Having a “prime directive” vision combined with a little bit of Patriarchy, a little bit of Proverbs 31, and a lot of Money is what keeps the ship afloat.
Readership: All
Reader’s Note: In this essay, upper-middle (and higher) class marriages are referred to as UMC/+ Marriages, while lower middle (and lower) class marriages are referred to as LMC/- Marriages.
Length: 2,800 words
Reading Time: 9.5 minutes
Introduction
Last week’s posts, Is Patriarchy for Deplorables? (2021 May 31), Patriarchy is the Default Context (2021 June 2), and Dolearchy Trumps Patriarchy (2021 June 4), argued that those LMC/- marriages having husbands and wives that stay together tend to have a higher percentage that are patriarchal. I do not mean to say that patriarchy is more prevalent in LMC/- overall or that it does not exist in the UMC/+.
This post will further explore class differences. It will be argued that it is Patriarchy, among other things, which hold marriages together. These other things include a “prime directive” (i.e. shared vision, shared values), social cohesion for the LMC/-, and for the UMC/+, a comfy cushion of cash. Taken together, this shared vision and lifestyle motivates women of all classes to “fit into the program”. The alternative is a failed marriage, and a broken life.
Traits of the LMC/-
Women in the LMC/- tend to have a polychotomy of expectations in marriage. LC women tend to sleep around in their search for “love”. (Translation: Being humbled/defiled by a Tingle inducing man.) When they do happen to find love and possibly marriage, they lack the skills necessary to make it work out. They consistently give in to the worst aspects of their feminine nature and destroy the relationship in the process.
A Christian might say that their relationships typically fail because of gross spiritual disobedience.
MC women indulge in fashionable trends in clothing and dating, and cling to a fairy tale dream of marrying up. When this doesn’t happen in a timely manner, they settle for the kind of men they rejected during their prime years. Underneath this façade of fashion sensibility, MC women also want to be humbled/defiled by the tingles, but they amalgamate this expectation with a feminist sense of entitlement and various Progressive aphorisms which are not very true. Many MC women also assume that marrying up is a basic prerequisite for marriage. Thus, MC women want contrasting elements and are thoroughly confused about what they want in a relationship.
A Christian might say that their relationships typically fail because of gross spiritual confusion.
Traits of the UMC/+
Under the last post cited above, Ed Hurst and RedPillBoomer described specific traits of the UMC/+.
Ed Hurst wrote,
“Those upper staff people are simply a different kind of people entirely. They could make their way through any lower class social situation with no trouble, but they remained a world apart. Their education is not the whole story; there’s a mass of cultural exposure that is hard to explain. Their kids had a completely different orientation on life, a sense of purpose and future that made them tolerant of things for which the lower class kids would whine and rebel. The UMC kids in that setting could get along with the other kids, but they knew they weren’t part of the common society.”
“These people had a vision of ruling the system, and their commitment to that is overwhelming.”
“…they never forgot their destiny…”
“[They had the mindset that] someone in their ranks was not a part of [the broader] society…”
RedPillBoomer wrote,
“Quiet, focused, and ENVIED/DESPISED by many who thought they had some advantage that others didn’t have…”
“…the parents PLURAL were committed to their values: achievement –> advancement –> progression –> not derailing a ‘good thing,’ i.e. not f’ing it up with divorce, drugs and alcohol, or anything that would significantly interfere with the family’s ‘prime directive.’ These values showed up in their kids (achievement –> advancement –> progression upwards).”
“…you almost ALWAYS saw a mom AND a dad involved in those kids lives.”
“[Some key elements of] Patriarchy… with a pinch of egalitarianism thrown in the mix… [For example, the mom] usually had some side gig going on while she shuttled those kids to all those activities they were involved in – maybe real estate or something, or going to school to get a degree (not gender studies or some ridiculous degree, something like an education degree) so she could produce future income once the kids were old enough to take care of themselves, by their late teens.”
“…their advantage was their mom and dad did something similar and passed it down to their kids to include an inheritance when they died.”
“[They] still “get it”, i.e. understand that [certain elements of Patriarchy] STILL works, that it STILL produces results: ‘old fashioned, out-dated, and… d@mn effective!’”
What Ed and RPB are describing are practical aspects of the ADIEU collection of traits (Attractiveness, Discipline, Intelligence, Education, Upbringing). These characteristic mindsets, habits, and traits not only explain why the UC are more successful in marriage and sticking the landing, but they also contain the underlying reason why the “elite”/UMC/+ are so influential over all of society.
And yet, the UMC/+ life script doesn’t work for anyone LMC/-. Deti and Novaseeker discussed this in ADIEU HUSsies Sell a Broken Script (2021 May 12). This is because those in the LMC/- are lacking those practical aspects of the ADIEU collection of traits. But this is not all they are lacking. They are also lacking a vision, a sense of purpose, and the financial buffer necessary to cover their @sses.
Are UMC/+ Wives Egalitarian?
There was an argument about whether UMC/+ wives are truly egalitarianists or not.
LastHoldOut countered that RedPillBoomer’s description of the mom with a side gig is more reminiscent of the Proverbs 31 woman, rather than an egalitarian wife.
Deti wrote that the UMC is more egalitarian because:
- In today’s society, women have been brought on par with men in every meaningful way: legally, politically, economically, socially, educationally, and professionally. Women are legally permitted to do everything men can do. So it’s natural that more women in the UMC would expect to be treated as “equals”.
