What Would Your Other Half (or halves) Do If You Submitted?

[keen23]

My husband told me "OK, as the man in charge, I demand that you continue to make all the decisions that you used to make without me."

[SquirrelySquirrel]

Like some others, I think he'd like it for a day or two. I can be too outspoken and pushy at times. :oops: It's something I really try to work on. But at the same time, I have to be for certain things to get done! But then he'd hate it because he married a real, live person with a real, live personality, not a doormat.

[paganhomeschooler]

Oh, mine would love it! He was raised to believe the world is like Leave it to fuckin' Beaver. FIL is infinitely pleased I no longer work on Sundays. Still grumpy that I work and hates the fact my hair and oldest DD's is short. Obsessively pleased that DD#2 has waist length, GORGEOUS, naturally curly hair.

I think my husband might just appreciate all I do that he doesn't have to bother with, though. Like the taxes he's been hounding me to do for 2 months. Because, you know, he can't follow the directions on Tax Cut his own damn self and type in a couple of numbers.

So, yeah, he would love a submissive helpmeet. At least in theory.

[YPestis]

My hubby would be weirded out. He doesn't like me to just agree with him. There has been times when I don't want to make a decision and tell him to make it and he gets annoyed at me. Hubby is just not used to me not talking back to him! He once said he married me because I was a smart, strong woman and he liked that. I am very opinionated and I don't like to back down from disagreements. Hubby knows this is part of my DNA. If I were to start deferring to him, or stopped arguing with him, he'd take it as a sign that something was seriously bothering me.

[HereticHick]

Meda is spot on. My husband would hate it and not think it amusing at all.

No offense to those among us who cover their heads, but when we've visited mosques and Islamic holy places, he's refused to take pictures of me with my headscarf, because he hates the symbolism of it.

His father was a lazy drunken SOB, and his mother ran the house AND maintained the vehicles AND mowed the lawn AND fixed the plumbing AND was basically her husband's research assistant/secretary/enabler. It had quite an effect on him.

[Savoring Samsara]

My husband told me "OK, as the man in charge, I demand that you continue to make all the decisions that you used to make without me."

I think that my husband would ultimately do something very similar to this. I don't think he'd mind it if I did all the house cleaning and stopped asking him to pitch in on that (I do most of it now anyway, since my "noticing dirty stuff" sensors are calibrated notably higher than his!), but he would totally hate the fundamentalist patriarch role. For starters, he prefers to be much more involved with the child-rearing process than the stereotypical fundie dad who is mainly a disciplinarian. And being the sole breadwinner is NOT for him at all. Even being the only one working and bringing in money for just half of my three-month maternity leave was almost more stress than he could handle.

[Oddeverything]

My husband would tell me he married a woman, not a child, and to cut it out. He doesn't want someone who cannot make decisions or act without him controlling the details. If I decided to act like a submissive fundie, it would make him feel like I was a child and no decent man wants to marry a child, sleep with a child or build a life with a child.

[Phoebe]

My husband would blow a gasket, because that means that he'd have to get a fucking job. Oh, we'd be homeless, no doubt about it.

(His employment record has never been stellar, but the past year has really taken the cake. I'm the primary breadwinner on 20 hours a week as a work-study student.)

I would probably self-medicate into oblivion from sheer boredom.

[Shirley MacLaine]

I think I could benefit from submitting to someone for a short time; if I had no choice but to obey my boyfriend, he would make me clean my house and be less of a grungy mess in general. I think in the short-term it would be good for me to be 'forced' to take better care of myself (although I should probably just get back into therapy :P). Long-term, he'd get annoyed and pissed with me, I'd get angry and resentful, relationship would eventually implode.

[snackle]

He'd be pissed. He's been trying to become the submissive wife most of our marriage. Seriously, he's all "why can't you take over 100% of the finances?" That is a role that would end in disaster for me as I'm rather absent minded and only pay bills on time because they're automatic. He'd be happy if it meant I'd clean everything without bitching, though.

He'd be upset if I didn't engage in the rip roaring debates we have. A huge part of our relationship is based on us being intellectual equals. We've had long, emotional debates about the semantics of the scientific method.

I don't even think he'd welcome it in the bedroom. Although, if it meant I never said no, he'd enjoy it for, like, a minute, before he wished I was an active participant again.

In short, it would be disastrous.

[Peas n carrots]

I think he would laugh...and laugh and laugh. Also we would be on "gubberment assistance" since I make significantly more than he does.

However, I think he would prefer I was a better housekeeper, but I don't think being a better housekeeper means you have to be submissive!

[Sunnichick31]

Depends on the subject. He'd LOVE it if I would learn how to cook more food from his own country without complaining (I can't stand food from his country. It's disgusting. I wouldn't even feed it to a cockroach. I whine like a baby when I make it or when he makes it.)

But on the other hand, if I stopped nagging him so much, he would lose everything. His head is always in the clouds thinking about one business thing or another. Because of this, he can never keep track of anything. Sometimes cute, sometimes annoying. :lol:

[freedomjesusfootball]

My husband would be evicted for not paying the rent, have his phone cut off, and live on ramen and beer. I think we have a pretty egalitarian marriage but I am the bill-payer and the practical one. He is very much a dreamer/ inventor. And nothing would be decided upon, ever.

[treehugger]

Oh, God, we would never get anything done again. He is almost pathologically easygoing. We actually had a fight when we were dating in which I screamed "HAVE A DAMN OPINION ABOUT SOMETHING FOR ONCE". He'd be totally content with me making all the decisions about our life.

