How Our Marriage Seems to Our Kids

As I've written before, here and here, my perfect marriage is nothing but perfect. If you decided to sit at my feet and write a how-to manual, based on my nearly 14 years of bliss, your marriage would fail. That's the curse of relationship perfection - it only works for that relationship.

One day, I sent my son upstairs to drop off a few blankets. My brother-in-law and his wife were living up in the third-floor suite for a few months. They were wonderful tenants. We've had a lot of people bed down up there, either passing through, or just to stay for a while. This couple takes the cake.

My boy bounced back down the steep stairs and softly shut the door to the third floor.

"Daddy, they're fighting up there," he said in a near whisper.

"Yep. Married people fight sometimes. It'll more than likely be okay," I softly called after him as he walked down the hallway.

As I turned to walk after him, my 13-year-old daughter called me from her bedroom.

"Daddy, are they going to get a divorce?"

I chuckled a bit at the question, but answered her, matter-of-factly, "Mommy and Daddy fight sometimes and we aren't divorced."

"I know, Daddy, but nobody knows how to make up like you and Mommy do. That's why other people get divorced."

Sometimes, I wish I had the faith my kids have in me. Adults understand that relationships that work are relationships that are worked on. But, for her to see the fruits of our labor in such an innocent and trusting light, made me smile and laugh.

Debunking the Fourteen Basic Needs of a Marriage: Introduction

I will be quoting Bill Gothard's material in this text style and my response will be in the normal text:

Bill Gothard has published a manual on how a wife should meet her husband's seven basic needs, as well as how a husband should meet his wife's.  As you'll see, the latter part, directed at the husband, is highly disingenuous because, according to Bill Gothard, a marriage relationship is skewed completely toward the man.  The wife is only a cheerleading, supposedly willing, party.

As Bill is notorious for, he takes anything he can find in the Bible to support any point he dreams up, disregarding the context, the era, even the writer's style, etc., and sandwiches it in with his unique, sleight-of-hand, wording to numb your mind into believing he knows what he is talking about.

The unsuspecting reader may look at Bill's words as a sort of optional guidebook that might work for some and not others.  I will prove to you that this is not the case.  Bill makes it very clear that, if a woman does not follow his directions to the letter, she is a fool.  Worse yet, she is a horrible wife.

Finally, why are there not 8 basic needs?  Or 16.5 of them?  We'll never know how Bill finds his "rhemas" as he calls them.  We can only look at what he gives us and blow his theories out of the water.  You will find that much of my commentary will be decidedly personal, but that's just fine.  Why?  Because Bill makes the assumption that he is speaking for all men, and last I checked, I am a member of "all men".

Now, let's begin with a look into Bill's introduction to the Seven Basics Needs of a Husband and Wife.

Your spouse has many needs. Even if he or she is not consciously aware of all of these needs, when they are unmet, your spouse will exhibit sorrow, confusion, and frustration.


This is a setup.  It is a very effective tactic to come out at the beginning of any "new truth" and state that the receiver of that truth may not even be aware of the need for it.  By saying this, any person who wants to "debunk" the message, as I am doing, can be easily dismissed as ignorant, or even better, accused of willfully denying what is obvious truth - obvious because Bill Gothard says so.  Thus, if I say that I don't need my wife to meet my basic needs, as laid out by Bill, the author would state that I am simply unaware of my basic needs and, more importantly, the correct process or person to have those needs met.

Then Bill polishes off this introduction by proving to the reader that spousal sorrow, confusion, and frustration are symptoms of not following his formulas that will come later.  This isn't new though.  All "how-to" manuals begin this way.  They sneakily position one or many common human emotions as being negative, and then hit you with the reason for that emotion - the reason being a common trait in society, as well.  Bill is a master at this.


As the Lord shows you how to meet these needs, you can avoid strife and prosper...
No, Bill, as YOU show us how to meet those needs.


Then Bill talks to the woman:


As a wife, you are uniquely qualified to fully meet your husband’s needs and cause him to “rejoice in the wife of his youth” (Proverbs 5:18).

This is a horrible bastardization of a beautiful Solomonic proverb.  It makes me want to go to Bill, who has never been married in his life, and slap him on the back of his head.  The verse is talking to a man and telling him how to enjoy life.  The responsibility for the choosing of the enjoyment is squarely on the man.  Bill, in his finite wisdom, decides to pretend the causation is flipped and the man cannot enjoy his wife unless the wife meets the needs that Bill will later lay out.