- Most men and women in the UMC got there the same way – education and employment. It’s natural that a woman who, through her education and job, isn’t any less qualified than her husband is to make decisions, will expect to be treated as an “equal” in her marriage.
- Most men have been conditioned hard and deep to see women as equals. Most men in this set have UMC mothers who were “equal”. They went to college with and work with women who were equals, a few of them being superior in intelligence or work ethic or upbringing.
- The Marriage 2.0 model on which most UMC marriages are based, is premised on happiness and self-actualization. The woman’s happiness and self-actualization are just as important as, but no more important than, his are. In theory. (In a patriarchal model, the foundation is roles, operation within roles, and headship/submission. In patriarchy, some things are more important than others at different times.)
- These people don’t know how to do it any other way. No one, absolutely no one, teaches, preaches, expects, demonstrates, or extols true headship or submission. What you have is a lot of Christian men LARPing at headship (servant leader, you must love and respect her and get her what she wants because that’s what a true leader does) and Christian women LARPing at submission (you submit when he is doing what you want and expect him to do and you’re pleased with him; you need not submit otherwise). But this is neither true headship nor true submission. This is because headship is burdensome and makes men unhappy; and because submission requires trust that these women don’t have for their husbands, and that scares them, and that makes women unhappy.
And yet, Deti concedes that UMC/+ marriages cannot ultimately be egalitarianist.
“We cannot have unhappiness in the Marriage 2.0 model. Unhappy marriages in this model are failed marriages.
I have said this so many times: Everyone needs to remember that there is absolutely no such thing as an “egalitarian” marriage. In any relationship between 2 people, one is the dominant and the other is the submissive. Whoever occupies these roles can shift, but someone always acts as the dominant, and the other always submits. It can’t operate any other way. It just can’t. Someone has to make the final decision. Someone has to “break the tie”. In most UMC Marriage 2.0 marriages, that person is usually the woman, because she manipulates, threatens, frauds and gaslights her way there. Most of the time, the woman sends this message:
“I need to do this my way, or else I will be a b!tch to you, refuse to have sex with you, sh!ttalk you to our friends and my parents, sulk and pout, and otherwise make everyone in this house miserable. And it’ll be that way until I get what I want.”
Man, it’s hard for me to imagine a stable UMC/+ marriage having a wife like this. I don’t doubt that there are many like this, but on the face of it, this seems more like a LMC/- wife’s behavior.
“The idea that patriarchy exists among the lower classes is absurd. Lower-class and matriarchy are interchangeable terms.”
The Prime Directive
NovaSeeker made a noteworthy point that the non-military upper middle does have certain characteristic elements of egalitarian, sans patriarchy, but that this is tempered by an unwavering dedication to the “prime directive”.
“The woman has a career that is high-powered like the man does, but they follow the same “prime directive” approach, and they instill this in their kids.
That “prime directive” approach is, I think, a key factor. It’s why, for example, they tend to be sanguine about late marriage, fornication in the 20s, experimentation in college and the like … because almost all of the kids (not all, some do go off the rail, but most don’t) follow the “prime directive” of “achievement –> advancement –> progression –> not derailing a ‘good thing,’”, as you say, and so they indulge, but only to the extent it doesn’t mess up the prime directive. And so it’s understood that there are limits — and all the kids who grew up that way understand this intuitively.
I first saw this when I was in college, because I came from the LMC and was thrust into an environment with a lot of people who grew up UMC and UMC+. They had the “prime directive” approach. They joined sororities and partied and had a grand old fornicative, drunken time in college, but when it came time to bear down for papers and exams, bear down they did with gusto and got those grades. Got those MCATs and med school admissions, LSATs and law school admissions, those spots at McKinsey. Boys and girls alike. There was more hooking up than BF/GF relationships (and this was back in the 1980s, when that wasn’t the norm in the broader culture yet) in the college set, because the “prime directive” mandated that they not be limited by a relationship in pursuing the path of “achievement>advancement>progression” in an unfettered way after graduation, following the “logic” of where the “prime directive” mandates they go, and not be “held back” by “feeling conflicted” about relationships.
So far fewer relationships than were happening on other campuses with a different kind of student, and also the relationships that did happen were mostly ended within the last 3-6 months prior to graduation — a few survived, but they are notable for their exceptional nature. The prime directive was, for the most part, vindicated, and this wasn’t questioned by most — the kids who grew up in this class knew that this was the way it had to be, and they accepted it (for the most part). They were raised with this logic, this directive — it was a part of them.”
Case Study 1 – Dissimilar Visions
I know of more than one LMC/- girl who got into a relationship with an UMC/+ boy, expecting marriage. Her “prime directive” was to marry up. But to him, she was just a fling that went extremely well, good enough to stick it out with her for a good while longer than usual. But in the end, he never took her seriously, because their relationship didn’t fit into his “prime directive”. In her dreamy state, she never discovered this until she got dumped. Afterwards, the LMC girls naturally came to the conclusion that his “prime directive” was poon, but this isn’t entirely true. Poon was only his immediate directive. Moreover, this script is right out of a Jane Austen novel.
A Christian might say that their relationships failed because of being unequally yoked.
