When wife and husband disagree...

[dairyfreelife]

Ladies, the best response is to be quiet, trust the Lord, and let our husbands lead

That's right, wives. Shut up and deal whether you agree or not.

It always amazes me that somehow our kids just know inside that

Dad is supposed to lead and when the roles get flipped

upside down, they rebel. Yes, just as a woman rebels against

her husband's authority, our children will follow right along in our

footsteps and do the same--they mimic our behavior. Scary, huh?

Just a radical idea came into my mind, but you could maybe talk to each other and try to compromise and still have a united front? Just a thought.

Forgot the link:

walkingwithsarah.com/2013/04/parenting-when-you-and-hubby-dont-agree.html

[debrand]

In nearly 25 years of marriage, I've never been in a situation where my husband and I couldn't just talk through our problems.

Let's role play: Your daughter just walked out of the bedroom,dressed for church, in a outfit you think is inappropriate. You advise her to ask her dad and he assures her it is fine.

Well, this is just crappy parenting. If I don't think that my children's clothing is fine, I tell them so. I don't passively aggressively send them to their father so that he can make the ultimate decision. That isn't fair to him because it places him in the role of eternal bad guy.

Your son just asked to go to a party and you told him yes even though your husband feels it is best he stay home and study,

rather than hanging out with friends that are a bad influence. You feel your hubby is judgmental and unfair; you even take the time to reassure your son that you understand him and dad will "come around."

I can't imagine interpreting my husband's action as judgmental but if I disagree, I will take my husband aside and discuss the matter with him.

[dawbs]

FFS.

Lets just explore her role-playing:

Your daughter just walked out of the bedroom,

dressed for church, in a outfit you think is inappropriate. You advise

her to ask her dad and he assures her it is fine. You declare she

is not leaving the house like that and you refuse to go to church.

Lets see, if what my daughter was wearing was inappropriate, I wouldn't tell her to ask her dad. If I was going to forbid her to wear it, I would do it w/o involving daddy!

Your son just asked to go to a party and you told him yes even though

your husband feels it is best he stay home and study,

rather than hanging out with friends that are a bad influence.

You feel your hubby is judgmental and unfair; you even take the time to

reassure your son that you understand him and dad will "come around."

Uh...I wouldn't tell my kid 'yes' w/o talkign to Mr. Dawbs.

And it might be a 'coin flip' who won.

(growing up, the 'strictest' choice always won. Whee, that was fun :evil-eye: )

We get into trouble when we take matters

into our own hands and think we have to control the situation.

No, we get in trouble when we act like petulant children instead of adults in adult relationships.

[precious_one]

Almost 30 years here and we have always be able to talk through any problem. Also, when it comes to our kids we have always been a united front. Only a hand full of times have we disagree on anything with the kids. But we had our discussions privately then came to a decision.

If my husband told me NOT to do something I would do it just because I CAN!! No headship here but me!! :lol:

[Claddagh]

Let's role play: Your daughter just walked out of the bedroom,dressed for church, in a outfit you think is inappropriate. You advise her to ask her dad and he assures her it is fine.

My aunt once ran into a situation like that with my cousin. My aunt looked at her and said "You're over-sexualized! You need to pull up your pants and put on more clothes!" That was the end of it.

When Brother Claddagh and I were kids it was fairly simple dress code wise. Our parents confessed that they sometimes questioned our fashion choices but never had to go to the spouse questioning if this or that was "acceptable."

[kpmom]

21 years of marriage here and I also don't recall not being able to talk (talk, not scream) our way through a disagreement. Sometimes we would compromise, sometimes one would end up agreeing with the other after talking it through.

I think it's good for kids to see their parents disagree and talk things out, calmly and respectfully.

Always stuffing your feelings and opinions is not healthy. It's going to come out in not so healthy ways.

