Submission… « White Washed Feminists

Submission…

July 2, 2008 by Cally Tyrol

What does it look like in your home?

Posted in IMHO | Tagged submission | 14 Comments

14 Responses

on July 2, 2008 at 6:36 pm JohannaS

Basically, we discuss things together in decision-making. If I disagree with his views, he takes it VERY seriously and usually sees it as a “sign” (bad word to use but I think you all know what I mean) that maybe we should wait on a final decision and spend more time in prayer about it. I really can’t think of a time in our marriage that we have moved forward with a decision (be it moving, visiting a new church, or fertility treatments) that we weren’t of one mind on it, after much prayer and discussion. Even though our belief has always been that he has the final say, it does not mean that his opinion is worth more than mine. He knows that, as a woman, I’m going to see things from a different perspective and he is always eager to hear my thoughts/feelings/opinions.

I thank God that I married the man I did!
on July 2, 2008 at 7:12 pm Annie

Some things are my domain, some his. He invests in stocks, I manage the day to day expenses. He vacuums, I organize. He cuts, I cook. Basically, we have worked out something that works for us. When there are major decisions to be made, we talk a lot and both of us get to say our piece. In the end, one of us has to give if our opinions are different. Who gives up varies from situation to situation. He values my opinion a lot and I his. No major things are done in the house where we have not reached a consensus.

Then there are things which we have agreed to disagree on and we keep it that way.

He is a wonderful treasure!
on July 2, 2008 at 8:41 pm mrsjoy

Submission=Conversation.

At least in our house.

I can’t honestly think of a situation that we’ve come to yet where we disagree…most of the time we have talked and talked and talked together (like big ticket stuff- buying a house, changing churches, etc.) that the “decision” is a natural outflow of the conversation we’ve had.

I honestly desire the best for him, and I know that he desires the best for me, and it makes it easy for us both. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was in a different kind of relationship. Odd as it sounds, I think it requires a high level of trust in the relationship, and that’s hard to find sometimes.
on July 2, 2008 at 8:44 pm One who has been burned

With respect to the kitchen, I tend to be my husband’s sous-chef (read that as I do all the cutting, slicing, measuring, etc. & set it up for him in rows for him to saute, cook, bake, or whatever).

With respect to politics, we both tend to research issues and then bounce off our ideas of one another.

With respect to housework, we BOTH do it to get rid of it as quickly as possible … if not sooner so we can goof off together

With respect to finances, my husband tends to listen to me cuz I tend to be very good with money decisions.

I value my husband and his thoughts/feelings/perspectives/opinions and he values me and my thoughts/feelings/perspectives/opinions.

We, too, have agreed to disagree on certain issues … which demonstrates our respect for one another

It was my husband that pushed me through to get my master’s degree and now it is my husband pushing me to get my doctorate.

My husband is incredibly creative. I can come up with ideas, but I cannot make them look good (and I am about as artistic as a wart). It takes my husband’s ability to carry out my ideas in paper and other formats.

My husband has a dry sense of humor. I am slapstick (I absolutely ADORE Bob Hope)

There have been many times in our marriage where my husband needed me to make decisions due to other things going on. He knew I was capable. He knew that he could live with the consequences of the decisions.

In like fashion, there have been times when I simply could not be available to help make decisions and come to a concensus; but I trusted my husband and knew he would not violate me or my conscience. (usually these instances occurred around family deaths)
on July 2, 2008 at 9:23 pm RichardD

I rule with an iron fist. If I want my wife’s opinion, I beat it out of her. I’m the man and if she wants to get into heaven, she has to go through me.

PLEASE don’t tell her I said this …

Seriously though – my wife and I have our own duties around the house based no our own personal strengths. That goes for our outside business/social relationship matters as well.

When we disagree about a decision, we talk and pray our way through it until we arrive at an agreement – sometimes it goes her way and sometimes mine, but in the end we truly do agree.

We have discussed that if there was ever a decision that we could not come to an agreement on that we would do what I thought was best. This, fortunately, has never happened and I don’t think it will.

We also tag team parent. When one of us is exasperated and ready to do verbal or physical damage to our son, we pass him off to the other one. That doesn’t sound so great – but it really works well in our case.

