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It's not my job to teach a grown-ass man how to be a man. If he somehow missed out on that, I'm sorry for him, but I certainly don't want a boy-man in my gene pool.
No surviving culture has ever relied on women to socialize boys to manhood, and I strongly advocate that women avoid boy-men who haven't been socialized by other men into that role.
There was something else on my mind as I wrote my above post, but I somehow did not fit it in...
There needs to be a level of trust in a relationship, any relationship, to allow the give and take of both giving your partner freedom and holding one another accountable.
My girlfriend I spoke of before, my friend who grew up in Chicgo's Cabrini-Green, she "coached" me through a difficult time in my marriage a couple of years ago. I needed to hold my husband accountable for something [related to finances] and she helped me to grow the backbone I needed to demand my husband either make a change or move on.
My husband was, quite honestly, POd... he knew where I was getting my coaching from and he did not like it! He accused me of acting like a black woman more than once during that period, and I don't think he meant it as a compliment!
My husband did not want to be held accountable. It pissed him off that I was telling him what to do. Years of my trying to tell him what to do earlier in our marriage had resulted in him telling me he didn't love me and want a divorce. I didn't want to go down that road again - but I had no choice in this circumstance.
Early in our marriage I quite often had made decisions without taking full consideration his feelings, not intentionally but because I thought I was acting logically and therefore I thought he must be in agreement with me because what I was proposing was, after all, only logical... at least it was in my mind.
Then he told me he told me he didn't love me and wanted a divorce and I went to the Lord and cried out my heart and came back determined to be the submissive wife. It was a disaster, I became a doormat and we were both miserable.
Learning to make decisions with him jointly was therefore something we both needed to learn to do in our marriage, and that change, in part, led to our reconciliation after a long separation.
But making decisions jointly and holding one another accountable are not always one and the same.
There came a point where our finances were a hot mess, and my husband was not acknowledging reality. I did not want to order him around, tell him what tough decisions he had to make... but at the same time, if a decision wasn't made in a timely manner, the decision would have been made for us in a way which neither of us wanted.
So I laid down the law. Either do what I was telling him to do, or take a walk. I hated saying it, I hated laying down the law, I most certainly did not want him gone, not really - but it was necessary to make a decision, and given his unwillingness to even discuss the realities of the situation - I laid down the law. It had to be done.
All turned out well. My husband needed to get a new job - that's what the conflict was about. His prior job was straight commission and it was not producing a livable income and hadn't for a good long time, although he was making good money at one point with that job, so he was waiting for the good days to return. But that wasn't happening and we couldn't afford to wait it out any longer.
In the end, my husband ended up happier with his new job than he had been in his old job. It doesn't have the potential of a large income like his old job, but it offered a steady income - and that's what we needed to balance the bottom line.
Best yet, his new job is with a company with Atlanta offices, so it has given us the opportunity to make plans to move back to Atlanta [after our oldest child finishes h.s.] - and he couldn't be happier about that turn of events.
W/O my girlfriend "coaching" me on how to "lay down the law", I don't know if we would have survived that period. I wondered if my husband's complaint way back when about black women being bossy, when he said he wasn't interested in dating black women, was really an acknowledgment that he really didn't want to be held accountable?
We are Christians, and prior to our separation we were in a Fundamentalist Church for 7 years. During that time I tried really, really hard to follow the biblical command to "submit to my husband"... I am not opposed to that teaching, it is in the bible... but never forget that the bible also tells husbands and wives to submit to one another - it needs to be a partnership, not a dictatorship. We are no longer in a fundamentalist church - our marriage almost didn't survive that experience. Really, it did not survive that experience, we hit ground zero and had to rebuild.
What I am saying here is that we have swung the pendulum in all directions, I've been the boss, then he was the boss, and then we worked out a partnership, and then I had to step up and take control and be "the boss" again for a short period of time. Perhaps he'll someday feel the need to again "lay down the law" with me - I hope we don't get to that point again, but I don't pretend not to have blind spots.
++++
From those life experience I've extrapolated the following:
I think it's hard to "let go of control" and to form a partnership in a relationship, especially if you don't trust your partner to make responsible decisions. But if you do not approach your relationship from the perspective of "partnership", then you cannot expect to have a healthy, balanced relationship.