[Closed Womb]

My now departed mother-in-law took this route in dealing with her husband; it was what was done back in the day, especially when the family of origin did not believe in divorce/would not support divorced, grown children (she tried to leave him once but her mother stopped her.) The father was harsh. Not abusive by 1940's, 1950's standards, but definitely abusive by today's standards. I understand that she was stuck; if she spoke to an authority, s/he would have said, "well, that's just parenting". But Mr. Womb and I often wonder how some of the kids would have turned out if mom thought she had the right to speak up.

Oh, and father in law? He was a fucking asshole until the day he died. The LORD did nothing to change that, no matter how much my MIL deferred in Christian love and obedience.

This narrative -- men lead, women (quietly) follow -- makes me sick.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Let's role play: Your daughter just walked out of the bedroom,

dressed for church, in a outfit you think is inappropriate. You advise

her to ask her dad and he assures her it is fine. You declare she

is not leaving the house like that and you refuse to go to church.

Your son just asked to go to a party and you told him yes even though

your husband feels it is best he stay home and study,

rather than hanging out with friends that are a bad influence.

You feel your hubby is judgmental and unfair; you even take the time to

reassure your son that you understand him and dad will "come around."

I think the problem here is not that the man should always be in charge and the woman should be submissive and let him win or it will make his penis fall off or something, but that parents should listen to eachother and be united in their decisions in parenting and not argue or contradict eachother in front of the kids.

Also keep it to asking one adult, one time. If she had told her daughter to go and change before she went to her dad, they wouldnt be in this trouble. Kids pick up on this sort of thing, and will soon learn to go keep on asking til one of their parents says yes.

It always amazes me that somehow our kids just know inside that

Dad is supposed to lead and when the roles get flipped

upside down, they rebel. Yes, just as a woman rebels against

her husband's authority, our children will follow right along in our

footsteps and do the same--they mimic our behavior. Scary, huh?

Nope, all that you need is for the parents to work together. If they can obviously see that their parents are divided on it and contradict eachother and arent listening to eachother, theyre going to act out. They have no idea what theyre supposed to do and are confused when dad says something is ok and mom says its not. If they see their parents argue, theyre going to start being more argumentative because thats the behaviour thats being modelled. Doesnt matter whether mom makes the decisions or dad, or which parent was the one who contradicted the others decisions or started the argument, mom and dad arguing isnt good for kids.

[Cannelle]

There are so many problems with this.

Even in non-fundy-but-still-patriarchal society, whenever anything goes wrong, people blame the mother. "What is wrong with his/her mother?" I've heard that SO many times in my life. So women are screwed either way. Make the decisions yourself, you're an overbearing hussy who doesn't know her place. Let your husband make the decision and it's a wrong decision, it still comes back on you. So there's no winning for women here.

Dh and I disagreed on ds's math homework a week ago. Turned out I was right and he eventually saw that, but I guess I should've just shut the fuck up and let my kid get it wrong. Bad grades because Dad needs to be right more than you need to succeed, kiddo!

[HeckBound]

So, if you think your kid is dressed in appropriately, and Dad disagrees...Dad gets to decide?

If you can't get your kids to behave and your husband can, all that proves is that you're a weak parent who doesn't command your children's respect. God has nothing to do with it.

[ILoveJellybeans]

So, if you think your kid is dressed in appropriately, and Dad disagrees...Dad gets to decide?

If you can't get your kids to behave and your husband can, all that proves is that you're a weak parent who doesn't command your children's respect. God has nothing to do with it.

That is so true. I read on a fundie blog Q&A post (possibly Kim, she does regular ones) about someone who didnt know what to do because her kid only behaved when dad was home (presumably because he was the only one allowed to be in charge)....she said that when her kids only behave for dad, she gets dad to come home from work, spank the kid and go back to work. That makes no sense unless you want to be poor because dad got fired for leaving work during the day.

Cant these fundie women start taking control of themselves and stop being so weak? The problem here isnt that women arent supposed to be in charge, but that these women let their kids see that they are weak and dad is the only one who is worth listening to, and learn not to listen to mom.

[RosyDaisy]

My parents for the most part never disagreed about parenting and correction. I don't think Daddy would have been too thrilled to be called at work to correct my sister and I when we needed it.