We also each have our own unique special things that we do with our son and he cherishes those “Mommy” things and those “Dad” things. Even when he was a toddler, he wanted certain things to be done with only one of us. For example, my wife game him baths and I read books to him. He would kick the other parent out if they dared intrude on these special times.

I think I would describe my wife as very submissive because of her attitude. But I would also describe my wife as very strong and forceful when she needs to be. I think it takes a very strong woman to be willingly submissive. And it takes a man who truly loves that woman to not take advantage of that submissiveness but to truly love her and make every decision one that will be in her best interest or the family’s best interest – not necessarily in his own best interest.
on July 3, 2008 at 4:50 am Anne2

We’re not on the same page with everything. Mostly because of the spiritual abuse experiences we have come through. I’ve only boldly opposed him on one issue-the child spanking issue. We always discuss everything together and then go ahead when satisfied we both agree. He NEVER goes ahead on his own in anything until we are in complete agreement. This has given him some heat. Actually both of us some heat. I was hesitant to join Church B but was willing to let DH take the initative and join anyway. He made the mistake of telling the elders after we were in the process of leaving Church B this. I was accused of being an unsubmissive wife. There’s more. Isn’t there always?
on July 3, 2008 at 7:56 am Annie

I always wonder-aren’t all patriarchal marriages egal anyway? I could bet that in the heavily pat. marriages, the men are easy going and the women are stronger. I would think that just as we mentioned here, they would talk through things before coming to a decision. I can’t imagine these strong wives saying Yes, Dear to everything their husband says, or the laid back husbands taking decisions unilaterally.

I could have written the post “One who has been burned ” wrote! 90% of it rang so true with my life too. Except that I have the dry sense of humor and my husband’s is slapstick and he is the sous chef!!
on July 3, 2008 at 8:43 am Hutch

I make an effort to focus on my shortcomings and need to grow spiritually-not on the shortcomings of others.

Key verses that I focus on:

Ephesians 4: 2 Living as becomes you with complete lowliness of mind (humility) and meekness(unselfishness, gentleness, mildness) with patience, bearing with one another and making allowances because you love one another. (AMP)

Ephesians 5: 21 Be subject to (submit) one another out of reverence for Christ (the Messiah, the Annointed One).

We make all decisions together before the Lord and rarely are at odds. If we are at odds we wait.

We meet together for: “Coffee time” each evening and discuss business and marketing plans and we finish with discussing a chapter of God’s Word. Stacy teaches me what God has shown and taught her from the verses and I share my insights we close by my verbalizing to Stacy how I need to grow in light of the verses discussed and then she does the same.

I do not instruct Stacy on where she is falling short and she does not do that to me. We both agree that the Holy Spirit is the superior Teacher.
on July 3, 2008 at 9:26 am CalamityJean

Our home looks allot like those above. I pretty much make the decisions for the house such as decorating, etc and he pays the bills. Money wise we both have our own investments but we discuss them with each other before making any decisions. His paycheck pays the bills and goes towards our debt. I save, buy the groceries and make the house payment. We split the care of our dogs and the house chores. I cook but he cleans. Our careers are our own but we value each others thoughts and opinions and I don’t ever make a decision about mine without carefully weighing how it would affect him and our marriage and he is the same way.

I think that our submission is completely mutual. We trust each other 100% and there is only one area where I have had to work at being submissive, I am fiercly independent and I would dive head first into anything that I feel that least bit passionate about…he is more cautious. Sometimes I am so sure about an idea and I get frustrated when he says “I am not comfortable with that idea or wait”. After 7 years I see the wisdom in getting his opinion and honoring his thoughts but the first few years it was a struggle to go against my natural inclination. Even though I am actually the one submitting I look at it more as God brought us together to balance each other. DH has his areas where I am the balance for him.
on July 3, 2008 at 9:48 am RichardD

I think that our submission is completely mutual.

I like that, Jean. I think you’ve hit on something that should exist in all marriages.

Regarding your differences (diving headlong or patiently waiting) – this is the part of complementarianism that I fully believe in. Husbands and wives complement each other and the sum is greater than the whole. It’s wonderful to see how couples who have this down are more able to impact those around them as each takes the lead in the areas they are gifted in and the one who is less gifted in that area submits to the other.