On the other hand, most relationships get off balanced from time to time. As humans, we sometimes have 'blind spots' and we sometimes need to be held accountable. It's a fact of life.
In most relationship, I think there comes a time when you need to hold your partner accountable. Ultimatums are never good for a relationship, but sometimes, unfortunately, they are necessary.
In order to have a partnership, you need to be with someone you trust, and who trusts you. These things are universal to all relationships.
LOVE is the ultimate equalizer in a relationshp ... and, imho, a relationship w/o Christ at the helm is doomed from the start.
P.S. I will be watching the entire video of the link posted by MBriggs later, I want to watch it with my husband and get his input... maybe it will give insight into our marriage, and perhaps it will help me to better understand my black girlfriends when they are talking about their relationships.
Last edited by StPaulEastSider; 05-18-2009 at 04:26 PM..
You have to be one of the wisest people I've ever encountered on a message board! When I figure out how to give rep points, I'm giving you some, LOL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StPaulEastSider
There was something else on my mind as I wrote my above post, but I somehow did not fit it in...
There needs to be a level of trust in a relationship, any relationship, to allow the give and take of both giving your partner freedom and holding one another accountable.
My girlfriend I spoke of before, my friend who grew up in Chicgo's Cabrini-Green, she "coached" me through a difficult time in my marriage a couple of years ago. I needed to hold my husband accountable for something [related to finances] and she helped me to grow the backbone I needed to demand my husband either make a change or move on.
My husband was, quite honestly, POd... he knew where I was getting my coaching from and he did not like it! He accused me of acting like a black woman more than once during that period, and I don't think he meant it as a compliment!
My husband did not want to be held accountable. It pissed him off that I was telling him what to do. Years of my trying to tell him what to do earlier in our marriage and resulted in him telling me he didn't love me and want a divorce. I didn't want to go down that road again - but I had no choice in this circumstance.
Early in our marriage I quite often had made decisions without taking full consideration his feelings, not intentionally but because I thought I was acting logically and therefore I thought he must be in agreement with me because what I was proposing was, after all, only logical... at least it was in my mind.
Then he told me he told me he didn't love me and wanted a divorce and I went to the Lord and cried out my heart and came back determined to be the submissive wife. It was a disaster, I became a doormat and we were both miserable.
Learning to make decisions with him jointly was therefore something we both needed to learn to do in our marriage, and that change, in part, led to our reconciliation after a long separation.
But making decisions jointly and holding one another accountable are not always one and the same.
There came a point where our finances were a hot mess, and my husband was not acknowledging reality. I did not want to order him around, tell him what tough decisions he had to make... but at the same time, if a decision wasn't made in a timely manner, the decision would have been made for us in a way which neither of us wanted.
So I laid down the law. Either do what I was telling him to do, or take a walk. I hated saying it, I hated laying down the law, I most certainly did not want him gone, not really - but it was necessary to make a decision, and given his unwillingness to even discuss the realities of the situation - I laid down the law. It had to be done.
All turned out well. My husband needed to get a new job - that's what the conflict was about. His prior job was straight commission and it was not producing a livable income and hadn't for a good long time, although he was making good money at one point with that job, so he was waiting for the good days to return. But that wasn't happening and we couldn't afford to wait it out any longer.
In the end, my husband ended up happier with his new job than he had been in his old job. It doesn't have the potential of a large income like his old job, but it offered a steady income - and that's what we needed to balance the bottom line.
Best yet, his new job is with a company with Atlanta offices, so it has given us the opportunity to make plans to move back to Atlanta [after our oldest child finishing h.s.] - and he couldn't be happier about that turn of events.
W/O my girlfriend "coaching" me on how to "lay down the law", I don't know if we would have survived that period. I wondered if my husband's complaint way back when about black women being bossy, when he said he wasn't interested in dating black women, was really an acknowledgment that he really didn't want to be held accountable?
We are Christians, and prior to our separation we were in a Fundamentalist Church for 7 years. During that time I tried really, really hard to follow the biblical command to "submit to my husband"... I am not opposed to that teaching, it is in the bible... but never forget that the bible also tells husbands and wives to submit to one another - it needs to be a partnership, not a dictatorship. We are no longer in a fundamentalist church - our marriage almost didn't survive that experience. Really, it did not survive that experience, we hit ground zero and had to rebuild.
