If your husband cheats, you still must obey him

[snuggles911]

According to Sunshine Mary sunshinemaryandthedragon.wordpress.com, you must obey your husband, even if he cheats or uses poor judgment. She explains this in her usually arrogant way in a post entitled, Submitting to Corrupt Authority.

 

 

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Dear Christian lady, your husband is imperfect and he will sin sometimes, but that does not nullify his right to rule over you nor remove from you the obligation to submit to him. There will always be authority and a leader in every home; if it isn’t your husband, guess what? It’s you. Do you really want to lead a submissive husband? If you do not, then stop resisting and rebelling and submit to his leadership.

 

She wrote the post in response to the criticism Doug Philips of Vision Forum has received from more liberal Christian bloggers since admitting he cheated on his wife. Just because he cheated, doesn't mean the God-ordained system of patriarchy should be dismantled.

 

 

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First, since I’m often accused by feminists and certain Christians of not taking infidelity by husbands seriously, let me get this out of the way: Doug Phillips has sinned in a very serious way and it was right of him to repent and step away from his public ministry in order to put his own household in order. However, committing a sin, even a serious one, does not a priori nullify a man’s authority in every area of his life nor does it destroy the concept of authority itself, yet that is exactly what these women are arguing.

 

You see, when Sunshine Mary husband cheated on her, she didn't usurp him. She submitted and all is fine because of it. She shared the following advice with a female reader who commented that submitting to a husband who has cheated might make him think it's OK to keep cheating:

 

 

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I promise you, if your husband is in sin and you resolve to live in obedience and submission to him anyway, he will feel far more convicted of his sin than if you went to him and tried to lecture him about it. I know from experience that this works. Crying, screaming, pleading, threatening, and throwing his clothes out the front door never influenced my husband to quit keeping a harem of women on the side; choosing to live as a godly submissive wife and treating him with respect as the head of our home got his attention, though, and softened his heart toward both me and, more importantly, God (my husband was an atheist at that time but is a Christian now).

 

So there you have it. If your husband cheats, don't become a nagging, bossy shrew. Just submit.

[guidedbybobafett]

I feel like SSM is so easy to read it's pathetic.

She's in a shitty situation, and probably subconsciously is trying to get other people stuck in the mud with her.

Guess what, Troll Lady- if my husband cheats on me I'm leaving! :nenner:

[Vex]

I knew just reading the title it was Shitstain Mary.

[Ms Jess]

Sadly, I was once so desperate and defeated I tried her advice while married to a cheating husband. It didn't work. He kept cheating. I finally grew some bigger ovaries and dumped him. Now I'm the leadership in my home and I could not be more thrilled about it.

[ThisOlGirl]

Sadly, I was once so desperate and defeated I tried her advice while married to a cheating husband. It didn't work. He kept cheating. I finally grew some bigger ovaries and dumped him. Now I'm the leadership in my home and I could not be more thrilled about it.

Same here.

[crassy]

My ex-husband cheated. I kicked his arse out of the house. In your face, shitstainbitch.

[chaotic life]

Actually, I believe it was trying to confirm to the submissive wife/dominate husband paradigm that contributed to my husband's cheating in the first place.

I did not throw him out. I always thought I would, but I didn't. However, I discovered that the conservative Christian mentality was 1. blame ME for his cheating and 2. order me to submit even harder while 3. nominally acknowledging that yes I did have Biblical grounds for a divorce but REALLY a good Christian woman wouldn't leave but would submit more, pray harder and hope that one day God would convict him to be a better person.

Instead, I refound ME. I made plans for how to move on with my life without him. Then, because of the kind of father he was, I gave him ONE chance. I fully expected him to fail, but I knew before I could explain to children who had been raised with a crazy involved father that I had thrown their father out, I needed to give him that chance. I thought I would say to them that I had given him one chance and he just couldn't get it together, so I had no other choice.

If I had followed Patriarchy, that's what would have happened. Eventually I wouldn't have been able to destroy my own soul any more, and he absolutely would have continued cheating because nothing in our lives would have really changed.

Instead, I regrew my ovaries and set up boundaries. I worked on me and flat-out refused to take any culpability for his behaviors. I let him know that IF he worked on himself and got his shit together then we could work on the marriage but not before then.

A funny thing happen. The cold water of infidelity got us the hell out of Patriarchy and we both came to our senses. He had a LOT of hard work he had to do on himself. I had a lot of healing and reclaiming me to do on myself. Eventually, it really did build a new marriage between the two of us.

You cannot accomplish that by simply submitting and maintaining status quo after infidelity, no more than you can MAKE a cheating spouse want to stop cheating and actually become a decent partner.