Case Study 2 – The Vision must be shared
I also know of at least one LMC/- girl who successfully married up to an UMC/+ man, much to his parent’s shock and disappointment. But in spite of the fairy tale exterior, she was always unhaaappy because she clung to the LMC/- expectation of “love” and romance. She was unable to see herself as merely a shiny cog in the UMC/+ machine. He was perpetually angry that she couldn’t “get her act together”, and this worked against her vision of “love”. So she eventually took the LMC/- path of divorcing him, and she walked away from the fairy tale with a child and modest winnings. His parents congratulated themselves on being right with bittersweet satisfaction. Of course, money was never a problem.
A Christian might say that her relationship failed because of a general malaise characterized by a lack of love, respect, like-mindedness, loyalty, and dedication.
Case Study 3 – The Vision must be Steadfast
Tomi Lahren was a solid MC striver, but she had enough genetic breeding to allow her to jump track into the UMC/+ by marrying up. However, true to her MC nature, she got confused about what it means to be UMC/+. Her LMC Churchianized upbringing showed through when her Feminist and egalitarianist “(false) convictions” deceived her and destroyed any chance of that happening. As things are now, I would consider her “successful” if she were able to stay in the MC past 40.
A Christian might say that her relationship failed because of double-mindedness.
Conclusions
All things considered, and seeing how marriage has fallen to the wayside as of late, it might be accurate to say that LC women are DTF, MC women F up, and UC women F around.
Concerning the UMC/+ in particular, Novaseeker added,
“This continues with decisions later in life, too. Indulge, yes, but not in a way that interferes with the prime directive. That’s the basic approach to life, and they simply do not understand how other social classes who were not raised that way behave differently. And among those of their own class who fail to follow the directive? Well, there is substantial disregard for them, frankly. Borders on disgust.”
Yes, UMC/+ women may indulge in egalitarianism just as much, if not more than LMC/- women, as all women like to dream, but – and this is the critical point — they keep it in check so as to not upset the apple cart of success and status. The overarching dedication to the “vision”, and financial security are what allows them to do so. As RPB pointed out, they must incorporate certain key elements of Patriarchy (namely, a loyalty to the dynasty) just to keep everything together. For those UMC/+ women who go off the rails in their indulgence of feminism and egalitarianism, they can only do so because sheer wealth makes up the difference. But even then, there are certain limitations, as Case Study 3 has shown.
Case Study 3 also illustrates how the LMC/- tends to pick up and imitate the worst aspects of the UMC/+ — the arrogance, the self-indulgence, the entitlement, the concept of relaxed leisure, the gluttony for luxury goods – these are the ostensible traits that they associate with the upper class. They fail to “get the point” about the key aspects that make the UMC/+ successful – the dynasty-based value system, the social dexterity, the vision, the sense of purpose, the diligence, the steadfast dedication to purpose, and the commitment to inter-generational continuity.
Related
- Σ Frame (Jack): Parenting is for the elite. (2020 March 16)
- Σ Frame (Lexet): Aristocratic Hypergamy (2021 May 14)
- Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): The Upper Middle Class Career Life Script Model (2021 May 17)
- Radix Fidem: Our Prime Directive (2021 June 6)
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Σ Frame 
God in his wisdom commands Patriarchy. Yet it seems that the UMC Prime Directive is 2nd best compared to the Best that is Patriarchy.
Both are successful. But I suspect that God seeing all outcomes sees Patriarchy as working out and outcompeting the UMC Prime Directive ultimately.
Perhaps because it is best for all parties including those of the UMC. What do you think?
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“…it might be accurate to say that LC women are DTF, MC women F up, and UC women F around.”
MC/UMC women F up during their twenties, then get to their thirties with a sense of entitlement and wonder “Where have all the good men gone? Chad won’t commit to me, all he’ll do with me now is ‘pump and dump;’ and Mr. Billy Betabux who my older sisters ‘settled’ for ten years ago, well he’s gone this thing called MGTOW that I’m just learning about! OMG!” This would be Tomi Lahren and her girlfriends.
The few true UMC/UC women I know, stuck the landing because it seemed their sense of ‘entitlement,’ aka “I deserve Giga-Chad, is tempered with reality, i.e. “I need a man with pedigree, social status, money and decent looking. Giga-Chad was fun, but he was just an F-boy and irresponsible on top of that. I’m relationally adulting now!” She doesn’t wail and stomp her feet throughout her thirties shouting, “Where have all the good men gone?” She finds one in her mid-to-late twenties and happily settles for her marital ‘golden handcuffs.’ If she gets bored with Billy, she pulls the pool boy inside and Billy never finds out, unless M’Lady does or indulges in something stupid that leaves a trail.
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“I need to do this my way, or else I will be a b!tch to you, refuse to have sex with you, sh!ttalk you to our friends and my parents, sulk and pout, and otherwise make everyone in this house miserable. And it’ll be that way until I get what I want.”
Man, it’s hard for me to imagine a stable UMC/+ marriage having a wife like this. I don’t doubt that there are many like this, but on the face of it, this seems more like a LMC/- wife’s behavior.
I think a lot of what deti mentioned there is implied, not overt. I agree with him that there is no such thing, in reality, as an egalitarian marriage. Whomever has the dominant personality is the one whose vision flies the plane.
We know a lot of UMC couples, but they are UMC by income, not birth. We often conflate class and income, and it doesn’t consistently work that way in America. Recall the young man I mentioned with the wildly successful business who never even went to college. We actually know a few couples like that very well.