[AnywhereButHere]

Jeez - In the maybe 1% of the time we didn't listen to my mom, we got the time honored "Just wait till your father gets home!" There wasn't any calling him home early. She was perfectly capable of taking care of business.

What could those kids be doing that is so out of control that she needs her husband to come home in the middle of the day for?

[LynnJ0516]

Call me crazy, but isn't there a commandment that says "Honor thy Father AND thy Mother" (notice BOTH parents are listed). I don't remember anything being in the bible where a Mother cannot make simple decisions (i.e. "you need to change your clothing, that skirts too short.") when raising her child and instead needs to be micromanaged by her husband. Where do they get these things from? Don't they read their own book? :roll:

[Burris]

A wife could easily run into a situation where she has to make decisions on behalf of an incapacitated husband, whether the period of incapacitation be long or brief. If she's such an emotional cripple that she can't handle her own kids, then she likely won't be able to handle anyone or anything else.

These women who spend so much of their time preaching about submissiveness - preaching it and buying books about it and going to conferences about it - seem to dislike what they believe is their lot in life. It's interesting to note just what a struggle most of them claim to have: They would rather gut themselves emotionally than ever dare to disagree with their husbands – the people who presumably know them best and assume the best about them.

I don't think having daily arguments is healthy in a marriage. It probably means at least one partner sucks at communication, or is so invested in being right that "losing" an argument is not an option. But never arguing – that might actually be worse, because this false peace likely comes of never being entirely honest with one’s spouse.

Winning an argument is almost never as important as marital unity, and so it’s better to defer if one’s spouse feels strongly on an issue where compromise is unworkable, but there are some very occasional times when even these women will have to make decisions that bring them into direct conflict with their husbands. It happens on both sides of the marriage. If partners can’t work these things out in the end, and move on, then the hopefully permanent arrangement of marriage could be contaminated forever by rancor that stems from a temporary situation.

[Syd+Marky]

My husband would not appreciate me sending my daughter to him for a clothing inspection.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Presenting a united front is just not that hard.

Kid: Can I go to Joe's party?

Parent: Give me the details, and let me check the calendar and discuss it with Other Parent.

[infooverload]

This seems like a strange concept to me since my mother was always the one to discipline us kids. We were definately more scared of her than my dad. Even with my own child he knows I am more likely to follow through with discipline, than his dad since his dad's personality doesn't lend itself easily to disciplining someone.

[2xx1xy1JD]

This seems like a strange concept to me since my mother was always the one to discipline us kids. We were definately more scared of her than my dad. Even with my own child he knows I am more likely to follow through with discipline, than his dad since his dad's personality doesn't lend itself easily to disciplining someone.

Exactly. My kids know that hubby may have more bluster, but I'm the one who tends to be stricter in the end and follow through.

Logically, why would you have an ideology that says that women are responsible for the home and kids - and then teach that it's the men who make the decisions about the kids?

[Jinger Jar]

Yet another fundie who thinks all families should fit into the same mold.

What about families where dad is frequently away? My husband's job keeps him on the road about three weeks out of every month. Am I supposed to keep a catalog of misbehavior for weeks until dad gets back? Aside from that being just awful parenting, my husband would well and truly resent having to do all the disciplining while he was home, especially for stuff he wasn't around for.

[infooverload]

I think it just boils down to all of us reading this are approaching it with our common sense filters on. Where these people are approaching parenting with a distorted biblical worldview.

[LadyBlue]

A wife could easily run into a situation where she has to make decisions on behalf of an incapacitated husband, whether the period of incapacitation be long or brief. If she's such an emotional cripple that she can't handle her own kids, then she likely won't be able to handle anyone or anything else.

I spend a lot of my time wondering how these women would cope in a situation like had 3 years ago. My husband was in 2 different ICUs in critical condition on 2 different occasions and the second time he wound up spending 2 MONTHS in a hospital that was a 60-90 minute bus ride, each way, from our home.

