Believe It or Not, It's Controversial!

REWIND WEEKEND: As I am off on retreat this weekend, I thought I would rerun some of the marriage posts. We can all use a refresher course on being sweet, after all. (Me included and me especially!) 

Until recently, two good friends and I had an unspoken rule: never bad mouth your husband. The rule is still in effect. We just simply got around to actually talking about it.

Imagine! Three women working, schooling, sewing, cooking, watching children together and not talking about something. Well, it happens. Especially over a topic so potentially hazardous: respecting men.

Don't think the topic is so touchy? Try broaching it among the gals sometimes. If you are male, brace yourself for the look. (You know the one I mean.) If you are female, better just brace yourself. You are in for a diatribe about how backward, oppressed, brainwashed, and just so ickily Catholic you are.

Or maybe you are in for the worst of all, the whispers...Her husband won't even let her talk about him! What!?! Oh, the Poor Thing, and all those children, too!

Male bashing is a sport. On the commercials, sitcoms, and other television drivel, the woman has to take charge and take action in the face of the ineptness of men. Cue the canned laughter, please. He's at it again! Movies, too, especially "family fare" present the bumbling but well meaning father as the standard. Men are childish, we are told. Men can't function without us women, they say. This swill is swirling all around us. We are steeped in it. As a result, women bash their own men. Why not? It's fashionable. It's funny. It's a conversational gimmick, "Oh you'll never believe what he's done now..."

Meanwhile our girls are hearing it all, and our boys are swallowing it.

Back to my friends and I and our unspeakable rule. You'll first need to understand that we sometimes do charity work together, sewing Blessing Blankets for crisis pregnancy centers, sending stockings to soldiers at Christmas, that kind of thing. Working with your hands sets your mouth free. There's a whole lot of conversation covering a whole lot of ground. Plus, we're all Southerners by birth or by association, so for us talk ain't cheap, it's precious!

Well, around November, an acquaintance and her children joined us and ours and worked right alongside us. It was exciting! Here was a new person, with new stories to hear, new kids to get to know, new jokes! It was great!

Until It happened.

She bashed her husband. Not a terrible bash, simply sharing an embarrassing moment of his that I am certain he would not want shared. Especially not with a stranger. So I smiled, caught her eye briefly, and changed the subject. Just the way my mother taught me.

First, you may need to let me teach you: It's a polite Southern way of saving another person's face. One is to ignore a gaffe, smile, and change the subject. It's gentle. It's subtle, and for Southern women, it's unmistakable. You know you've messed up and are being given the grace of an instant replay. It's best to take it. Like being offered gum or a mint. You take it. It's a nice way of saying your breath is bad.

It didn't work. I don't know if she was locked in a habit, but it was almost as if she couldn't help herself. The more I tried to change the subject, the more she offered her husband upon the altar of mutual feminine scorn. It became awkward, so I invented an excuse to briefly leave the vicinity, hoping the conversation might reboot with the interruption. It didn't. I felt terrible. I knew I had probably already ruined any chance of her liking me, and I was sad to be unable to move her mentally from my "acquaintance" category to the "potential friend."

She tried the same conversational gambit with the others throughout the day. And with the same results. The good thing that came of all this awkwardness was that afterwards we three finally broached the subject of male bashing. We spoke our unwritten rule for friendship and realized we all three carried the same litmus test, "Are you trustworthy with your men?"


For me it's like this: I just can't be friends with a woman who would betray someone's trust. Even if that someone is a man. Even if that someone is her husband. In a purely selfish vein, I know that if she's going to do that to him, one day she'll do it to me. And yes, as a mother I don't want my children hearing this type of conversation about a husband and father. As a wife I don't want my husband to overhear me involved in the tearing down of another husband.

But most importantly as a woman and in my small way, I feel duty bound to protect other women's sons from senseless attack. I know how ugly women can be. I thank God I am not a man for that very reason (among others). In all, men are different, a little strange in their thinking, but loveable just the same.

So ladies, if you want to be my friend, you know the rule.