I truly have no idea where we fall in all this, and have decided it doesn’t matter all that much because regardless of our income and zip code, we were raised with and have maintained decidedly working class values. Striving for any other reason than to honor God by building something on the strength of our talents, and to leave something of value to our kids are pretty much the only reasons we do what we do.
Of the UMC income couples we know intimately, wives who rule the roost are actually very shrewd, smart and flex their controlling natures underneath an impressive veil of sweetness. Of course, they’re also devout Christians which means that they are constrained to behave themselves.
I don’t really play that game because it’s not how I’m built, and because I have a husband who will simply say outright, “You’re trying to manipulate me and it’s not working.” Not that sweetness doesn’t work for many things (it does), but not the passive aggressive type which aims to get my way at the expense of his reaching a different conclusion.
Another thing that builds marital stability is having a whole passel of kids. I don’t know any LMC marriages with 5 or more kids that imploded before the very last child was gone. And only a couple of those. Lots of children may not be “golden handcuffs”, but they are type of handcuff and so long as a couple stays together, they often find their way back to each other.
But our culture -even among Christians- won’t even discuss the blessings that come from having many children. All we see are the costs.
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Couples with lots of kids most likely stay together, not because the kids are a form of tether, but because what a mess of kids indicates about the values of the couple. It’s easy to not have 5 or more children. To want that many or more clearly shows the couple’s view on family, which directly reflects on how the couple views each other long term.
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You both have a point. Yes, more kids = a healthier vision of marriage, but this year I have seen two mid 30s women with 2 small kids blow up marriages for no apparent reason. Seems like once they hit the magic number of 2 they’ve got what they wanted out of marriage and they start looking for the exit. A 3rd unexpected pregnancy might have forced them to stick around until they were too old to hope for a trade-up.
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I go to church with a man who has 6 kids with his wife and they are only in their late 20s. You don’t have a family like this without a mindset that is very different from the norm of our day and whole heartedly trust your spouse’s forever commitment to you.
Mid 30’s with 2 small kids fits more in line with the feminist life script than the completely committed to each other big family life script.
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1 to 2 children is the max benefit for child support. Women dont want child support for 10 kids its maybe %60 of his income where 1 child is %25+. This is why many women have several kids from several dads each guy pays the max rate.
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Patriarchy works best because as you wisely stated info, God created marriage to be patriarchal.
This part of Deti’s writing struck me because when Mrs. A and I were converting to the patriarchal model she raised this very concern about me being in control and that she would have to trust me.
“This is because headship is burdensome and makes men unhappy; and because submission requires trust that these women don’t have for their husbands …”
The mechanics of this involve faith on both the man and woman’s part, and that faith serves to reinforce God’s intended authority order. Here are the authority order options.
Man>woman (tingles and faith)
Man=woman (woman is in in control, no tingles, little to no faith)
Man<woman (woman is in control, no tingles, little to no faith)
Headship being the pain in a$$ it is, requires my faith in God in all things. When times are tough trusting He will provide and not letting Mrs. A’s emotions get to me requires faith. In times when hard financial decisions or choices on raising my children are required, having faith that God will direct me and even protect me from my shortcomings is needed. Likewise, Mrs. A has to trust that God has put her with the man He wanted to be her head. She must trust that the decisions I make are wise ones made with the best interest of the family in mind in all areas of life. This includes raising my sons to love God, to recognize the gifts God has given each of them and help them cultivate those, to guide my family financially and socially and to set boundaries on Mrs. A to guard her from her own excesses.
From experience, when the power structure of man=woman exists or even if a woman perceives this is the structure, it is an inversion of headship. The results are strife and disorder and if you are a man in this power structure both your faith and internal mettle will be tested beyond what you would ever want. So while I would not go so far to say that headship makes me unhappy, I readily admit that it is work. As such, it is like exercise for my soul in that it is not fun when I am doing it, but the rewards for the work are worth the cost.
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True redpill alert!Always worried about feral womens happiness?
Where has that gotten the loser elites&so-called conservative christians!?
MGTOW is the true elites that shake up the pitiful weakling so-called elites!
The so-called establishment of soceity,that destroyed that same establishment!?
/Their only response is ”your bad guys&no p@ssy for you”?
Thats real!!Real WEAK!!!
So-called elites tears is what the TRUE MGTOW elites swim in!
Anbody want to ask me about space bars or romantic MGTOW elite middle fingers that give the GREATEST tingles&faith to delicate women as they see us strut while doing it!?
I’m the kindest of true MGTOW elites!As roissy&dal’ knew best!!!
We rule the SMP/MMP!!!
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Good write up, I’ve currently dealing with the fallout of Case 2. Crazy continues to double down on stupid, she has no vision about the future, etc., and I’m now in year 2 of the the divorce machine.
The family never understood why she loved to ‘eat the seed corn’, but she came from the LMC and married up into a family that has changed from MC>UMC in two generations. Most of the clan has the prime directive/family goals and working together.
Here is an example of the prime directive at work in our family:
I’ve got 10 cousins, most of us are making $100K+ annually, even the girls, granted one is a hairdresser who’s an alcoholic, but she still ‘behaves’. Every year we get together for a family ‘work day’ at a farm my grandfather left to us ~ 150 acres. We spend 8-12 hrs together doing hard manual labor, even our spouses will join in. It’s truly something amazing, but this ‘shared vision’ is a real thing, and really is a great blessing. What was so obvious to everyone but me (the dude being gaslit by a BPD woman), was that Crazy would always have a excuse not to come out or would come late and only partially help for these sorts of events. She never ‘got it’ or got with the program. It’s that lack of future vision that aided in her walking away, and me letting her go.
