Submission
Submission
Wow! Now that’s an unpopular word among women nowadays! I had a conversation with a friend about submission (that’d be you, Kath, if you’re reading this) and it got me thinking some more about how submission is so misunderstood among women today. I think the common picture of a submissive wife is one of the woman as a doormat. I should say that first, submission is different in every marriage.
For me, a key to understanding submission was first figuring out what kind of husband I had and what submission looks like to him. I read Debi Pearl’s Created to be his HelpMeet and was blown away by her discription of the three types of men- Kip is so clearly a Mr. Steady. Read here for her discription of the three different types of men. (disclaimer: I am not one of those who think this book is the be-all-end-all of marriage books. I thought her discriptions of types of men were good ones but by no means are they the only good descriptions- I’m sure there are others out there)
One of the most valuable things I learned from this was that my dh takes great pride in the successes of his wife. In fact, the more “successfull” I am, the better he feels about himself. For me, as a stay-at-home-mom/housewife the way that I am successful is to keep a clean, well-organized household, good meals on the table, children that are well-trained (working on that one), etc. To put it bluntly, dh feels sucessful and competent when the house is clean, the meals are delicious and the kids are well-behaved and neat. That was *so* convicting to me- that how I do *my* job effects dh’s feelings of self-worth. Now, this is certainly not true for every man- there are plenty of men who don’t really care about that stuff but it is an essential ingredient for happiness in our marriage. Kath said to me: “How is that submission? That’s just being a good wife!” It’s submission because truth be told, I often don’t feel like doing housework or baking cookies. I’d rather take a nap or read a book. It’s submission when I get up and clean the kitchen and bake some cookies even when I don’t feel like it. It’s submission when I take several hours to plan our menu when I would rather putz around online. It’s submission when I haul the babies upstairs to change them, wash their faces and comb their hair and to fix myself up before Kip gets home even though I don’t feel like carrying 55 lbs. of children up a flight of stairs.
I’ll be the first to say, I really struggle with this submission thing. I’ve got lots of opinions and I’m the excitable type. My children aren’t perfectly behaved all the time and sometimes the house is a wreck. But I’m really working on it.
