out on the couch. Now he has to placate his alpha-bride by showering her with flowers and jewelry.
Men are painted like children or dogs. They can be shooed off of their own beds by their wives and sent to cower in the living room until she permits him to return. This is only slightly less offensive than the cliché of the sadistic wife who punitively withholds sex from her husband. “You didn’t clean the garage like I told you. No sex for you, mister! Next time, follow my instructions!”
Did you ever see this Samsung ad from several months ago?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9HMhSvnbmk
A worthless, grunting, Neanderthal of a husband instantly “evolves” when his wife plugs a contraption into his back. The ad caused a slight dust up when they released it, but nothing — NOTHING — like it would have if the husband and wife had switched roles in this charming piece of viral marketing.
But with men on the receiving end, a few people complained, some angry Youtube comments were posted, Samsung sales were unscathed, and everyone quickly moved on with their lives.
That’s because disrespect for men isn’t exactly a trendy outrage.
These cultural messages aren’t harmful because they hurt my manly feelings; they’re harmful because of what they do to young girls. Society tells our daughters that men are boorish dolts who need to be herded like goats and lectured like school boys. Then they grow up and enter into marriage wholly unprepared and unwilling to accept the Biblical notion that “wives should submit to their husbands” because “the husband is the head of the wife.” [Ephesians 5]
It is a fatal problem, because the one thing that is consistently withheld from men and husbands — respect — is the one thing we need the most.
Yes, need. We need respect, and that need is so deeply ingrained that a marriage cannot possibly survive if the man is deprived of it.
Often, people will say that a husband should only be respected if he “earns” it. This attitude is precisely the problem. A wife ought to respect her husband because he is her husband, just as he ought to love and honor her because she is his wife. Your husband might “deserve” it when you mock him, berate him, belittle him, and nag him, but you don’t marry someone in order to give them what they deserve. In marriage, you give them what you’ve promised them, even when they aren’t holding up their end of the bargain.
This doesn’t mean that a man has a license to be lazy, or abusive, or uncaring. He is challenged to live up to the respect his wife affords him. If his wife parcels out her respect on some sort of reward system basis, the husband has nothing for which to strive. As the respect diminishes, so too does his motivation to behave respectably. Respect is wielded like a ransom against him, and he grows more isolated and distant all the while.
They both swirl in circles around the drain. He fails, so she gives him no respect, and then he continues to fail because he feels disrespected, and she continues to give him no respect because he continues to fail. And so on, and so on, and so on, all the way to the divorce attorney.
The same thing happens with love. If love is unconditional, then the light of love always shines in your marriage, even in its darkest times. But if your love is given in direct proportion to your spouse’s ability to “earn” it, then it will inevitably diminish and fade over time.
Love in a marriage is, as people often point out, a choice. But it’s also a duty. So is respect. I love my wife because I choose to love her. I choose to love her because that is the vow I made; it is my charge, my warrant. Luckily, it’s usually pretty easy to love my wife because she’s kind, warmhearted, and beautiful. But if she becomes less kind, and I withdraw my love because of it, then my love was never love to begin with. It was just a pleasant feeling; a natural response to her nicer tendencies.
This is not to say that women should tolerate a man who fails in his duties, but that her intolerance for his failures can only be constructive if it is rooted in respect. Sadly, many women will approach their husbands and say: “You need to stop doing such and such or start doing such and such, because you’re a failure and I don’t respect you.”
She might not explicitly state this, but it is the message she implicitly sends. There is zero chance that this message will help to heal the damage; it only plunges another dagger into the already gaping wound.
A few months ago I wrote a post about pornography. I stand by every word I typed, but I feel like I could add another couple thousand sentences to the end of it. Ever since I published that piece, I have heard from hundreds and hundreds of men and women on both sides of the porn problem.
Men emailed to tell me that they developed a porn habit and it did great damage to their marriage. But they told me that they resorted to porn after years of being disrespected, shunned and belittled by their wives. They weren’t making an excuse — only offering some perspective and context.
And hundreds of women told me that their husbands developed a porn habit and it caused them to lose all respect for them. This inability to respect their husbands nearly, or in some cases completely, wrecked their marriage.
A vicious cycle. The men didn’t want to fight for a marriage if they weren’t respected, and the women didn’t want to respect men who wouldn’t fight for their marriage. He withholds his love, she withholds her respect. They’ve both set fire to the thing that needs to be fixed.
Respect is our language. If it isn’t said with respect, we can’t hear it. This is why nagging is ineffective and self defeating. This is why statements made in sarcastic tones, or with rolling eyes, will never be received well. We have a filter in our brains, and a statement made in disrespect will be filtered out like the poison it is.
Men are notoriously reluctant to share feelings or display vulnerability. Many times, we keep those inner thoughts locked away — our feelings guarded and hidden — because we know we are not respected. A man will never be vulnerable to someone who doesn’t respect him. Never.
A man isn’t satisfied or content if he isn’t respected. If he can’t find respect where he is, he will seek it somewhere else. This can have disastrous implications for a relationship, but it applies in other areas of life as well. A man is much more likely to stay in a low paying job, a physically demanding job, a dangerous job, or a tedious job, than a job where he isn’t respected.
I’m only emphasizing this because I think it might actually be news to some people. Society does not permit men to be vocal about their need for respect, so the need is often ignored.
I could sit here all day adding “yes, but husbands also need to…” disclaimers. I won’t, because I’ve probably written a dozen or more times on that subject. Every once in a while, I think we should talk about what wives need to do. And here it is. This, above all else. Respect your husbands. Even when he doesn’t deserve it.