I truly believe she will be living under a bridge in 10 yrs or the equivalent, even though she is a RN. Sad.
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WG1 – You story seems to be like others I have read that focus on the wife’s willingness to help out with some form of manual labor. How she approaches the labor is telling of how she approaches her man and the relationship.
On another blog, a man commented on how his wife of over 30 years won him over. Singles church group setting, men and women around discussing weekend plans and his included painting some rooms. His future wife asked him what time to show up and helped him with the work. The way he recounted the story and wrote about his wife in the current day exuded happiness. Another instance I remember reading about is a similar scenario, but with working on a bike and a shorter relationship to date.
There appears to be something about a woman who is a willing helpmate to a man, with manual labor being a test point that improves the odds of the couple lasting. It could be her ability to work for the goal of a healthy relationship. Maybe it is a person’s willingness to help with physically tiresome labor that portends a mental state more apt to endure harder things which is a characteristic needed for successful marriages. Whatever the reason(s) the trend seems to be there.
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Eh…I grew up in the sticks…..went to high school with families who had five or six kids, or more. It wasn’t the majority, but enough. Didn’t think these peers of mine came from better families or had better households, most all of them had parents who were drunks, welfare-class (not working poor, welfare and zero shame about living on it), the local Essex County Sheriff settling disputes. I recall that one Thanksgiving dinner when a mom and cousin got into a fight…..gunshots….injured children…..and the fight was over “who-was-a-better-mom” and
My dad was one of fourteen children. It wasn’t because my grandparents were “loving and devout Catholics in Poland” it was for the fact there was a large 600 acre farm that needed to be run. My dad quit the house the day he turned eighteen……..they were dirt poor, no running water and electricity only in the kitchen. His dad (my grandfather) was not a kind and loving man either. Took the switch to them over the smallest things…….
So, I don’t think because a large family means people loving jesus “more than anything” many are lower class and really don’t know any better and raising children to fill the same places the parents filled (usually not too good)
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You’re right. I’m not referring to having lots of kids as a result of tumble weeding through life.
I mean MC/UMC couples making a thought out decision to have a large family; or at least not prevent one.
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Man, it’s hard for me to imagine a stable UMC/+ marriage having a wife like this. I don’t doubt that there are many like this, but on the face of it, this seems more like a LMC/- wife’s behavior.
Most of the time it is just the case that the woman leads, de facto (note, I am not talking about “devout Christians”, I am talking about the many UMC/+ couples I know from my professional life, and almost all of them are secular, long-term married, no divorces, egalitarian marriages). It is experienced by the men as egalitarian, because the way that it works, in practice, is that the couple discusses things, and the woman has better verbal skills, “wins” the discussion, and therefore she sets the agenda. It’s not because she is designated as the “leader” or that she bosses him around, it’s that they discuss everything, and she is much better at discussion than he is, so she gets her way most of the time. That is the most typical way that it works.
There are also some of them that are very high conflict relationships — two very headstrong, type-A, driven personalities married to each other (most of the UMC/+ marriages are not that — most of them are more like two educated bureaucrats married to each other, not two hard-charging execs) — some of those work because the couple thrives on the energy of the conflict and the constant friction, and sometimes they blow up. There are some UMC/+ marriages that blow up, after all — in my experience it tends to be these ones.
Again, the typical UMC/+ marriages that I have been familiar with have not involved passive aggression or outright sexual manipulation, but rather two highly educated people who have been well indoctrinated that the “proper” way to relationship is to discuss everything to death … and women are better at that than men are, so the woman “rules” de facto.
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she is much better at discussion than he is, so she gets her way most of the time. That is the most typical way that it works. ….
people who have been well indoctrinated that the “proper” way to relationship is to discuss everything to death … and women are better at that than men are, so the woman “rules” de facto.
I would like to point out that the “discussion” in these situations only sometimes involves information gathering, assessment, evaluation, and weighing of alternatives with one or both deciding on a course of action that best serves the family unit.
More often, “discussion” consists of the woman complaining, gaslighting, using half truths, duplicity, manipulation, interrogation, argumentation, cynical use of the Socratic method to force sides into “teacher” and “student” mode, demands, yelling, pouting, sulking, crying, anger, rage, hyperemotional overreaction, and threats for the purpose of wearing down the man’s resolve. This results in the man getting defensive, angry, frustrated, and exasperated; arguing back, responding to emotion with logic and getting nowhere, and finally throwing his hands up and shouting “YOU WIN; just leave me the F alone!”
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True on too many levels deti. The specific tactics may differ depending on the subject matter at hand, but the strategy is the same. You left out one of my favorites. Purposely saying things to damage the man whether they are true, partly true (she’s convinced herself) or flat out false just to see how he’ll react. That last paragraph sure brings back some memories.
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Sometimes, yes, but I’ve often seen a lot where the wife is just more persuasive verbally, in general, because she isn’t limited to logic, but also effortlessly and naturally shifts from logic to rhetoric to emotional appeal to something the guy said 10 years ago to logic again and back and forth with a dexterity that he simply cannot match. In most cases I have seen, it doesn’t get to the heavy hitting — she just is better at the art of conversational persuasion, at leading the conversation in certain ways, and at mixing together different kinds of verbal communication seamlessly that the husband simply can’t keep up. Most of the time, husband is stuck in “logic” mode, and she’s literally talking circles around him.
