30-day-husband-support challenge

[dawbs]

I was facebook invited by a fundie-light friend's wife to participate in this.

the rules included:

-You can't say anything negative about your husband . . . to your husband . . . or to anyone else, about your husband.

-Each day say something that you admire or appreciate about your husband. . . to your husband . . . and to someone else, about your husband!

and then linked to:

reviveourhearts.com/pdf/30DayChallenge.pdf

It bothers me.

I haven't been able to even finish the documents, but as I told Mr. Dawbs, who was leaning over my shoulder reading, it irks me.

Not because I shouldn't encourage him--encouragement is good.

Not in a 'why am I doing this when you're not promising the same thing' sort of way (because heaven knows there are days/weeks/years I give more and others where I take more--such is a relationship)

But I really rankled under the 'why should I commit to this when you could be a raging bastard tomorrow and I'd have promised to just smile and nod and encourage--how does that help anything--for me to be a mute puppet to stroke your ego?"

Mr. Dawbs said it took him all of 1/2 a page to get a very strong "it's your job to meekly make your man happy because he's an idiotic brute who can't be sensitive--lets excuse his asshat-ness" message.

(edited to break link. whoops)

[dawbs]

ah, somehow I missed the 'submission' lesson the first time I skimmed. It starts on day 11.

[formergothardite]

So after 30 days I can go back to complaining about the fact my husband tosses his clothes beside the hamper instead of it it?

[Kitty]

I can see this failing epically.

Why is it always the wives who have to change, and submit, etc.? The husbands do nothing? oh wtf. That is bullshit.

[clibbyjo]

I 100% promise you your husband would rather have 30 days of sex. Ask him, he will say be as mean and unsupportive as you want, as long as you put out at the end of the night. :dance:

I would pass on husband support challenge, most husbands are big boys and don't need to be told how great they are every second of the day. Besides, if you have to be told to tell him something supportive, it doesn't count.

[dawbs]

I do get the 'if you have to be told to tell him, it doesn't count'

Like the Calvin and Hobbes comic, it's only work if you HAVE to do it, or being told you HAVE to kiss grandma--it takes all the affection out of it.

I declined the event and I'm sure it wont be brought up but my hackles are firmly raised though.

[oscar]

Yeah, no. Why would I insult my husband by indulging in a passive-aggressive festival of lowered expectations? This seems like a primer on how to manipulate someone by performing acts of "gratitude," rather than actually cultivating a grateful spirit.

www.reviveourhearts.com/challenge/

If that's not enough for you, check out the praying for your pastor's wife challenge. I'd be so incredibly pissed if someone were praying for me to "guard her heart concerning the use of free time, and that she will be especially discerning in her use of emails, the Internet, television, and other media" so that I would be morally pure and wear the armor of God so as not to fall into sexual temptation.

[prairiemuffin]

This shit makes me want to go and knock some skulls together.

My ex was an addict with serious emotional problems. But, clearly it was MY FAULT. Oh, if only I had spent more time submitting! I could have prevented it.

:evil:

[Austin]

What qualifies as a negative statement?

I have no complaints about my husband and so therefore, do not talk about him negatively to others. When something he has done/is doing bothers me, I say, "that's bothering me because [fill in the blank]" to which he responds by telling me why he's doing whatever it is so that I understand, or acknowledging that my concern is valid and stops it.

This is not rocket science, fundie women. If you and your husband love and respect each other as equals, your both can do this in your marriage for long stretches without that much effort. Of course, everybody gets irrationally irritated now and again and sometimes lashes out at a spouse, but in marriage that is otherwise strong and loving, this is really not that big of a deal.

Now if you're a doormat in your marriage, or not considered a true equal, I can see why resentment builds up and you have to have little contests with the other fundie wives in order to be nice to your husbands.

[GeoBQn]

Sounds like a combination of the Love Dare and the Surrendered Wife.

[Guest Anonymous]

Oh for Pete's sake. My first thought was, who needs a 30-day challenge to remember to be kind to her husband? Then I remembered that issue isn't just being kind and showing affection, but NEVER saying anything negative. And that's just bullshit. These women probably also insist, "I'm not a doormat!" I wonder what their idea of a doormat is?

