He Wants to be Needed: Manipulation 101

[dairyfreelife]

aproverbs31wife.com/he-wants-to-be-needed/

Damsel in distress works well in most cases. If there is a project I want done and he is taking his sweet time at it, I will often start it and “mess upâ€, then call him and say I think I did this wrong. After I tell him what I did, and listen to him tell me how I did it wrong. He will then inform me not to touch it until he gets home. Once he gets home, he then gets to “show off†how smart he is, I smile, nod and watch another project finally get finished!

If you are really sick, he will often fall over himself to be your hero, but I don’t recommend getting sick.

Even though he will do his best to make you personally comfortable, he will not understand that dishes in the sink and piles of laundry are not nice to have to catch up on.

:roll:

[Three and Done]

aproverbs31wife.com/he-wants-to-be-needed/

:roll:

Gee, why not learn how to do it YOURSELF?! What a concept, I know...

[Deleted07]

:x URGH!!!

Cannot stand this BS!

and seriously, if your woman was doing this, wouldn't it make you feel like a fucking child? Doesn't seem at all manly to me! Sounds like something you do to children/Toddlers to get them to do what you need them to!

Definitely not how you treat an adult. FFS!!!

Why not just say HEY I need the _____ fixed by the end of the weekend! If its not done, on Monday I'm paying someone to do it!

:doh:

[ILoveJellybeans]

Ugh, she sounds needy and manipulative, and is probably one of those really clingy people who wants to be around you all of the time.

Men dont want that.

Okay, I love the idea of looking after people I love sometimes as I am the kind of person who doesnt like seeing people unhappy, especially people I love, and I also like being looked after.....but I dont think I could ever date someone who was like an extra child, or someone or acted helpless so I would love them.

[sparkles]

Gee, in our case Mr. Sparkles is kind of...um, not a handy guy. In fact, he's seriously inept when it comes to Handy Guy stuff, downright dangerous in fact, to which several trips to the ER will attest. I'm the handy one in our family and Mr. Sparkles has pretty much accepted this, although he does try (which, at this point, he shouldn't).

So what am I supposed to do? Pretend that this reality doesn't exist? Let him hurt himself? Let the job be done incorrectly?

So many of these supposedly meek and quiet helpmeets really do seem to be manipulative bitches once you scratch the surface, don't they?

[Maggie Mae]

WTF.

She put "mess up" in quotes, so I read that like she purposefully did something wrong. I honestly can't think of anything right now that I've asked my man to do that I couldn't just do, or a way to deliberately sabotage whatever it is he was doing. But let's say, for example, that I had a leaking pipe in my house. I ask my boyfriend to please fix it. He probably would, because leaking water is bad. But let's just say that he put a bucket under the leak and left it for a couple of weeks, in the meantime I have to empty it every day. So i decide to just fix it. I would probably look it up on the internet and then go to Lowes armed with pictures, buy the sealant or whatever it needs, and then go home and fix it. I wouldn't take it apart and then expect him to sort out the pieces of what goes where. That's just rude.

[Hane]

This kind of crap is straight out of Fascinating Womanhood, which was written in 1965 by a Mormon woman and peaked a few years later as an "antidote" to "woman's lib" (a term that makes my gorge rise). I bought it and read it in rapt horror during my early feminist days, then discarded it in disgust.

[nokidsmom]

This kind of crap is straight out of Fascinating Womanhood, which was written in 1965 by a Mormon woman and peaked a few years later as an "antidote" to "woman's lib" (a term that makes my gorge rise). I bought it and read it in rapt horror during my early feminist days, then discarded it in disgust.

Wasn't there some other book like "Total Woman" or something? It was in the 70's I think. It was all about catering to your man, wearing sexy outfits, etc. Never read it but even as a teenager back then, I knew I was never going to do that!

[gardenvarietycitizen]

WTF.

She put "mess up" in quotes, so I read that like she purposefully did something wrong. I honestly can't think of anything right now that I've asked my man to do that I couldn't just do, or a way to deliberately sabotage whatever it is he was doing. But let's say, for example, that I had a leaking pipe in my house. I ask my boyfriend to please fix it. He probably would, because leaking water is bad. But let's just say that he put a bucket under the leak and left it for a couple of weeks, in the meantime I have to empty it every day. So i decide to just fix it. I would probably look it up on the internet and then go to Lowes armed with pictures, buy the sealant or whatever it needs, and then go home and fix it. I wouldn't take it apart and then expect him to sort out the pieces of what goes where. That's just rude.