Related Posts:
http://gardenofholiness.blogspot.com/2009/04/attitude-tips-for-wives-and-moms.html

A Husbandly Hero

When I was young and stupid(er) and dating, I wasn't thinking about marriage. I wasn't thinking about the characteristics of an admirable man who could be the father of my children. In fact, thinking didn't really factor into the process. I dated by chance whomever came along. Discernment never went much beyond registering a gut level attraction. In light of that I'm pretty lucky to be married to the man I married because the men I dated, with very few exceptions, would have turned that car the other way...
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/facing-crash-vancouver-man-sacrifices-self-to-save-pregnant-wife/

Wifey Wednesday--Her Inner Control Freak

To See Other Wifey Wednesday Posts

I am a planner. I plan my week, my day. I plan long range as well and I'm happy to report that six years out is starting to shape up and fall in line. Speaking of lines, at the DMV I plan escape routes in the event that a fire breaks out. All this foresight and planning gives me a nice little sense of power and control. My poor husband. That phrase always follows the words power and control in my mind.

I like to think I am in charge, but God, in His wisdom and in His ability to swing a solid 2 x 4 when haughtily ignored, frequently reminds me otherwise. In His further wisdom, He has provided me with a male of the species to contend with, er, I mean rather, to spend my life with. He has also generously provided the males of the species with a need to be leaders. Yes, my husband needs to be a leader and he does not need my leadership. Yeah, that's right, we get to struggle over this! Oh yay.

Because of who I am, I want to be the leader in the family. Because of who my husband is and who my children are, he needs to be leader. Guess who wins in the struggle of wants vs. needs? Yeah, that's right, it ain't me in this one. Yay.

Having grown up in a military family I know a little something about leadership: it is better to have a mediocre leader in charge than to have two leaders in charge. While two leaders battle each other, the real enemy picks off the troops. That's a sobering analogy when you apply it to your family.

Men can overlook the details to gain perspective on the big picture. They're brains are wired that way. (Really you should look into fetal development and MRI studies of problem solving between the genders, fascinating stuff.) Basically, men are linear thinkers. For example: given Child A and Child B and desiring outcome C and not D, we shall allow A and B to work towards C, rewarding all evidence of C and ignoring or reprimanding all instances of D. Discipline is pretty cut and dried.

We women see details upon details and in doing so can lose sight of the big picture. For example: given Child A (he was born first and feels a very strong sense of purpose and sense of self) and Child B (she's a middle child and I really feel she has that Middle Child Syndrome everyone talks about. She really does sometimes compete much harder for the privileges and status of the older child while wanting to maintain the cuddly coddling of the younger child. This Middle Child Syndrome of hers has been complicated by the birth of two more children, thus placing her in an actual older child position in the family--really we must make allowances for her bad behavior while she adjusts to this new situation and above all we must watch for signs of droopy self-esteem which probably stemmed from being named a letter and not a name in the first place, I mean talk about identity issues!)...I forgot the point I was trying to make here.

...um. Oh yeah.

Back to that point. My husband needs to be admired and needs to apply his God given gifts of logic, planning, and self-control to be in a position of decision making of the family. I need to be cherished and need to apply my God-given gifts of communication, nurturing, understanding, and planning to influence my husband's logical decision-making process.

I am the Corporal in this Army. Not only am I in charge of my band of troops, I am in there mucking it out on the day-to-day basis. I report to the Major what has happened, who was responsible when it didn't happen as planned, and let the Major know how I think the plan needs to change in light of what's happening. As Corporal, I get dirty and sometimes take friendly fire if a Cheerios food fight erupts at breakfast while I'm blogging. I've got the details of this army down and I could probably run the army if I had to, but that's not my job. My job is to be the Corporal: that's the officer the troops trust, complain to, seek out and turn to. The Corporal gets in on the day by day everydayness. To run the army, I'd have to step back emotionally and rationally divvy out resources and duties. I could do that. Sure I could.

But I'd rather be Mom.

So to quote my favorite move line ever, "Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants." Maria Portokalos may have been the Momma and not the head, but she was one smart momma!