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My point isn’t to say that women should be running marriages.
It’s rather that if you set up the ideal relationship as one that is based on constant verbal communication and discussion — and that is the dynamic that is socially supported, and certainly widely practiced in UMC/+ couples — then you have to expect that most of the marriages that follow that model will be, de facto, wife-led. The outward expression of it doesn’t look like leadership — it isn’t a matriarchal model. The outward expression of it is collaboration. But because one sex tends to be much better at verbal communication than the other one is, it means that one sex dominates marriages where verbal communication is the relationship model. And that sex is the female one.
Keep in mind — patriarchy isn’t about persuasion. A good patriarchal leader will of course explain himself and take input and so on, but the patriarch doesn’t rule on the basis of his verbal persuasion, but on the basis of his position. If verbal persuasion were the rule, there never would have been patriarchy to begin with.
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Nova – How is what you accurately describe as…
…anything other than a means of enforcing the curse of Genesis 3? The curse is something that comes naturally to women and any way you slice it, women using their natural strengths to get their way over their husband is headship inversion. And it is irrational to think that this is not intentional. She wants what she wants and once she sees that she gets what she wants by talking circles around him, she keeps doing it. This is authority/power expressed by women, as apposed to authority/power expressed rightfully as God’s appointed head of the family.
The only real difference I see between what you are writing and what Deti is writing on this is that the UMC+ people you are referencing play by a different set of acceptable behaviors because they have an appearance to keep up. One can be mislead by the smokescreen of “egalitarian conversation”, but at the core of the arrangement is a husband who loses conversations and a wife who wins those conversations and gets to implement her vision of the marriage by doing so.
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When you have a discussion between a dominant (head) and submissive (subordinate), either one presents the problem. Both discuss solutions, with the head listening carefully to the subordinate’s suggestions and recommendations. The head then decides on a course of action: either delegates responsibility to the subordinate to handle it as they see fit; or the head takes it all under advisement and makes a decision. When there is fundamental disagreement, the head carefully considers the subordinate’s position and objections, and ultimately makes a final decision they think is best for the family unit.
When you have discussions between two “equals” (in truth, people who think they’re equals and try to operate as such), you can’t do that, because neither wants to be the head and neither wants to submit. Neither wants ultimate responsibility for bad decisions.
You also get the dynamic I mentioned up there (complaining, gaslighting, emotionality, defensiveness, capitulation) because no one wants to actually acknowledge a head/subordinate dynamic. Or, rather, the woman wants to BE the head and ACT as the head without acknowledging she’s the head or calling herself that. You see, if she is the head, if she really is running all this, then she’s responsible when things go poorly, and she doesn’t want that. Women don’t do well with “the buck stops here”. She wants all the perks and benefits; with none of the responsibility or obligations. She takes the credit when it goes well; they BOTH take the blame (or she blames him) when it goes poorly. He doesn’t want to claim headship, because that’s male chauvinism and sexism and misogyny and mean spirited and oppressive and abusive and “this ain’t the 1950s, you a**hole!!” He doesn’t want her feeling “oppressed” because that always ends up with… yes, you guessed it… “NO SEX FOR YOU!!”
That is how you end up with “discussions” that take on the “heads I win, tails you lose” character. She’s the head but won’t admit it; she blames him when it goes south; he won’t stand up for himself because it always ends up with him sex deprived and sleeping on the couch.
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I know my opinion is ONLY ever asked for when she wants to be able to blame someone else for a bad outcome. However, the first “NO” is never sufficient. Whatever it is can and will be brought up over and over and over again (depending on time frame), though my “NO” never changes. Since she was so unsure of the outcome that she wanted a fall guy just in case, the answer is basically always NO.
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There is one, and only one, way to reverse that dynamic in a marriage where wife is topping from the bottom and acting as de facto head, and that way is for the man to simply muscle in and take over that function. Say, “I’m the head, I’m running it, I’m responsible” and just start doing it.
“No, you aren’t doing it that way.”
“No, I’m not doing that.”
“No, we are not taking that course of action.”
“No, we don’t need to discuss it, I already decided.”
“We can talk about it, but X and Y courses of action are out of the question because A and B.”
“Because I said so.”
“Because we don’t have the money/time/wherewithal/resources”.
“Because the money/time/wherewithal/resources are better expended at C than at D.”
“Because that’s what I decided, because I think that’s best for you/me/us/the kids/the family.”
She’ll get over it.
Put up with the bitching and complaining. Which at the end of the day becomes sulking and silent treatment. After that it becomes pissed off resignation. And then it becomes relief.
She got over it.
In truth she’ll be relieved she doesn’t have to take on that responsibility. She’s happy because someone else has responsibility for it, whatever “it” is, and she can busy herself with micromanaging the house and grocery purchases and the dishwasher pod things and getting new towels for the kids’ bathroom and planning your parents’ visit for the weekend and the upcoming PTA meeting. You’re happy because it gets done the way you want, or at least in a way that you think will work. You’re also happy because you have the ultimate authority, and best of all, there’s no lengthy discussion or disagreement so you can get back to Netflixing Ozark, and having sex just before bed. She barely remembers “what a jerk” you were when you started saying “no”.