There are days in my 10-year-old marriage where I hate the ground my wife walks on.  I can't stand the mother she came from or the person she is.  The couch is a warm and comfortable pity party for me.  But do I walk out?  Heck no!  I love my wife with every part of my being, even in those dark moments.  In those moments that matter the most, the times when I could throw it all away because I am fleetingly angry, I choose to love her.  She can do nothing at all to bring me back.  It is all up to me.  And I always end up on the other side, happier for it.  I get the sense that this was the real point of that proverb.  Requiring the woman to do all the right things so the husband enjoys her is a prison that is unnecessary and burdensome.

In His Word, God clearly establishes the responsibilities of a husband and a wife.

And there you have it.  Everything that Bill will present is now non-optional.  He used the word "clearly" after all.  A favorite of any fundamentalist guru.  If you disagree, then clearly you don't "get it".  Clearly you are not "saved".  Or clearly you are unaware of real truth.

It is the wife’s responsibility to honor and reverence her husband.

Bill gets this little idea from Genesis 3:16, as well as a few sprinklings of New Testament verses where writers, 2000 years ago, wrote their ideas of how women are supposed to act toward their husband.  With progressive understanding (namely, 2000 years of wisdom and knowledge), we can move away from archaic and backwards ideas and look ahead to the realities of how things really are in light of the complexities of life.

But, it's the Genesis 3:16 reference that really floors me.  The verse is where God is saying to Eve that he will "multiply her sorrow in childbirth" and "thy desire will be to your husband" (which I don't have a problem with at all, if you catch my drift), and finally, the part that Bill loves, "your husband will rule over you".

God was telling Eve this because she sinned.  It was her punishment for sinning.  I emphasize that twice for a very simple reason:  Why is Bill Gothard requiring honor and reverence from a wife in order to gain God's favor (as well as her husband's) by telling the woman that she is required to, because God told Eve she was required to, due to her sin?  Obviously, I find this text to be somewhat humorous.  On one hand, God punished Eve with some physical punishments that she couldn't get out of; childbearing, pain in conception (huh?), and then punishes her by saying she would be ruled over by her husband - something that is clearly (there goes that word) a choice on the husband's and wife's part.  Bill sees it as a metaphysical re-wiring of the male and female psyche.

I disagree.  And I am perfectly happy to do so.  And so is my wife.

*****

In Part 1, we will discuss the first of the seven basic needs of the husband, according to Bill Gothard: A man needs a wife who is loyal and supportive.

The Formula Problem: Why Duggarizing Your Marriage is Not Recommended

Baking is one of my favorite pastimes.  I make a killer banana bread.  I love baking cookies and many times, like Marie Barone, bake a cake just because.  I follow recipes very closely but always add vanilla even if it is not called for.  I can follow those recipes to the letter for one simple reason - I live 900 feet above sea level.

Those who live 2500 feet above sea level cannot enjoy the ease of baking I take for granted.  When a recipe calls for a certain amount of flour, they have to add a bit more of the liquid ingredients.  If baking powder is needed, the elevated baker must reduce the amount by as much as half.  Baking temperatures must be increased.  And it isn't as easy as following specific directions for a perfect cake either.  In order to find the perfect balance of everything, copious testing and many failures must ensue.  But, just as the elevated baker is finding the correct balance, a thunderstorm hits and their angel food cake comes out of the oven in the shape of a discus.

Such is life in the baking world and such is the idea behind marriage.  What works for one couple will not necessarily work for another couple.

Everyone in the world is familiar with JimBob and Michelle Duggar.  They are all over television with their TLC program, as well as having been on numerous talk shows and the subject of many a news story.  They tow the line of an organization called Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and their home schooling program Advanced Training Institute (ATI). 

IBLP/ATI is run by a chronically unmarried man named Bill Gothard with a storied past, full of scandals.  This gentleman has propped himself up as an expert on marriage and everything to do with family life.  He is quite the guru with millions of direct and indirect adherents to his ideas.  Yes...ideas.  Bill Gothard has seven steps to this, fourteen steps to that, twelve steps to everything except alcoholism, three steps to whatever else.  The material he puts out is so formulaic, a follower of his has nothing to do but reference any of his hundreds of manuals for any question in life.

As was put forth in ATI material that Michelle Duggar handed out to women at a conference she was speaking at, the formula for marriage is very simple.  The wife must worship her husband at every turn in life.  She must stand behind him in all his decisions and respect his leadership.  She must look at him lovingly whenever he speaks and not interrupt.  She cannot argue with him or disagree unless she follows a formula to make a "godly" appeal.  All financial decisions are his.  All final decisions are his.  Her husbands vision must be her vision and absolute unquestioning trust and faith must be placed in the man she married.