We had absolutely no warning this was going to happen. The first time, I left him at the ER thinking he was just going to be in overnight after all his levels were sorted and called to check on him a few hours later only to find they had nearly lost him, he was in ICU, intubated & unconscious. The second time, he went upstairs to get ready to go to the hospital because of bad test results & collapsed. He got taken by ambulance, I followed by bus after leaving the kids with a neighbour until my mom could get in (2 hour drive)to watch them.

At the time I had a 1 year old, a 4 year old and an 8 year old and absolutely no friends to help out. My mom wound up coming in to help take care of the kids, and took the older 2 home with her for a few weeks.

I had to make a lot of medical decisions for MrBlue, and do a lot of research to help him make his own decisions. I had to get in a lot of paperwork to keep money coming in and a roof over our heads, as well as paying bills & all that other "unwomanly" stuff. Hubby had actually been doing the bills, but only for a year or so, before that I was the one who did it all and managed to keep us afloat when he lost his job, so I already had a lot of practice.

I don't think most of these women could handle it.

[Tesseract]

I spend a lot of my time wondering how these women would cope in a situation like had 3 years ago. My husband was in 2 different ICUs in critical condition on 2 different occasions and the second time he wound up spending 2 MONTHS in a hospital that was a 60-90 minute bus ride, each way, from our home.

We had absolutely no warning this was going to happen. The first time, I left him at the ER thinking he was just going to be in overnight after all his levels were sorted and called to check on him a few hours later only to find they had nearly lost him, he was in ICU, intubated & unconscious. The second time, he went upstairs to get ready to go to the hospital because of bad test results & collapsed. He got taken by ambulance, I followed by bus after leaving the kids with a neighbour until my mom could get in (2 hour drive)to watch them.

At the time I had a 1 year old, a 4 year old and an 8 year old and absolutely no friends to help out. My mom wound up coming in to help take care of the kids, and took the older 2 home with her for a few weeks.

I had to make a lot of medical decisions for MrBlue, and do a lot of research to help him make his own decisions. I had to get in a lot of paperwork to keep money coming in and a roof over our heads, as well as paying bills & all that other "unwomanly" stuff. Hubby had actually been doing the bills, but only for a year or so, before that I was the one who did it all and managed to keep us afloat when he lost his job, so I already had a lot of practice.

I don't think most of these women could handle it.

I feel for you, LadyBlue. You are not alone in this. It sounds like our husbands are dealing with different medical conditions, but we've been through very similar things.

Four years ago, I left my husband for a med adjustment, too, and came back to a man in critical condition. The hospital was also 45 minutes away and our young son has autism. No close friends/family to help out, though we were lucky enough to have some drive/fly in for a few days at a time. In one year, he was in nine different rehab centers, hospitals and nursing homes, some hours away. He had brain surgery. He was recently in crisis again, had another surgery and is now in a nursing home, unlikely to come home. He is young and our son is still a young child, and add to that our son was dx'd with a rare disease which required major surgery and follow up care many states away for weeks at a time.

Like you said, I ran the household, made major medical decisions for both, handled mountains of paperwork, paid the bills, mowed the lawn, fixed the leaky faucets etc... Thankfully, I was educated and had "life skills" from, ya know, living in the real world and becoming a competent adult.

It angers me so much that anyone would want to purposely keep their kids from becoming fully functioning and capable adults. As long as they have the skills, they can arrange their marriage dynamics and roles in whatever way they like, but for goodness sakes don't hobble them out of the gate.

OT, and while I'm on a rant, can I just say that raising "Godly Tomatoes" is one of the most inane blog names ever and the very idea of thinking of children as such is just flat out bizzare.

Edited for riffles.

[Arete]

Tesseract wrote:

As long as they have the skills, they can arrange their marriage dynamics and roles in whatever way they like, but for goodness sakes don't hobble them out of the gate.

QFT and Amen.

[LadyBlue]

Tesseract, that sounds incredibly difficult. I hope you've been able to find space in there to take care of yourself, too. I know how easy it is to wear yourself out taking care of everyone else.