Win-win.
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I was in Boy Scouts back when it was actually for boys. At 15, I was on a summer camp staff. I had a much older assistant camp director, around age 22, who all of us teen boys looked up to. He also worked as a dining hall steward. His most famous saying was…
“[Blank]’ll get over it.” “You’ll get over it.” “He’ll get over it.” “They’ll get over it.”
“It didn’t work out the way you wanted. You’ll get over it.”
“Right now, he’s mad about X because Y. He’ll get over it.”
“Oh, their Z is in bad shape. But they’ll get over it.”
And…. everyone always did get over it.
So it is in a marriage. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not earth shattering. It’s a surmountable problem. It’s an obstacle. She’ll get over it. She’ll let it go. With time, it will get better. People screw up, and we get past it.
“You’ll get over it, babe. And it will be OK.”
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This has been my experience too. My wife and I are part of a couples group that has a number of marriages that seem to work just like this. The thing I’d add, I sit there listening to these couples with my red pill, patriarchal, this ‘is the right order of things’ mindset. and I’m silently sitting there rooting for the man to grow a pair and put the Missus in her place–doesn’t happen. They may verbally joust or jest for a bit, but Mr. Blue Pill husband eventually yields by moving into an egalitarian framework for the rest of the conversation, and the wife has not gotten ‘put in her place’ so to speak (and I don’t mean that in a sexist way, I mean it in that she has not really yielded any ground to hubby in the conversation as he mildly try’s to assert himself and speak for the couple).
I readily admit that I want to be judgmental and sometimes, figuratively speaking, just want to smack hubby upside the head with my ‘Red Pill for Dummies’ handbook, but then the egalitarian world seemingly works for them when all is said and done. They’ve been married or re-married, for 17-35 plus years, and wifey feels perfectly fine leading the couple with hubby as the first officer, Instead of a marriage where he’s Kirk and she’s Spock, she’s Kirk and he’s Spock. My red pill and Christian worldview wants to reverse that order the way I think it should be as per the Bible and the Manosphere, however I also realize, that’s the way they have been conditioned by society to be and function, and they know no other way–and their ‘Enterprise’ of a marriage seemingly fly’s along just fine. The thirty something couples that are part of the group, they seem to struggle more with their inverted order, and wifey is a bit unhappy with hubby’s ‘manning up’ in some way, shape for form in some area of their marriage, and hubby chafes a bit under his wife’s egalitarian jabbering and jousting mentality. But the older couples, 45 plus in age, they seem to have worked out the kinks and their egalitarian marriage chugs along, at least while the kids are still in the picture, nowadays that seems to last until the kids are in their early thirties in some cases. I always get the idea that there could be turbulence down line when the kids are grown up and FINALLY, fully on their own, the so-called ‘gray divorce’ period of life, the fifties and sixties. IDK. A kind of sociological TBD for me to look for in real life. I’ve only read about it happening, the Boomer’s growing sociological trend of having gray divorces later in life.
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The easiest way to do this is for him to just start telling her “no” and let the chips fall where they may. Just start taking over the headship function, and just start doing it himself. Just start vetoing things that aren’t going to work. Just assume headship, and start doing it.
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It bears remembering that for quite a few men, following their wife’s lead is what they are comfortable with. Some even like it. When this is the case, then she is in effect, giving him exactly what he wants.
What has been heartbreaking for me over the years is having women lament to me that they WANT their husbands to make the call, not to leave her to make all the decisions, steer the ship.
Unfortunately they come to this realization later in the marriage, burnt out from being the de facto head, often after being convicted spiritually for their usurpation.
By then their men have settled in for the ride as the bank roller of her operation. Sometimes they were never prepared to lead. Other times they succumbed to her greater decision making. Doesn’t matter.
After all, having the buck stop with him is a lot of pressure. He’s often not the least bit interested in taking that on after 20+ years.
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E:
Those are the men who wash up on the shores of the manosphere with their wives in open revolt, fire breathing anger, threatening divorce every other day, and begging for help from ‘sphere regulars.
These are the men who march in to see us, ready to either capitulate, walk away, or pull the grenade pin and blow it all up.
These are men whose wives have pushed them to the brink, so much so that the entire marriage is at a breaking point.
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Wonder if there is a way to put the steering wheel in this hands. Starting with minor things getting him used to leadership until he is head before he knows.
He wasn’t head for 20 years so he would have to adjust.
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I’ve got a young couple in our church Life Group, he’s 35 and she’s 34, two kids, and from all outward appearances, he’s the one leading the marriage, she’s following. He’s fairly masculine, she’s fairly feminine, they are a two income family. He’s an Air Force Major and she’s recently become an RN. BUT, when I have conversations with the husband on the side, and we talk about things like personal finances, I find out that she’s the money manager of the family. I mean in a way, where he gets his spending money from her (allowance?) and WANTS NO PART of the rest of the family finances–I mean like no part, out of sight, out of mind completely. SHE’S GOT IT. BTW, I did that when I was his age, big mistake. I figured I’ll go make the money, and my wife can handle it since she was a stay at home at the time. Overall, my wife handled it well, but RESENTED me big time for it. Like seething resentment which I didn’t know about until years later. At that point, I ‘manned up’ and took over our finances lock, stock and barrel. It seemed to smooth a lot of things over with her. I think she even commented to me how good it felt with me handling all our money now, like a huge relief for her. It also felt good to me too, like the ‘natural’ order of things.