Sounds to me like she knows he will be mad (or pouty more like) if she just does the job herself (which I suspect she can do, because of the "mess up" in quotes yeah). So he doesn't want her to "usurp his role" by doing the job, and yet at the same time he isn't getting off his ass and doing the job himself, so she resorts to manipulation.

All kinds of unhealthy, there.

This entire nonsense of "we mustn't show up teh menz, we must let them feel ~needed~ so they won't run off with other women and abandon the family as is their wont" is just gross. Just another version of the "traditional" sexual bargain.

[browngrl]

Or how about this: have a reasonable adult conversation on what house maintenance needs to be done. Simple and it works.

[JeanneD]

What is up with this need to play games? Is it because no one values maturity? I'm pretty sure anyone trying this tactic on me would not raise my self-esteem or lead to any improvement in our relationship. It would just make me mad. This reminds me of all the 'men' who 'can't figure out' how to work basic household appliances. Be a freakin' grown up !

[Kaylee]

This kind of crap is straight out of Fascinating Womanhood, which was written in 1965 by a Mormon woman and peaked a few years later as an "antidote" to "woman's lib" (a term that makes my gorge rise). I bought it and read it in rapt horror during my early feminist days, then discarded it in disgust.

Yep, was just about to say this. Earlier editions of FW (up until the reprint in 2007) actually included the "advice" to get him to fix things and do household repairs and "manly" chores by purposely screwing them up. I think the example giving was installing a fan motor backwards or something like that. I remember reading that and thinking no way.

In my fundy-er days, I was an FW teacher, and I finally gave it up because it became more and more clear to me that it didn't work and was more about manipulating your man to get what you want by encouraging him to treat you like a child or incompetent than about anything resembling a normal or healthy relationship. It also just plain doesn't work for most women. I ran into a friend the other day who was asking if I still taught the classes, because she had taken one online and it wasn't working for her because her husband didn't want her to be that kind of woman. Now, she's a QF SAHM, very Christian, follows Candy and many of the Titus 2 bloggers and follows those things in a way that would put them to shame, and yet it still doesn't work because he wants a woman who has opinions and thoughts of her own and can handle herself. I told her that it seemed like it didn't work for most people and that wasn't her fault, but I didn't know what else to say other than to encourage her to be more like the woman she was when he fell in love with her (much more independent and self-reliant, for one) instead of trying to fit someone else's mold.

Also, the book wasn't even really written by Andelin. Most of it was ripped off from an anonymous set of pamphlets published in 1913 to teach single women how to "catch" a husband. Even back then, I think most men expected the woman to drop the girlish damsel stuff and get her shit together once she was responsible for running a household.

[Kaylee]

Wasn't there some other book like "Total Woman" or something? It was in the 70's I think. It was all about catering to your man, wearing sexy outfits, etc. Never read it but even as a teenager back then, I knew I was never going to do that!

Yep, Maribel Morgan. She wrote 4 or 5 books, including a cookbook, all along the same line. I read it around 2001 or so, when I was dating my husband and burning my way through all sorts of fundie-recommended marriage books. Good advice in some areas if you're a fundie girl and uptight about sex (although, no, I never did the "meet him at the door wearing nothing but saran wrap" thing), bad advice as far as the relationship parts.

[2xx1xy1JD]

aproverbs31wife.com/he-wants-to-be-needed/

:roll:

Ok, more proof that I'm a dude and hubby is a woman. I swear we go through this scenario - with roles reversed. The difference is that I don't think that it's always intentional manipulation on his part. He's just a Type A personality with no visual-spatial skills (in plain English - he can't stand seeing dirty dishes around while I'm fine with it, but he can't figure out how to load a dishwasher without breaking the machine and/or the dishes). I do admit to some bragging any time that I put together an "assembly required" item.

[Talitha Cumi]

This kind of crap is straight out of Fascinating Womanhood, which was written in 1965 by a Mormon woman and peaked a few years later as an "antidote" to "woman's lib" (a term that makes my gorge rise). I bought it and read it in rapt horror during my early feminist days, then discarded it in disgust.

Hah, I was just going to say that! "Oh, honey, I didn't realize I was installing it upside down! Gosh, I'm so silly! Good thing you're a manly man and can do it right!" *bats eyelashes*

[Sola]

You're married aren't you Raine? When you were teaching FW, did you do that sort of thing?

[Kaylee]

You're married aren't you Raine? When you were teaching FW, did you do that sort of thing?

