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adultery, biology, blogging, cheaters, faith, insanitybytes22, marriage, opinion, relationships, submission
I snagged this from John Branyan, “Who to Blame When Your Spouse Cheats,” as well as the accompanying CNN article he references. I agree with his take on things, I appreciate his commentary, but I feel the urge to elaborate on the whole thing some more and to lament the decline of Western civilization.
So contrary to the CNN article the “changing reasons why women cheat,” and the books referenced, there really are no “changing reasons.” We cheat because we’re sinners. We cheat because we’re chasing shiny objects on the ground. We cheat because we’re defying God’s design, going our own way, and not trusting in Him. The answer to why we cheat is, because sin.
There is some cultural, social-sexual stuff going on however, contributing factors making everything worse. A couple of things really jumped out at me in this article, the egalitarian nature of modern relationships and the heavy burden women allegedly feel for having carry all the emotional weight, do all the invisible labor. That’s a logical contradiction, a bit of cognitive dissonance. We cannot have an equalitarian, equal division of labor, and a woman feeling as if she is carrying ALL the emotional and mental weight, as if she is now just looking after another dependent, a man-child.
Right off the bat, we’ve just killed all sexual desire. Maternal love is not romantic love. Women are not attracted to their dependents, we do not desire sex with those we feel we have to be in charge of, take care of, have to watch over. Ironically what we’ve just done in that pursuit of egalitarianism is to create an emotional power imbalance.
This is where submission comes in, the need to ask, “why are you carrying all of his water? Why are you doing all of his emotional labor?” The article states, “women felt in some fundamental way that their needs (sexual, emotional, psychological) were not being met inside the marriage.” Well of course not. You have totally taken control of all your needs and his too, and are now proceeding to try to meet them all single-handedly. Of course you are over burdened and your own needs aren’t even on the radar anymore. He couldn’t possibly meet any of your needs anyway because you won’t let go and trust him.
This is where submission and learning to relinquish control comes in handy. Set those burdens down. One burden is feeling the need to police your marriage for an equal division of labor, for equality. That one is kind of funny, because obviously if you are the cop, the mom, the judge, the boss in charge of making sure everything is equal and fair and all your needs are being respected and met, you have simply picked up yet another job and now have even more responsibility.
Not only are you not sexually attracted anymore, now you actually resent the guy for dumping so much baggage and extra weight on you. Now we’ve really killed sexual desire and made ourselves more exhausted, too.
The article goes on to say, “women were describing infidelity not as a transgression but a creative or even subversive act, a protest against an institution they’d come to experience as suffocating or oppressive.”
I am all about subversive acts, but the very need to be subversive usually denotes rebellion and defiance. What are you rebelling against? It’s can’t be an “oppressive institution,” because actually you are the CEO in charge of the “oppressive institution.” You have created a suffocating situation for yourself and are now rebelling against it. You are now protesting against what you yourself have wrought.
You are rebelling against your own self, the nature of what you have built, and while the rationalization for the transgression is certainly creative, it’s also just a bunch of bovine poo. Muddled thinking. Emotionalism, shame, confusion.
“I think there’s an incredible amount of deep resentment for women in America about divisions of labor,” said sociologist Lisa Wade when I asked her to comment on this contradiction. “And what social scientists are finding now is that there is a correlation between equal division of labor and better sex.”
But wait! Isn’t this odd obsession with an “equal division of labor” what got us into this whole mess in the first place? Isn’t that why she is now doing it all, being it all, having it all, and discovering in the process that he really contributes nothing, has nothing of value to offer her, and isn’t even sexually attractive anymore?
So sociologist Alicia Walker has just written a book which, “elaborates on the concept of female infidelity as a subversion of traditional gender roles.” Ai yi yi. As I keep trying so desperately to say, see there’s thing called biology. Biology aka design. Traditional gender roles are heavily entwined with our sexuality and those biblical values our culture likes to mock, that biblical wisdom about the nature of men, women, and marriage, serves a vital purpose in the world. There is wisdom to be found there. Even sexual wisdom.
“Wives submit” is not about the “suffocating oppressiveness of an institution” at all, it is about emotional and spiritual freedom, including the freedom of empowered sexuality in marriage. We don’t just click, there isn’t some magic potion, we learn to work within our own biological frameworks, partially understood based on tradition and the wisdom of our ancestors. Our biblical ancestors.
