2613. Why Love is Never Enough — Rule 3: Lead Indirectly

Men are born to issue orders, commands, and ‘I need it now’. They specialize in directness and use such directives and an overbearing attitude to lead others.

A wife can and should lead her husband, not directly but indirectly. By making it a routine process, she can get her way regularly, earn more of his respect, and thus reinforce and often magnify his love. Indirect leadership works out of hints, seed planting, suggestions for later, and patience to wait for husband to act because she relies on his self-motivation.

A  major function of wife’s indirect leadership is to restrict too much of husband’s  direct leadership. Men are easily self-motivated to impose many orders, directions, and instructions. So much that they become harsh and unfriendly for wife and kids. To contain it, wifely indirectness functions to balance power within both relationships and home. The more her indirectness is effective and satisfies him, the more he appreciates her as essential to his life. It enables her to ensure that children are influential in their respective and immature roles.

Both sexes are born to get their way when associating with others. In effect, wives do best when they trade getting their way today for getting their way tomorrow. Men live in the present, women focus on the future.

To lead indirectly, she makes herself capable of outwitting, outsmarting, and outmaneuvering him without causing offense, by making him appear more  essential, and by giving him opportunity to satisfy himself. Oh, not for the here and now, but to shape future events such that she gets her way on issues of importance to her. Meanwhile, in the here and now, she lives with his expectation that he will get his way.

Until, that is, she gains so much of his respect from effective indirectness that he learns he wants her input on virtually all the decisions in their life together.

It is the essence of successful relationship with a man. Without his direct guidance, he sees wife handle his expectations with feminine composure, self-confidence, likeability, loyalty, and female competence. She’s so good that he does things that demo his appreciation, such as seeking to spend more time in her presence.

Her expertise frees him to figure out how to better fulfill his responsibility and more reliably do his duty. In that way, feminine ambitions in the home enable husband to satisfy himself outside the home and thus reduce wifely frustrations—except the one most dreaded, his continued absence.

Of course, not all men experience their work that way. It calls for husbands to accept unexpected influences, aka wifely indirectness. Women have all the natural attributes required when they let their hearts guide them. Many, however, need to retrain themselves to listen better to their hearts. In that event, I present techniques for wives to improve their game.

Not to shut you up at all, but revise how you say things. I know women think much of what they say doesn’t interest their man. But worse, much of it can have negative effects.

Example: He returns from work, and you inquire how his day went. If bad, he doesn’t want to talk about it now, perhaps later. If good, he’s not all that interested in bringing it home unless he wants to brag. In which case your inquiry takes him off his game plan to brag after drink, dinner, or bed. No big deal as I describe it, but a man’s mood can have a huge bearing on the way he hears you.

Monitor his mood before you talk to be talking or to be friendly, but then you already know that. Still, you may find new ways designed to let him satisfy himself, which increases your worth to him.

Most women talk too much about things that produce unrecognized damage to their relationships. Her intent is innocent but, for example, “Honey, you know we are going to run out of money this month. Car payment comes up next week.” It’s true, but the sting of her complaint is the guilt it shifts to his shoulders. If he can do nothing about it, the guilt reminds of incompetence. If he has the shortage solved, he resents the guilt that suggests he’s incompetent.

It’s not what she says, but how he takes it. Strong femaleness can be harsh and offensive merely by tone, and it interferes with a man’s satisfaction with wife and living together. Feminine is soft and gentle and deeply appreciated by men. As one lady claimed, femininity adds color to a man’s black and white world. Indirectness: “I know you have us covered, but I wish the car payment was not due next week. I need a new dress for my cousin’s wedding and I’m super proud every time we don’t use the credit card.”

Better use of her mouth can be achieved by hints, seed-planting, and other indirect ways of bringing something to husband’s attention. Oh, not conveyed as expectation, just as something to note in passing. Then, with traditional feminine patience, she awaits something from him or she gently mentions it again. And again and again if it becomes necessary. Finally, it may become necessary to convey her expectation for him to act, but it’s best when it’s the last resort. Femininity fuels patience, converts it to a wife’s gift, and blesses her husband with her imaginative manner of making things happen in ways that he earns satisfaction.

Here are some other indirect techniques that can convert wifely ambitions into husbandly satisfaction that produce ‘happy’ for wife.

First, find ways to promote moral principles without criticizing anyone. Men neither need morality nor want to serve moral or religious principles except as they are taught in boyhood by mothers, grannies, and girls and later by wifely examples.

Tocqueville said, “morals are the work of woman” because morality serves and protects the female like nothing else. Living up to something or someone bigger than herself enables a woman to earn respect of men who don’t respect her now but learn to admire her so much they start to copy her habits.

Second, set the example morally and religiously. Go to church weekly and take the kids, whether he goes or not. Fix his breakfast first, however, whether he deserves it or not and whether you like to do it or not. Fix it in mind as your duty to recruit his interest in eventually joining your church-going. Teach the kids to help you fix his breakfast; they need to learn that dad deserves their investment in his life. It also puts a servant’s attitude in the minds of those outbound for church.

Third, reduce all mistakes to something less than criticism or blame. You ‘eat’ all the blame, and watch how grateful others become and how important you become to them. (Blame is a favorite weapon by which feminists make enemies of men and women. It is best outlawed in the home as matter of policy and practice.)

Fourth, teach yourself and the children to find ways to admire husband and father when he’s in the home. Let his heart be exposed to his importance as reflected from the hearts and minds of those around him. Show him how appreciated it is to live with all the household clamor, as if it’s a natural part of him too.

Honor whatever he dislikes by ‘fixing’ it. Gently tease him into becoming more like the rest of the family, rather than abiding the man’s tendency to shroud his independence with solitude—however, never be critical of his solitude.

Fifth, rather than complaining, take this or a similar approach. Frequently describe how you and the children often discuss his blessings, such as the following.

The children and I were recently talking about how we admire you: 

• For your strength of character. We can’t do without you; your strength makes us like who we are when we are bound up in your life.
• For your kind fellowship of heart and how you share it with us.
• For how mindful you are as boss of the family. You regularly seem to know what’s right for me and the kids as guests in your castle, and me in whom you let manage our home.
• For how you anticipate family complaints even before they are verbalized. You sense what we need and want by reading our thoughts. It certainly symbolizes your love for us.
• For how you put up with our childish pranks and antics that irritate most people. You have such a huge heart and mind out of which your dislikes have been purged. It qualifies you as a great dad and smooth performing husband.

As you can see, the kids and I talk about you often as we do about each other. Negatives, as a matter of policy, are pushed aside until replaced by affirming principles, positive opinions, and helpful conclusions. I hope you favor our talking about you, because you’re the most important one to the rest of us.

Helping children find ways to be grateful for the main man places you in the direct leadership role of teaching children how to live up to someone higher than themselves. We are all better people when we live up to someone higher. Later graduating from parent to God makes adolescence a piece of cake for both parents and children.

Wife’s indirect initiatives are essential to balancing influence all across the relationship and inside the home. Family members denied respect and influence become antagonists to harmony in the home. Women are born with the relationship expertise to lead men indirectly, but it requires alert instincts and keen intuition. She has to master the art of assisting hubby to find satisfaction in her and living together, while she expects affection and love in the arms of the man she chose to marry.