The craziest one was Day 8 -- spend an entire day not speaking unless spoken to????

[debrand]

I believe that people should treat one another with respect. Of course, I let my husband know that I appreciate him.

There are some people who are simply nasty to their spouse. They might never hit them but their behavior is so dismissive and negative that it borders on being abusive. I've known people of both genders who act as though their spouses are idiots and don't mind letting their feelings be known by others.These people would not be helped by the 30 day support. They need to learn completely different ways of communicating and expressing their needs. The 30 day program would only cause them to be resentful and more bitter.

For people who don't know how to talk with their spouse, the thirty day challenge won't help at all and the rest of us don't need it.

I do resent the idea that I need help being nice to my husband or that if he screws up, I shouldn't tell him. Hopefully, my husband would tell me when I mess up. I don't need him being fake toward me(this group would claim they weren't being fake) and pretending to be happy when he wasn't.

[Austin]

If passive-aggression was an advanced degree, these women would have PhD's in it.

[Hisey]

Check out the comments. There are many, many fundie lites writing in with verbally abusive husbands. Sadly, some are going to try this "method." Do you think more encouragement will cure these verbal abusers?

http://www.reviveourhearts.com/challeng ... uragement/

[Guest Anonymous]

I found it sad that a woman who was separated with her husband having a new relationship somehow thought that prayer and basically being nicer to the man would get them back together.

What a huge pile of steaming bullshit....not speaking unless spoken to? too many bad words to say to that...

[liltwinstar]

I guess if you have a healthy relationship to start with, this wouldn't be a *terrible* idea, I'm just not sure I would see the need for it...but wow, some of those comments are making me sick to my stomach. One woman writes that she's so emotionally spent because of her husband's verbal abuse that she wants to hurt herself...that's not ok!!!!! In abusive relationships, there is no amount of "respect" or "love" that will get your abuser to stop abusing. If anything, it would just make the abuse worse.

Why do women do this to each other?? Notice it's not a man doing a "30 day challenge" - it's women telling women to do this. And why????

Sometimes the "negative" is the TRUTH, and it needs to come out. Hearing that you have cancer, or heart disease, or a brain tumor is "negative," too, but we would berate a doctor who just told us everything was all sunshine and roses in order not to be "negative"

[simplysweet]

So after 30 days I can go back to complaining about the fact my husband tosses his clothes beside the hamper instead of it it?

LOL! Yea right! Like I am going to let DH walk all over me for a month - that would just lead to 30 days of bottled up aggression and I would end up beating him with one of his 235424 socks on the floor. Horrid idea! :)

[margiebargie]

Blech. What a mess! Why can't fundies grasp that there are two adults in a husband-wife relationship? Why can't they understand that both people have to make the relationship work? Some of the stuff in the 30-day challenge is sensible enough if both people are doing it. Of course, some of it is absolute crap.

If all of a sudden I started acting like the spineless blob idealized in the 30-day challenge, my husband would freak out. He depends on me to help keep our lives going, and that includes speaking up when there's a problem and having the ability to make a decision. I depend on him, too. I don't want him continuously kissing my ass. I'd think "Oh crap. What happened to the adult I married?"

[urban explorer]

Isn’t this the way you have to treat your “headship†all the time how is this any different, this would get old and boring fast, there’s give and take in all relationships to me this isn’t one based on respect not when on side takes, takes, takes. There breeding self indulgent brats, I couldn’t live like this it would kill me.

[ladypuglover]

My computer won't let me see the challenge. Could someone post what you are to do each day?

From what I gathered here ounds like a lot of bullpucky. I spend everyday telling my husband how much he means to me and he does the same. If I did the 8th day challenge, he woud think I was mad at him or somehow hurting and just didn't want to share my emotional pain, which would hurt him as I have depression. Nope, not a good idea at all. :snooty:

[mystweaver]

Normally I feel like I'm gouging out my eyes while reading her stuff, but this one had me laughing hysterically. Thank him for 'serving' by helping make decisions? Teach him to parent while maintaining his authority?