This seems to work well for JimBob and Michelle Duggar.  JimBob appears to be an ambitious man and has started numerous businesses.  Currently, he is successful at real estate, not to mention the large amounts of money involved in any television show.  Trusting a man to make good decisions is very easy when that man works hard, efficiently, smart, and enough to more than enough money is rolling in. 

The problem is that two people living together is never a cookie-cutter situation.  JimBob and Michelle Duggar, as well as all adherents of IBLP/ATI practices, have a favorite line that you will hear whenever they give public interviews or are backed into a corner, defending their ancient and outdated belief system. 

"This is simply our conviction."

No it isn't.  If you dig into the reality of IBLP/ATI/Duggar, you will see what they portray as their conviction is really much more.  They posit that, due to their convictions, they have been blessed by God.  The obvious conclusion is that if others do not have the same convictions, then God is obligated not to bless them.  Thus, the "simply our conviction" line is really a translucent lie. 

In 2011, I played on a church softball team.  This league was unique in that most of the families showed up to watch their husbands and fathers make fools out of themselves.  (Ok, it was really just me making a fool out of myself).  A highlight of the game was the after-party where the home team would bring snacks and drinks and the families enjoyed meeting everyone.  My wife and I met a mother of eight children.  These children were very poorly dressed and had obvious, easily treatable medical problems (rashes, etc.).  We asked the mother how many children she had and she hesitated before she "remembered" that she had eight.  The children were well behaved but the older girls, around eleven and twelve, were very exasperated while taking care of their younger siblings.  The father was nowhere to be found.

I record this scenario here to portray a different side of formulaic marriage and family life as put forth by IBLP/ATI/Duggars.  The church league I played in was heavily involved in this mindset and they lived it, even to their detriment.  My wife and I went home and began asking the following questions.

Why is it right to have as many children as God gives you if you cannot support them?

What if the husband doesn't listen to "godly" appeals and railroads through all his decisions, no matter the detriment to the family?

What if the husband is abusive?

What if the wife has a superior financial mind and makes better decisions in that area?

What if the husband has no marketable skills?

What about inflation where one income is not enough?

What if the wife is not educated enough to sufficiently school the children and money is too scarce to get assistance?

All of these questions, and many more can be easily answered when you watch JimBob and Michelle Duggar.  They don't have to worry about them because everything appears to work for this family.  But this rosy, happy Hollywood story, is far from reality. 

Not everyone has a husband who works hard and "gets lucky".  Many marriages work better when all parties handle everything equally.  Many marriages work very well when the partners have extended arguments and constructive fights.  Disagreement is good in life. Many families struggle to make a living and need all parties to be gainfully employed.  Sometimes the spouse needs to sleep on the couch overnight to reboot the romance.  I cannot even begin to list all the real life differences from the perfect life formula that the Duggars portray as absolute and necessary.  There are hundreds - and they grow exponentially with every passing hour of life.

Happiness in marriage is what the two married parties make of it.  It will look different for every marriage.  Don't let anyone tell you that your marriage would be better (or even worse, truly blessed by God) if you only followed their principled life.  It just isn't true.

The Simple Joys of Life: Sunday, June 26, 2011

We bought an old Victorian (built, 1875) house in January and now have to chop through all the overgrowth on our half acre property.  Our neighbor brought over a chainsaw and we started in on a line of uuuuugly bushes on the west end, discovering a mulberry tree in the process.  The kids have never tasted mulberries.  This will be sweet, provided the birds don't get 'em first.

Then, Chewy Cheeks (my 4 year old sweet gal) was dragging the bush branches to the drying pile while talking about marriage.

"Daddy, when I get to be the mom, you and mommy will be the grandpa."

"Yep!"

"Daddy's never have boobs, but I have boobs, see! (lifting her shirt)"

"You're right!  If I ever grow any, let me know and I'll start eating salads with you."

"Daddy, if you and...if you...if you and mom...you and mommy were the grandpas and I'm the mommy, and the other grandpas are the bigger grandpas..."

"The great grandpas..."

"Yeah, the great big grandpas.  So, if they're all the grandpas, who's the daddy?"

"Well, you'll be married to the daddy."

[Big smile!]

"So, I'll be the mommy and I'll go to college."

"It might be easier if you go to college before you become a mommy."

"Ok.  I'll go to college when I grow boobs."

Yes, my daughter has a wonderful grasp on life.