I disagree 365 times. Everyday should be Valentine’s day if you’re in love!
I’ve always wondered why so many ‘smart’ ‘modern’ women are compelled to actually marry men they can’t actually stand. Did she respect him before marriage? Probably not. Marry him anyways? How dumb was she?
Amen, brother. I've also found there is no statute of limitations on past transgressions I've committed, some going back as far as 30 years. I've learned to live with it...
But it's not. Kids get sick. They get bad grades and do stupid annoying things. Jobs get stressful. The Visa bill is more than you can pay. In other words, life gets in the way. Just like we all agree we should take some time out for gratitude on Thanksgiving, it's nice if we all take some time out to celebrate the one we love on Valentine's Day.
Nope, she didn’t respect him then, either, and he was just as much of a crybaby. She was abused in her previous marriage, and said she thought he would be a kind husband.
But she was a professional who didn’t need to jump into marriage or starve.
Some of the most famous, wealthy, successful, powerful, well-known and intelligent people on Earth keep a blog, did you know that?
When women are young, hot and still putting out the poontang on a regular basis men will put up with a lot. So women get the wrong impression. Around the age of 40 or so when the tang output goes way down and things are starting to sag and bellies get bigger, men lose their willingness to put up with “the bitch”. Once the kids are gone so are they. Sad.
When I moved to this town 3 years ago I quickly found out that the intelligent women that left town to go to college never came back. The economy is fairly depressed, all people do is drink and do bathsalts, every person in front of me in line at Walmart or the Grocery store has an EBT card... and it seems like everyone has “settled for Applebees”.
Church? Do you realize how snarky and cliques church is? I was pawned off on a nice church girl that was not what I would consider as anything but a friend.
I have a new plan though... buy a farm and nest build on my own. If some horsey girl shows up and wants to help me can everything from my garden, or decorate the home with her tschotskies... fine... but I doubt that will happen... it isn’t being a “nattering nabob of negativity”...it’s just the harsh reality of what seems to be out there in the real world of rural NW Pennsylvania.
Wow - good to hear your side of things. Getting a farm - great idea.
Actually, I have a vague memory of a website for women who want to meet farmers. It might be this one:
There are many single/farmer dating websites. Apparently women really like farmers. IIRC the Wall St. Journal had an article about a website for single farmers. Of couse they made it sound like *the* answer but the website sounded interesting.
And also eat, breath and walk. What’s your point?
Then the husband was like a purse or that really great car. Just some other life goal she had to achieve.
Sad for them both.
I’m very uncomfortable around those kinds of couples. I never really know what to talk about because it seems any subject gets turned around to make the husband look bad.
No. She didn’t see him as a goal, but rather a refuge.
He became starry-eyed over her looks, made himself a constant presence in her life, and literally begged her to marry him. Over and over. She gave in.
I wouldn’t want a man like that, and I wouldn’t want someone if I had to beg them to be with me.
“...a wife to unquestioningly accept and obey everything that a husband says...”
That’s not what I read in the Scripture. Christian obedience can be impossible for the woman who has a bad man picker. The husband is to live sacrificially for his wife, which would make it wrong for him to demand that his wife submit to him when he is out of line. This will only work for those, both the husbands and the wives, that submit first to the Lord. Tough times will come in a marriage relationship, but if the husband stops loving his wife, and stops living sacrificially for her whenever he is not enjoying the appropriate behavior of a good wife, how will they ever keep the marriage together? Likewise, if the wife will no longer submit to the leadership of her husband because she is disappointed in his behavior, how then will the marriage survive until he gets his head out of his rear?
If in his bad leadership he tells her, for example, to skip the house payment, it would be prudent for her to discuss with him the consequences of such foolishness. There is value in her opinion that he cannot overlook, and if he loves (because he has decided to, and promised to love, not that he feels that he is in love with) her, he will treat her unselfishly and do the right thing.
There is nothing in the words in MY Bible that tells the wife not to question, and I personally would doubt that God would be disappointed in the wife that did not perform a crime in submission to her husband, or do something filthy, or some other possibly sinful or disgusting action.
Preach it, sister!
I HATE TV sitcoms where the husband/father is treated like and acts like the bumbling moron who can't get anything right while the wives and children mock them and roll their eyes at them.
And it's treated like a big joke.
I HATE TV sitcoms where the husband/father is treated like and acts like the bumbling moron who can't get anything right while the wives and children mock them and roll their eyes at them.
And it's treated like a big joke."
Yep, and I'm not laughing.
I've seen this treatment of men in local commercials, too. There's one here for a salvage yard that will pay you for any old cars you have and tow them away. The commercial shows the man, a simple-minded bumbler, of course, dreaming about restoring the old wreck in the yard. His wife, with a tolerant-but-mildly-contemptuous air, informs him that will not be happening.
She calls the salvage people, and they give the husband some cash and tow the car. The wife snatches the money out of his hand and walks away, and he runs behind her, waving his arms like a child.
Can you imagine the fall out of the roles were reversed and it was the wife who wanted to do something and the husband said no and treated her like that with her chasing after him for the money he took from her?
Oh, my gosh....the squawking and screeching would reach to high heaven.
The man in the story should never have allowed that to continue happening, he should have spoke up when she contradicted him in public. He allowed himself to be put down. There is a point at which you stop being smilingly silent and ‘speak up’.
People DO want respect, but it has to be earned by both sides. Frankly, how you treat each other should have been established while dating. In my large circle of married couples I don’t know a single man who is a wimp!
To have a husband or a wife publicly put you down, it HURTS - it’s a “la-de-da” moment you don’t forget.
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