It really is an equation, a tango. Women cannot submit to love that isn’t there or doesn’t know how to express itself, but men cannot love when there is huge resistence, when one cannot yield, trust, and receive. He winds up feeling like a disappointment and a failure, which makes him less attractive, and she becomes controlling and resentful which makes her less attractive. When we cheat,we just take the cause of the problem with us.
Another word for submission is to yield. To yield to receive love. “Husbands love your wives,” because wives who feel loved tend to share the joy………with you.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Amazing post. I couldn’t stop laughing. You definitely nailed it.
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Glad you laughed. Some of this stuff is so silly, we have to laugh. 🙂
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I agree. We woman are complicated human beings. 😂
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Your post was really well thought-out, interesting, and intuitive. You’re not some kind of therapist, are you? I’ve been married a long time, and I agree with much of what you wrote. My wife is more receptive to some of my amorous moves, when I do things to make her life easier. Sometimes, when she comes home from a long, tiring and pressure-filled day; she appreciates that supper has been started, a load of laundry is done, there’s no dishes in the sink, and the house is relatively clean. Oh, and I didn’t forget to pick up the bread and milk on my way home.Though they’re nice to receive; I guess, thoughtfulness means more in terms of romance, than flowers, diamonds, and pearls – when it comes to a woman’s needs.
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Thank you for your kind words. I am not a therapist. I did work for a domestic violence/sexual assault center though, so lots of crisis counseling.
I like what you said about being thoughtful and making life easier. I’ve joked before about watching my husband pick a branch up off my car and carry away a dead mouse the cat dropped off, and thinking “ahh, that’s so romantic.”
It was a bit funny to try to explain, “it was so romantic, you should have been there, he picked up a dead mouse for me.” It’s the thoughtfulness though, the sense of protection and provision.
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It’s nice to see vows taken seriously, with some genuine reverence for them (and the values that come with it). In marriage, certainly, and I also expand that to a relationship that two people have defined as monogamous.
A couple of years ago, a bit creepily, I received 5 inquiries in one week from women asking about their partner cheating on them, but all of the inquiries were focused on the other party to that ‘cheating’ … takes two to tango thing. They asked why a woman would do that to another woman (like I’d know, but there you have it).
Whomever is involved, there’s definitely a values deficit there, and that “chasing shiny objects on the ground” or always looking around for greener pastures (how can anything flourish when we don’t honor and attend to it?).
You’ve shared some important reminders about how important mutual respect and not competing with each other can be.
Ay yi yi is right.
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Interesting point about why a woman would do that to another woman. I have no idea, competitiveness probably. Regardless, we need to learn how to be more respectful of one another and empathize a bit more.
When men cheat its also pretty common to blame the other woman rather than the guy you’re actually in the relationship with. I’ve never really understood that one either. We sometimes joke at my house, the best revenge would be to just let her keep him and send her a sympathy card.
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IB, women do that to other women because they are “strange” women. That is, they aren’t thinking like good women would be. They are self-interested. Not at all to excuse the guy. I like what you say about taking too much on. Feminism promises equal opportunity without realizing that they are women’s worst nightmare. They not only cause a woman to have 2 jobs–career and homemaker/mother, but through the promise of equal opportunity sex, they take away all reason for men to commit. The joke about why a guy would buy a cow when he can get the milk for free takes on a whole new meaning and women are left holding the bag. There is a whole lot less commitment on the part of millenials than there was in older generations. Young women need to wise up to this sham. Submission in marriage is the best thing women had going. With that said, Christians who regularly attend church do have more marriage stability than their secular counterparts despite rumors to the contrary.
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so so good and so so right—bottom line, a three letter word…sin
that pretty much sums it up in a nutshell—no need to write a book—there’s already one on the subject—pretty authoritative as well 😉
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LOL! Yep. Just read the instruction manual, it explains EVERYTHING 😉
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“There’s a correlation between equal division of labor and better sex…”
No, I don’t think that’s it.
There’s probably a correlation between better sex and a woman’s BELIEF that household labor is “equal”–but it’s a completely arbitrary line. Discontentment usually has more to do with the discontented person than with unmet needs.