I don't pretend he won't slip up again. He damn well knows if he does, he blew his one chance already. However, the past won't be what takes down our marriage. We don't take any day we have together for granted anymore because we know how hard we've worked for years now to build something new between us. Future events might take us down, but they might not even be infidelity. When I faced the fallacies of Patriarchy, I realized that sometimes marriages just fail. Sometimes people cannot live together and it's not a sin, nor is it always someone's fault. Sometimes it's infidelity that takes a marriage out, and maybe that will take mine out one day. But, maybe we'll grow apart, stop loving each other and prefer the idea of slitting each other's throats and that might take out my marriage too. It's okay. We work hard where we are, and we don't have the arrogance to think we can inoculate the future from strife and pain anymore.

I can guarantee you that at the end of the day, Sunshine Mary is still hurting like crazy and cannot know if her husband will ever cheat on her again. I can't know that either, because none of us can guarantee that future. I just don't live in fear because I know if it comes, I will pick myself up and I will move forward without him. She'll still be submitting and always living waiting for that other shoe to drop because her religion doesn't allow her to be an equal partner and therefore doesn't deem her valuable enough to rebuild a marriage and try to NOT cheat on her.

[curlytoes79]

She's on drugs if she thinks Holy Hand Job isn't still cheating on her.

[socalrules]

I am waiting for the story about the submissive wife who puts a gun to her head and kills herself because her husband ordered her to pull the trigger.

There doesn't seem to be any limit on at what point you can "disobey" your husband.

[antares]

And now, for an moving anecdote to SSM:

I may have regained some faith in love and humanity

http://www.upworthy.com/a-husband-took- ... eautifully

[dairyfreelife]

I knew just reading the title it was Shitstain Mary.

My first thoughts were no sunshine Mary or Lori A. They are both that predictable.

[freehannie]

I just wish she'd acknowledge that while her husband is a controlling jerk who can't keep it in his pants, she somehow can't find the strength to leave him. All the rest of this is just window dressing to cover that up. And she's angry that other women make other choices that she isn't prepared to make. When I'm content with my choices, I don't feel the need to rail against others who have chosen differently.

[docmom]

It's interesting that adult men are never to be called to account for their misdeeds because joyful submission will save them but boys get the crap beaten out of them for any infraction. You have to believe that a kid brought up in the TTUAC mold will perceive a lack of consequences as permission to keep on doing what they're doing. I forsee rampant cheating in the fundie circles of the future.

[ILoveJellybeans]

It's interesting that adult men are never to be called to account for their misdeeds because joyful submission will save them but boys get the crap beaten out of them for any infraction. You have to believe that a kid brought up in the TTUAC mold will perceive a lack of consequences as permission to keep on doing what they're doing. I forsee rampant cheating in the fundie circles of the future.

That's a problem with scaring and beating your child into obedience instead of giving them the tools to develop logical thinking and self control. It doesn't teach them to do things because they're right-that we don't be mean to others because it hurts their feelings, that we don't steal because we need to earn things and it belongs to other people and they wouldn't like it if someone took their stuff, we put things away and help keep the house clean because we all live there and need to all chip in and keep it looking nice. It teaches them that they don't do bad things because if they do they will get spanked. They don't help others because they know it is the right thing to do, they are nice because they know their parents are watching and will beat them if they don't. This doesn't work in the long run, once they don't have the consequences hanging over their head, they can do whatever they want as they don't have to fear their parents. It doesn't teach kids to be good people, it teaches them to be sneaky and hide their bad behaviour. When these kids grow up, they're too big to be spanked, there's no consequences anymore. They can do whatever they like and they haven't been taught self control.

Like Josh. Now he is out from under his parent's thumbs, he developed a problem with eating and put on loads and loads of weight. A lot of these fundie kids who get married act like teenagers, as that part of them where they develop their own beliefs and identity hasn't developed, but they cant make it go away, they can just hold it off and squash it until it all explodes out the second they leave the house.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Unfortunately, in my practice I've seen too many cases where the sort of "obedience" that the cheater demands is "stay out of the house, don't tell anyone what I'm doing, don't expect me to pay for anything ever and give me access to all the bank accounts". Submission doesn't solve that.

[blue_the_puppy]

There will always be authority and a leader in every home; if it isn’t your husband, guess what? It’s you. Do you really want to lead a submissive husband?

Funny you ask, SSM. I do want to lead my husband when it comes to certain matters. And I want him to lead me when it comes to other things. And then there's things that both of us are clueless about so we just hope for the best :lol:

[GolightlyGrrl]

Even Stevie Wonder could see this thread is about SSM. SSM is pathetic. I try to sum up some empathy for her, but I can't, probably because she purports her maladjustment as the TRUTH. She chose to be with an asshole like HHG, and he definitely showed his asshole side from the first date. And she continues to stay with a man who has no respect for her, their vows, or the family they created. Where is her self-respect? Where is her concern for her own children who are being raised in total dysfunction and now probably think husbands are supposed treat their wives like garbage and wives should just eat it up because it's Biblical or some shit. SSM has the means to leave HHG. She's educated. She has a job. And she probably has friends and family who would help her out. It's not like she spent time as a SAHD with a pitiful SOTDRT education with no support system.