I don't think he'd like it, either, though I'm not sure since it's never even been on the radar. His family, though not religious, are quite old-school about their male-female relationships. His mother did everything for his dad and his sisters now do everything for their husbands. He was actually rather tickled when I kept my maiden name, and was very proud when I got my doctorate. Nobody in his background does either of those things and he likes standing out a bit.

I think our husbands are clones of each other, or something :lol: To the bolded, I have told DH the exact same thing - using almost the same words! Seriously, while we would probably be loaded with cash (hubby is a work-a-holic to the extreme) - we would never see each other, and I would start doing crazy stuff just to amuse myself.

[Claddagh]

I'm currently single but Dad and Brother Claddagh wouldn't like it. I imagine it would go something like this...

Dad: "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Brother Claddagh: "Snap out of it, Sis!"

[Shirley MacLaine]

My husband would be evicted for not paying the rent, have his phone cut off, and live on ramen and beer. I think we have a pretty egalitarian marriage but I am the bill-payer and the practical one. He is very much a dreamer/ inventor. And nothing would be decided upon, ever.

Ah, you have a Visionary man. Truly you are blessed!

(I can't remember what the other VF man-archetypes are supposed to be... does anyone know what I'm talking about? google isn't helping)

[crazyforkate]

Probably think it was a weird sex thing!

[meda]

Ah, you have a Visionary man. Truly you are blessed!

(I can't remember what the other VF man-archetypes are supposed to be... does anyone know what I'm talking about? google isn't helping)

That's actually Debbie Pearl's classification from Created to Be His Helpmeet

Command man

Visionary man

Steady man

[wildrose]

My husband would love it! His mother never disagreed with his father and he is still hoping and praying that I will miraculously become just like his mother. I should have turned tail and ran when he proudly said during one of our first dates that his parents had never argued. But I was young and foolish. Now, forty years later, there is a lot of arguing in our relationship because I am not submissive and actually have opinions of my own which I express loudly and forcefully, much to his constant dismay.

His family is not fundy, but his parents converted to the Catholic faith and became even more fervently Catholic than "born" Catholics. Add to my lack of submission the fact that I am an atheist and sometimes I wonder what we were thinking when we got married.

[mockingbird]

I'm currently single, but I have a friend who got out of an abusive marriage. The tipping point for her was when she had to take a medication that made her very complacent as a side effect (i.e. agreeing with everyone), and her husband at the time asked her why she didn't act like that all the time. That comment made her realize how bad it was and that she needed to get out. Now, she is one of the most outspoken women I know.

I think my parents would be similar to a lot of you, my mom works part-time now and was a SAHM, but she does all the scheduling/bills/detail things. My dad also gets stressed/frustrated easily. I have to admit it would be kind-of a funny trainwreck for awhile but their household would totally fall apart.

I live alone so I don't have anyone to submit to... what do I do with my life? :(

[jenny_islander]

According to some, you should move back in with your father and submit to him. If he isn't alive, your oldest brother gets the job--even if you were the firstborn child.

I had somebody tell me that when I was feeling scared in my first apartment, I should have made my brother with the exhausting chronic disease take me in and tell me what to do. Or my brother who was getting ready for early retirement and mission work with violent criminals. Or my youngest brother, the hippie and con man. All of whom live hundreds of miles away from my home, BTW. :roll:

There was no concrete cause for my fear, so instead of whimpering and hiding in somebody's trouser cuffs, I got a hammer and a cordless phone and kept them both under my pillow. Eventually the fear went away. Problem solved.

[RosyDaisy]

I'm not married, but I asked my SO:

Me: How would feel if I were submissive?

Him: Huh?

Me: As in I bow down to your "authority".

Him: (with a naughty grin on his face) Baby, I had no idea you were into the kinky stuff.

Me: I didn't mean that, I mean as in you make all of the decisions.

Him: That's your cat's job, not mine.

[cjsmom]

I would have to set up each and every bill for direct debit, as there's no way he'd pay them on time. From our fiscally broke years, I still like to manually pay bills lol. I already do the cooking, so that's taken care of. I think the biggest impact that submission would have is that it's my intelligence and creativity that drew him to me in those initial throes of attraction (He says - I think it's because I was dayum hawt at the age of 20 when we met). Submission would remove those from me - there's only so much sahm-ing I could do before my spirit was broken, and at that point, that's where it would really have an impact upon him.

However, there is one certain aspect of submission that could be an awful lot of fun...

[Talitha Cumi]

My husband would blow a gasket, because that means that he'd have to get a fucking job. Oh, we'd be homeless, no doubt about it.

(His employment record has never been stellar, but the past year has really taken the cake. I'm the primary breadwinner on 20 hours a week as a work-study student.)

I would probably self-medicate into oblivion from sheer boredom.

My husband just got a full-time job after being either unemployed or seasonally employed for seven years. For a while I was supporting us by working 2 part-time jobs for a total of 30 hours a week. I feel your pain.

[BoomerLynn]

Mine would maybe like it for about a day (Once the crippling laughter subsided-he knows I'm far from the "submissive" type). By dinner time he would be annoyed as hell. As it is our conversations about what to have for dinner go something like this:

Me: "Do you want dinner at home or do you want to eat out?"

Him: "Well what do you want?"

Me: " How about out? What sounds good to you?"

Him: "What sounds good to you?"

Me: "I don't care. You pick."

Him: "No you pick."

It goes back and forth like this for several minutes and then I usually pick something because I can't stand it anymore and it's either choose or scream at him to make a damn decision already. Mostly though, I think he would just laugh and ask what the fuck was wrong with me.