76. Her mushy thinking—Part 3

She provides easy sex before marriage. She gives away what she doesn’t have to. After marriage she withholds sex. For example, retaliating for her hurts, she displeases him deliberately. Whatever the reason, withholding herself weakens his sense of significance with her.

She elevates children to adult status, which demotes husband to subordinate status and moves him toward insignificance—his greatest fear.

She assertively rejects this advice gem of politics and negotiation: ‘Don’t complain, don’t explain’. Instead, she unloads with everything bothering her as it bothers her. Little discretion comes across as nagging.

She gives birth at all ages without father’s presence or commitment to help. She sacrifices her child’s father-balanced future on the altar of her female ego.

She tries to take more than she gives when negotiating some issue of greater importance to husband than to her. He may deserve such treatment, and she may win the battle. But their future together dims.

She makes maintaining her imperial nest more important than retaining her man.

She reverses this model and wonders why she loses: In dating and courtship women are buyers and men sellers. Men prove their worth in order to earn her. In marriage, women are sellers and men buyers. She proves her worth in order to keep him.

She admires celebrities or others more than her husband. Admittedly, for other reasons than how she judges him, but he still comes up short. It contaminates her wifely mind for permanency.

She vocalizes jealousy of her man’s job, hobby, or recreation. She thus primes his abandonment pump. He may be totally in the wrong. But her drumbeat hardens more than weakens his determination. As the relationship expert, she has other options, but her mushy thinking thwarts her.

She expects that he will respond to stimulants just as she does. For example, guilt motivates her to do something to relieve it. Men largely ignore guilt trips placed on them and easily handle guilt they lay on themselves.

She would rather be friends with her kids than essential to her man.

She favors her kids over his. If she can’t treat all kids alike, her blending of families will not be very successful. If she can’t trust her kids to the care and admonition of her husband, she married the wrong man.  

72. Submissiveness—Section 2

A sexy man. Men perceive themselves with one primary persona in life—being a man. His sexiness helps, and if it’s not evident, he’ll prove it in bed.

Men don’t voluntarily abandon the hormonal urge of being a man. But they enlarge their persona when coached to do so by one woman. Since improvement requires a man to change, respect is her key to the operating room, submissiveness her surgical instrument.

A man expects to succeed as himself in all his relationship roles. He focuses primarily on provider-protector and needs a lot of feminine coaching to fully accept the friend, faithful mate, husband, father, affection-giver, and devoted-lover roles that his woman expects of him.

Whatever roles he fits himself into, he knows what he has to do in each. He claims certain domains and proceeds to fulfill his responsibility, overcome obstacles, and produce desirable goals to his satisfaction.

For example, his family needs more money, so he gets a second job. Wife expects more affection, so he washes her car. She expects help with spring cleaning, so he uses the leaf blower while she’s away. In all cases, he needs control over the appropriate domains of family life for him to be successful to himself.

If he’s not successful to himself, he’s not likely to be adequate for his woman. She may try to talk him into success, but his self-fulfilling prophecy can too easily prove otherwise. Eventually, they’ll fold as a couple.

It’s far more important that she help him succeed to himself than to her or the family—if he’s worth keeping. It’s the taproot of family integrity. People keep doing what they are successful at to themselves, as they see it, or as they want others to perceive it.

Post 73 is a sequel about the female side.