What I am saying here is that we have swung the pendulum in all directions, I've been the boss, then he was the boss, and then we worked out a partnership, and then I had to step up and take control and be "the boss" again for a short period of time. Perhaps he'll do the same and feel the need to "lay down the law" with me again at some point - I hope we don't get to that point again, but I don't pretend not to have blind spots.
++++
From those life experience I've extrapolated the following:
I think it's hard to "let go of control" and to form a partnership in a relationship, especially if you don't trust your partner to make responsible decisions. But if you do not approach your relationship from the perspective of "partnership", then you cannot expect to have a healthy, balanced relationship.
On the other hand, most relationships get off balanced from time to time. As humans, we sometimes have 'blind spots' and we sometimes need to be held accountable. It's a fact of life.
In most relationship, I think there comes a time when you need to hold your partner accountable. Ultimatums are never good for a relationship, but sometimes, unfortunately, they are necessary.
In order to have a partnership, you need to be with someone you trust, and who trusts you. These things are universal to all relationships.
LOVE is the ultimate equalizer in a relationshp ... and, imho, a relationship w/o Christ at the helm is doomed from the start.
I've encountered white men who have similar biases against white women, frankly I wasn't interested in anything they have to say. One goober even has a blog called 'White Women Suck.' It's my belief that men who make those type statements about a whole group of women hate women in general. I know of white guys who've bought mail order brides because white women weren't 'submissive' enough. They extolled the virtues of Asian women. Then when those mail order women realized that life as an indentured servant wasn't exactly what they signed on for, you'd have those same bleating on about how awful Asian women are. They'd get another mail-order bride, but vow never to let this one become 'contaminated' by American women.
Bottom line is, adult men have nothing to fear from adult women, and they certainly have enough sense not to make blanket generalizations about them. I think it's always a good idea to avoid losers of all types, and certainly men who don't want to be held accountable for their actions fall in that category (at least as far as I'm concerned.)
No, I haven't given up on love. I've given up on trying to show/convince black men that I'm not a member of the bitter black women's brigade. They don't care. All many (not all) of them see is "black female" and all bets are off. So, I let them stew in their own misery and go on living my life, even if that means I'll live it alone.
I totally agree. I wouldn't be surprised if some guys use the angry black witch excuse to date outside of their race. I'd have much more respect for someone who is honest over someone who is using some tired old excuse.
I've had 5 serious relationships and with the exception of one, I think highly of all my exes. We just didn't work out...I wonder about people who constantly date or get involved with bad relationship after relationship. Something just isn't kosher there. Change your methods already!
I would love to support a movie/documentary highlighting positive views of relationships. Or at least show how we can begin to move forward and make long needed changes in dealing with each other.
Aren't we overdue for something like that already? I will not support movies that are separatist and only serve to hand out bats for beating an already dead horse.
I do too. I've had a couple of bad relationships, but never back to back like some people. And when I realized those men were not good for me, and had no intention of stepping up, I let them go. Sometimes it hurt like hell because I was falling in love, but I'd rather hurt like hell for a little while than be IN hell for years - and there is no sex good enough to make me stay on an emotional roller coaster, LOL.
I also have never had a terrible break up. Painful maybe, when I've had to dump a man I loved, but never terrible. Even my divorce was friendly! So, I totally can't relate to all these horror stories. That has not been my experience at all, and if someone is having THAT much trouble with EVERY relationship, then they need to look in the mirror.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glitterific
I totally agree. I wouldn't be surprised if some guys use the angry black witch excuse to date outside of their race. I'd have much more respect for someone who is honest over someone who is using some tired old excuse.
I've had 5 serious relationships and with the exception of one, I think highly of all my exes. We just didn't work out...I wonder about people who constantly date or get involved with bad relationship after relationship. Something just isn't kosher there. Change your methods already!
I would love to support a movie/documentary highlighting positive views of relationships. Or at least show how we can begin to move forward and make long needed changes in dealing with each other.
Aren't we overdue for something like that already? I will not support movies that are separatist and only serve to hand out bats for beating an already dead horse.
*clutching pearls* Self-reflection? Introspection? Actually looking into one's own actions for the results of one's relationships? Horrors! No. No. NO. It's far easier to blame it on those bitter, black women with bad hair days.
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