I would love to see a 30-day challenge for the husbands. Since they seem to have forgotten it, maybe we should make one. :muhahaha

[Kaylee]

I'm doing this, mainly because I do tend to be pretty critical.

It's focused on women because Revive Our Hearts is one of those "to women only" type sites, not a general marriage site or one that many men read. Women do tend to do this sort of thing more than men anyway (the "30 day challenge", improve your marriage in a week, cosmo relationship quiz type things not the negativity), so it's kind of a moot point about husbands not doing it as well.

I did tell my husband "I'm going to try for the next month not to say anything negative to or about you". If you want to try to do the same for me, that'd be awesome. If not, at least let me know if/when you feel like I'm being negative or critical. Part of it is because sometimes he gets offended at things I don't mean to be taken that way, and I really don't get it so I'm trying to understand what sort of stuff he feels is negative.

I will say I did something similar years ago as part of a Fascinating Womanhood course and it did seem to improve our relationship and communication between us, but things sort of fell apart over the years. I know we're never going to have the exact same relationship we used to have, but I am committed to doing as much as I can to make it the best it can be, even if he may not be doing the same things at the same time.

I don't think the intention is that you never bring up problems or complaints for the rest of your marriage, but more that focusing on praise and respect for a short time like this can help break patterns of negativity and can help you spot the times and issues that trigger you to be critical or negative. Then again, I suppose people look at it with differing views and read different things into it. Some people here seem to be assuming the worst, and doubtless some people will take it to a doormat-type extreme, but most won't.

For example, the day 8 thing (it's actually day 9, the day is right at the bottom of the previous page & easy to miss) says

If listening is a real problem for you, play a game with yourself. See if you can listen to

your husband for one whole day, only speaking when asked a question. If your husband

notices the difference, explain that you are learning to listen more—not only to God, but

also to him.

One easy way to express admiration for your husband is to ask a question about

something he enjoys, and then listen to his response....

I see that as saying only try it is you have problems with interrupting and not listening, and the next paragraph shows it's not part of the challenge for everyone, because she goes on to encourage women to ask questions. Then again, I just did something similar last weekend and made a point of talking less because I found myself wanting to butt in or monopolize conversation (probably the result of going to long without adult conversation in the weeks beforehand), so I see it as respecting the person and what they're saying rather than just a marriage or submission thing.

Oh well, if I disappear in the next 30 days, I suppose I'll have melted into a spineless blob or a doormat or something. (How would a blob doormat work anyway, would it be like one of those anti-shock gel mats some factory workers stand on?).

[Sprocket]

I am pretty direct and to the point and that can sometimes come off as being critical -- and I can be a raging bitch sometimes if the situation calls for it. I have a wonderful husband and I've really tried to actively thank him for all that he does instead of always coming off as criticizing. That being said, if he's being a dick about something, he better believe I'm going to call him on it. And I never ever ever go to anyone outside our marriage about the problems we have -- mainly because they're pretty petty problems and no one else would consider them a "problem". However, some of these women might have crappy marriages and some of the "rules" sound like an exercise in pushing the woman further down and not giving her access to someone who might say, "wow, that's a really crappy thing for your husband to do. There is never a reason for you to put up with X, Y, or Z." God forbid the woman needs a sounding board other than her husband about the crap-tastic stuff he may do.

[browngrl]

Once again fundamentalists get a good idea and then fail in the execution. I think that everyone who is part of a couple should want to be kind to their partner. That is if they like their partner and if they want to stay married. If you only have negative feelings towards your partner - you need to ask yourself if you still want to be married. So the idea of being nice to your partner is a good one. However - fundamentalists once again put all of the onus on the woman. Equal ownership is a foreign concept. Eve ate the apple so women should always suffer - seems to be their underlying message. They divide things so sharply by gender that their divisions can not help but cut someone.

[Hisey]

I think there is a subtle message in this challenge. "You are usually a bitch, that's why your husband doesn't act right, try shutting up for 30 days (except for the good stuff). Then your husband will act a lot better."