So back to this couple, they are being re-assigned to Alabama, and I asked, “Are you going to buy a home?” They’ll be there for 2-3 years and could build up some equity before the AF moves them again. She tells me, “No, my student loan debt is too high, we can’t afford a home, can’t get the mortgage. I get sick every time I look at the balance, but I’m dealing with it.” She tells me the amount, I want to choke, but I think, well okay, good on you Ms. AF wife, you’re dealing with it like an adult. I slyly ask the husband about it, he tells me, “We can’t afford to buy a house because OUR student debt is too high to purchase a home.” “Oh, gotcha!” I’m thinking. OUR STUDENT DEBT, both of them. After hearing her debt sum, I’m thinking jeez, not two student load debts! But then, he adds the twist, “Yeah, she’s figuring out ways to bring down our debt now that we have the two-incomes.” Me innocently, “Helping her out with it?” He shrugs and says something like, “Nah, she’s got that too. I don’t even look at it. I let her handle it.” My red-flag-o-meter is going off like crazy listening to this stuff. I’m thinking, “Oh, man, how does this end up playing out down line?”
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I handle our budget here. My husband is on top of things, always. But I am definitely the one who keeps the books. We have too much happening, and I have the time to do it. He has a job, a fairly quickly burgeoning side hustle, and I have some contract work as well.
So that all requires that the person with the time margin should deal with it. Bills, automatic savings deposits, investments, etc., are almost all done electronically anyway, so it’s just a matter of good record keeping and staying on top of things. I’m suited to it, but he’s involved. He calls a meeting every couple of weeks to make sure I am not bungling things.
When my dad died 5 years ago, my stepmother was totally and completely lost. She didn’t know even the basics about getting the utility bills paid. My father died unexpectedly (that sounds absurd given he was 85), and she was ill prepared. My husband has had to help her manage some of the most basic things.
I know that you’re not advocating that level of extreme financial ignorance on the part of a wife, but what tends to happen is that same thing we’ve been talking about. The dominant personality tends to steer the ship. Because my husband has zero problem looking at receipts and saying, “Why did you spend this much on XYZ? Don’t be wasteful like that again!”, this works for us.
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I handle our budget too, always have.
I’ve always been a lot better with money than Mike is.
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I should add, he’s great at making it, but his parents lived lavishly and set a high premium on expensive things. They didn’t save. That rubbed off on him and his sister.
My parents were extremely frugal, and that rubbed off on me. Debt makes me physically ill. I lived off rice and beans for years because it was cheap.
I’ve kind of come closer to Mike and he has come closer to me, so I now relax a lot more and he is now interested in saving.
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It’s not so much who in the relationship manages the money, it’s more of ‘how much in-the-loop’ concerning household finances each partner is; that’s the key. If the wife manages the budget, the husband can still be the priest of the home over it. The AF couple example I gave, he is NOT in the loop and doesn’t want to be; not being the ‘priest of his home’ imo. That’s as bad as the old-school model of ‘husband knows everything about the finances and the wife is clueless.’
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I agree to an extent, but the AF is kind of a different dynamic. If he’s away a lot, she will be the default arbiter of that stuff. We know people who go as far as to call the wife “the Boss”. Mike will ask if they can do X and he says, “Let me ask the boss”. Never heard a woman say it in that manner. I don’t. I always ask, of course, but I’ll say something more like, “Let me talk to Mike and see what our schedule is”. When a man calls his wife the Boss I can’t help but think he’s taking some sort of point of pride/signaling in displaying he is her subordinate. And usually with those people that is the case. Otherwise, why phrase it that way.
Per housing, our worst investment was a home. We were told we’d be in one place for four years (after moving an average of every year or year and a half up to then). Eight months after we closed on that house and put a lot of work into it, we had orders to PCS. Had to turn it into a rental and that was a nightmare. Of course, if they are at Maxwell it might work out because people are always coming and going for school there, and they are military. Still, I’d be hesitant.
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Since debt makes me ill I’ve never taken out a loan for school.
I had full scholarships. Not sure I would have gotten the RN otherwise. Maybe, but I’d have to pay it off without a loan.
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Correct E! My parents were in a similar situation when my dad passed away at 83, my mother had total ignorance of the family finances and his extensive files (he was an engineer with OCD, so you can just imagine). My wife, still the financier of our relationship at the time, and with a deep love for history love (like in utilizing systematic historical research methodology), dove into my dad’s files and finances and figured the whole thing out. She had a ball doing it, frustrating at times, but more like, “Oh wow, look what I discovered today!” Even my brother, sister and I were amazed to learn things we never expected was going on in how my dad managed things. He was old-school patriarchy, but it definitely had it’s downside as you mentioned, mom was clueless, clueless.
The AF couple example I gave, there’s WILLFUL cluelessness on hubby’s part, like in “I don’t want to deal with it” mentality. You handle it wifey–good luck and God speed! Not a very workable model in my mind, but very egalitarian. She can do as she pleases, and he’s none the wiser for it, unless she goes way over the line in an ‘over-the-top’ spending spree or situation, i.e. purchases herself a new car or something like it. She seems fairly level headed, after all she has two kids 12 and under; and in my experience, most mom’s are responsible when it comes to their kids and spending money. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking, they are prudent.
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