When I started taking responsibility for my own feelings, my marriage got better. (LOT’S better.)
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I tend to agree. A whole lot of it has to do with our own attitude and perception of an “equal division of labor,” rather than the actual amount of work going on. A lot of women I know claim to want more help around the house and yet that’s not actually what they’re asking for. They want something more akin to being valued and validated, reassured,reminded that he is invested in the relationship too. Some women even get frustrated the more you try to help them.
You’re right too, about taking responsibility for our own feelings making everything so much better. Marriage can be amazing and actually a great deal of fun. It’s tragic to see so many negative pop culture messages leading people down the wrong road.
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Women think they want more help around the house. But then we complain when no one else does it “right.” 😉
Turns out, I don’t want “help.” I want to control my family members like little SIMS! (Seriously, I love that game. And I don’t think I’m the only control freak who does. Lol.)
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“Women think they want more help around the house. But then we complain when no one else does it “right.” 😉 ”
Bingo. Which in turn makes husbands–who are notorious for performing cost/benefit analyses about everything–reason, “You know what? Screw it. I just won’t do ANYTHING if I’m just gonna get grief for it.” Vicious cycle.
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It also occurs to me (when I’m thinking clearly and not stuck in a bad mood) that my husband simply DOESN’T CARE how the house looks, as much as I do.
That’s not the same as not caring about ME. (He actually makes a good effort to load the dishwasher or run a load of laundry, when he notices they need doing…) He simply doesn’t NOTICE as much as I do, because most messes legitimately don’t bother him. Trying to make him WANT the house to look the way I want it to look is kind of like forcing him to like chicken pot pie or mozarella sticks. (He’s not a fan of either, by the way. Poor soul.) It’s not his fault that he has certain preferences, and it’s not necessarily wrong that they’re different from mine.
I think back to the way my husband’s apartment looked before we got married. YIKES! But–honestly–he and his roommate didn’t care. If they cared, they would have cleaned their toilets at least once that semester. And they would have actually OWNED A MOP before they moved out. 🙂
So, whether I like it or not, the majority of the housework falls to me because I’m the one with the high standards. When I remember that, it’s easier to thank my husband for the small things he does, like making the bed or dusting, rather than being mad at him for not doing more. When he does those things, it’s almost exclusively because I like them done, and not because a pretty bed is important to HIM. That type of selflessness deserves recognition–again, when I’m thinking rationally and not just feeling sorry for myself, which happens sometimes…
Instead of having a healthy perspective on the situation, I think too many women try to convince their husbands that they’re trying to change them, for their own good. (“Yes, I’m going to make you enjoy pot pie, because that’s what grown-ups do.”) Actually, that’s what SOME grown-ups do. And some grown ups never make their beds. To those nagging hens, I say: if you want the bed made, then make it. Or AT THE VERY LEAST thank your husband when he does it just for you. 🙂
Whew, sorry. End rant.
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No need to apologize. You make great points.
On the other side, I think what husbands can do is at least keep in mind that just because THEY’RE not so concerned with domestic aesthetics, they should at least recognized that their wives generally are, and try to do those little things you mentioned, the things that they can do. Or at least not actively hinder the efforts.
It’s constant give-and-take. I think the societal message of the past 40 years that “Women = perfect, men = dumb lazy slobs” has percolated throughout the culture enough to do damage even if we don’t like to admit we fall prey to such messaging.
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Excellent! Added quite a bit to what John Branyan started.
That CNN article is actually advocating “open marriage”. That, of course is an oxymoron.
I would like to say that some people are unbelievably dense, but we are all sinners. It is probably more accurate to say that that CNN writer never learned wisdom, and now, as an adult, she is actively opposed to learning because she would have to repent of so much of what she has done.
It is scary to look back on our lives and to have so much for which we must repent. Think about how non-Christians express that horror. This horror has much to do with why they so often detest us. What they don’t realize is that there is forgiveness. We begin by forgiving each other.
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“It is scary to look back on our lives and to have so much for which we must repent. Think about how non-Christians express that horror.”