I know that’s not what you were referring to in this case, but your comment made me think of that.
on July 3, 2008 at 10:03 am Becky

I don’t think there is submission in our home really. We discuss things together and sometimes we go with my decision and other times we go with his decision. In the end, we base our decisions on what makes the most sense. It’s all about communication and talking things through.

I’m married to man who really has a hard time making decisions anyway, so he relys on me to sort things out for him.

The key thing here is that we work together. When he does make a decision on something, it’s not just because he’s the man and he wants it that way, it’s because we both talked things through and decided that his way really is the best way.

As far as household things go, I’m in charge of cleaning because I’m a freak and I love to clean and he hates it, so it works out that way. We both enjoy cooking and some of our best times together are when we are both in the kitchen just hanging out and goofing off.
on July 3, 2008 at 10:31 am CalamityJean

“Regarding your differences (diving headlong or patiently waiting) – this is the part of complementarianism that I fully believe in. Husbands and wives complement each other and the sum is greater than the whole. I’s wonderful to see how couples who have this down are more able to impact those around them as each takes the lead in the areas they are gifted in and the one who is less gifted in that area submits to the other. ”

I love your above thought, Richard. If we really think about it, as Christians isn’t it all about our impact on the world? If our marriage isn’t reflecting Christ and pointing others towards him then we are doing something wrong. It shouldn’t matter, who works or who stays home as long we show Christ through our marriage. I think it takes allot of maturity and wisdom to look at ourselves and admit that if don’t submit to our spouse in a certain area it might actually hinder us for showing Christ to others.
on July 3, 2008 at 12:10 pm terry

I actually wrote a post answering this very question in response to my egalitarian blogging buddy. Here’s the link, if interested:

http://terrysoapbox.blogspot.com/2008/04/but-what-does-it-look-like.html
on July 4, 2008 at 4:06 pm Amy Brigham

Reading everybody’s replies has been very interesting to me. )

We are complementarians but due to our personalities and the fact that we are a military family, in our family, submission looks very…umm egalitarian. ;o) We’re both very trusting of the other and want most to encourage each other in the ways of the Lord and the places in life He has placed us in. I’ve found learning to be humble, acknowledge my flaws and shortcomings, while forgiving my husband’s to be the most important part of submission in my marriage. Before I was blessed with the patience and maturity to do so, I was a terribly nagging wife and not at all somebody you would want to be married to. Think “But you loaded the dishwasher all wrong!!!” rather than “thank you for doing the dishes!” (

My husband is the more calm, rational thinker and decision maker, especially when under pressure, so many of the most difficult, important decisions fall on his shoulders (at least when he is home), though he does always ask my input and holds my thoughts in high regard. Most of our parenting decisions thus far are ideas he introduced me to at first. My husband’s family is from Korea and all the children were raised in an “attachment parenting” type way. Even breastfeeding was foreign to me at the time. I was really put off by these ideas at first, but decided to go with him on this, and what do you know, his thoughts have produced a happy, calm home and were especially important as our daughter was a preemie and would have needed “kangaroo care” anyway.

With decisions involving anything related to our household or most of the mundane day to day decisions, I am the one who pretty much has control over that. My husband might say he would like lasagna for dinner next week or would prefer the new bedroom decor have some purple in it, but he’s not really too picky about such matters.

When it comes to more “gender role-y” type issues, we don’t really follow the traditional gender roles all that much, unless you count breastfeeding & childbirth. ;o) Neither my husband or myself hesitate to roll up our sleeves and do whatever housework is necessary, though I do handle most of the cooking & the laundry, as neither of us are big fans of the same three meals repeating or smelly cloth diapers. He took two weeks leave when our daughter was born (I didn’t even change a diaper until he went back to work!) and is a very active & involved father. When we (God willing) homeschool in the future, he plans to do the teaching for the subjects are either no my “thing” or not my strong suit–oddly everything I dislike, he loves. Both of us handle the finances and have equal choice over where the money might go, except when he is deployed and then it’s all mine to handle, along with pretty much *everything* else in life, but at least I get cool weather and a cushy bed to do it all in.