Yes, I'm married and was married while I was teaching FW.

I didn't do the manipulation thing, or at least not when I realized I was doing it. I'd tried it once while we were dating and it didn't work out too well (he had told me he felt like I was so independent I didn't need him and he wanted to feel like he could "rescue" me - I had a flat tire a few days after that and called him to help me. I got dinner out of the deal, he felt needed, then he showed up a few days to surprise me and I was at a friend's house adjusting the transmission bands on my car. Obviously, if I could do that, I could handle a flat tire. He was sort of disappointed and was like, well damn, just tell me you can do something next time. It worked out well though- we've had some good times working on cars together, and I handle most of our vehicle maintenance because he hates working on cars unless it's for a project.

The manipulation angle is one thing that really grated on me with FW and that was one of the main reasons I gave up teaching the classes. It's also what made me feel like CTBHH was a halfway useful book - Debi Pearl does at least teach that it's OK for a woman to have "masculine" hobbies and that we should use our skills and talents to help our husbands and ourselves, not act like we're stupid or incompetent to build up their ego. (This is not an endorsement though, because the bad far outweighs the good in that book too, and I was not aware of their "parenting" teaches and practices at that time).

[YPestis]

It seems fundie women are the ones infantilizing men, not the secular feminists. If the man is too slow at a project, you tell him. I get the impression the fundie blogger also thought this would make her husband feel "manly" because he "saved" his wife from a horrible mess. I see it as treating him like a child. If he's such a great leader, then it's there shouldn't be a need to fake helplessness. After all, we don't have privates messing things up so their commanders will feel better about having to clean it up, right? In fact, would anyone take a leader seriously if they felt so insecure that their subordinates have to contrive situations to make them feel more like a leader? I *may* expect a fundie mom to do this to raise "manly" boys (or whatever), but shouldn't a fundie wife expect their headship to act like leaders of the house?

[synchroswimr]

FW is so manipulative. I was in one of Candy's "discussion" groups for a while and they were all praising it. I mentioned that I thought FW was manipulative, and immediately got jumped on.

[jenny_islander]

Oh, yes. You know how lots of fundies idolize (yes I meant that word) the rosy advertising-filtered version of the Victorian past? Check out Google Books, archive.org, Project Gutenberg, the HEARTH Project . . . I'm sure I left some out. All of these collections include full versions of Victorian household manuals, which were of course written for women. The ones written by men are mostly about food. The ones written by women go into the huge list of things that the Man of the House didn't even think about when he kindly wrote his guidebooks for the little woman, because they were all handled before he came home at the end of the day to do his duty as Paterfamilias. The Angel of the House expected, and was expected, to handle all of the details of running the household on her own, sometimes right down to inspecting the foundations of a prospective new home before advising her wedded lord on whether or not to buy it.

[rock_girl]

If fundie kids behaved like fundie wives are advised to behave they'd be 'corrected' with physical punishment. So I guess manipulation of an authority figure is bad until you're married, and then it's ok.

[congusto]

If fundie kids behaved like fundie wives are advised to behave they'd be 'corrected' with physical punishment. So I guess manipulation of an authority figure is bad until you're married, and then it's ok.

That's one of the many things I don't get about this movement - every day of your life has to be lived like it's Opposite Day. Trivialise the important, exaggerate the importance of the trivial, and never, ever, ever be yourself. Not for one moment. Arrrrgh.

ETA - I am not implying that God, to those who believe, is in any way trivial. I get that God is in the details, I just don't think He/She gives as much of a shit about them as some think.

[Phoenix]

Oh, yes. You know how lots of fundies idolize (yes I meant that word) the rosy advertising-filtered version of the Victorian past? Check out Google Books, archive.org, Project Gutenberg, the HEARTH Project . . . I'm sure I left some out. All of these collections include full versions of Victorian household manuals, which were of course written for women. The ones written by men are mostly about food. The ones written by women go into the huge list of things that the Man of the House didn't even think about when he kindly wrote his guidebooks for the little woman, because they were all handled before he came home at the end of the day to do his duty as Paterfamilias. The Angel of the House expected, and was expected, to handle all of the details of running the household on her own, sometimes right down to inspecting the foundations of a prospective new home before advising her wedded lord on whether or not to buy it.

I didn't know fundies idolized an idealized version of the Victorian past. Consequently I guess Anne Perry's Charlotte &Thomas Pitt and Hester & William Monk series are not popular reading in fundie circles?