That’s a really good point,Tom. Non believers don’t know or believe in repentance, grace and mercy, so they’re just left either with the weight of all this sin and craziness, or else an angry need to deny there’s anything wrong with sin in the first place. Much of that CNN article was so self absorbed, they didn’t even seem to realize there were other people involved and impacted by their choices.
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That is sort of the problem. Pride is the greatest sin. When we see everything only from our own point of view, others are just objects. Thus, I suspect the lady writing that CNN article was justifying herself. Can you imagine being her husband and reading that?
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Yep, I feel really bad for some of those husbands. One of the women spoke of having affairs as “outsourcing.” That’s just really hurtful.
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I was reading a NY Times article this morning where the woman involved said she had a good long-term partnership without the piece of paper and said that her situation was better than marriage. As a couple of us pointed out, that showed she wasn’t totally committed:
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Here here. I for one am thankful a) I’m done with the dating scene and b) I didn’t marry a modern urban shrew. Good lord these women are insane. They want to run the show, get pissed that they’re running the show, then step out on the guy the usurped power from. And society encourages them.
There’s always a struggle in a modern marriage, no matter how good it is, where the husband HAS to say, “No. This is my sphere, my domain.”
Also: I hate the fiction that women do all the “emotional labor.” Screw that. Yet more feeding into the “men are dumb and emotionally retarded” stereotype. Maybe men just regulate and express emotions differently…
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Be wary of getting trapped into this us versus them division The problem is not entirely the women; it is the men WE have put in charge.
Wisdom — virtue — what it is and the value of it has to be taught. Thanks to the public school system, ineffective churches, and a mass media that peddles filth, that is not happening.
Most of the leaders in our society are men. Many of these men use penis envy, a branch of identity politics we call feminism, to buy the votes of women who have been taught to envy men instead of enjoying the benefits (which are equally numerous, at least) of being a woman. When a man gets angry and bashes women, that is just venting. It feeds the myth we cannot learn to control our tempers.
Consider the primary reason that when a violent crime is committed, it is reasonable to assume a man is guilty. Partly, it is that Y chromosome, but the main problem is that men don’t take charge of disciplining boys like they use to. Instead we are now leaving our children to the mercy of the public school system. Hence, huge numbers of children, especially boys, have been falsely diagnosed with ADHD and drugged to make them docile. Any bureaucratic system that works like that has to be replaced, and fathers and mothers should be coming together to do it. Instead, politicians have divided with stupid rivalries.
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We can trace many societal ills to vote-buying politicians. The so-called superior democratic process almost makes me long for a monarchy.
Almost.
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I think sometimes Christian cheating happens because people don’t fully realize the meaning of marriage and sacrificial love; good people in general because they like to identify exterior solutions to inner problems.
I feel like an argument about birth control could be made here, too, for the general guardedness, lack of self-giving, as well as lack of fulfillment, but that is not a popular argument to make in most circles anymore.
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Citizen Tom, men do commit the large percentage of violent crime, but I won’t get into that here. Fatherhood is definitely a factor as fathers are marginalized.
As far as equal labor, men just do not love housework like women do, and so anything they do to help is a plus and should be appreciated. I think though that as leader of the home, a man needs to consider the workload of his wife if he wants her to work outside the home. Many men do not. They have a wife who is working 2 jobs essentially. I think it behooves them to lighten her load wherever he can if he wants her to be able to perform her *other* responsibilities with fervor. And he should certainly show her extra appreciation for doing so.
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Can’t agree more
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“You have totally taken control of all your needs and his too, and are now proceeding to try to meet them all single-handedly.
[…]
He couldn’t possibly meet any of your needs anyway because you won’t let go and trust him.
[…]
Not only are you not sexually attracted anymore, now you actually resent the guy for dumping so much baggage and extra weight on you.”
I’m confused about the reason the woman thinks she is responsible for both her needs and his needs. You say she has “totally taken control” and “won’t let go”, but, in the last sentence, you write that the guy has dumped “so much baggage and extra weight” on her. Is the last part what you personally believe, or, as I hope, stating her perception of the situation?
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OK, I think she is saying that the woman perceives the man as dumping the baggage and extra weight when in reality the woman took it upon herself. You see, we can understand a man’s perspective. 😉
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Reblogged this on donnie harold harris.
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