The Surrendered Wife (22 page)

I found fault with everything John did because he didn't do it the way that made sense to me as a woman. When he handled the finances, I was appalled because he didn't methodically plan them out. I wanted him to maintain the house by fixing every little thing as soon as it started to crumble, and by adding bells and whistles all the time. John's style, of course, was different and masculine.
He was more concerned with security and function in our home than he was with beauty. He thought nothing of paying bills as they came due instead of planning ahead. Many times he tried to do things my way as well as he possibly could, which of course wasn't very well since he was going against his own nature.

I was trying to make John into a Laura, but obviously he could never be a good me. Instead of taking the initiative to do things
his
way, he tried to keep the peace. To do this he kept a low profile around the house. I complained he wasn't doing his share.

There were other problems, too. Each time I tried to work in a high-powered corporate setting the long, structured hours made me miserable. John worked from home and I envied the flexible schedule that allowed him time to nap in the middle of the afternoon or stay up late on a weeknight. When I earned more money than he did, I was resentful that the pressure to maintain our standard of living rested on
my
shoulders. I lamented that John's standards of tidiness were not as high as mine.

When I examined why I was so miserable, I found some deeply buried expectations. It wasn't that I wanted John to bring the same things to our marriage that my father had brought to my parents' union. Rather, I wanted John to bring the exact same things to our marriage that
I
was bringing to it—everything from money to a solid sense of order, social planning, decorating … and everything else that women typically find important.

Since we were both 50 percent responsible for everything, and I liked my way of doing things better than his, I took responsibility for 99 percent of everything from maintaining the home to planning vacations. Although we were talking, the back and forth wasn't equal. When John did or thought about things out loud, I let him know with my body language, voice, or facial expression the minute I thought he had hit a wrong note.

In my head I rested comfortably in the notion that our marriage
was an equal partnership, but truth is, I was in charge. I assure you, it was
not
equality.

O
NE
S
KIRT AND
O
NE
P
AIR OF
P
ANTS

“The woman is the fiber of the nation. She is the producer of life. A nation is only as good as its women.”

—MUHAMMAD ALI

O
ne of the reasons the division of labor failed when I was first married is because I tried to pretend that there was no gender difference. Of course, that didn't make it so, nor did it make us happy.

We feminists have struggled with acknowledging—and even tried to deny—that as women, we still want to be protected, pampered, spoiled, adored, pursued, and treasured. Sure we can shatter glass ceilings and take care of ourselves, but then what? Truth be told, I still wanted to hear that I have pretty hair and I longed to be held and taken care of when the working day was done.

Having a man's protection puts us at ease. Receiving his gifts makes us feel special. Knowing he desires us makes us feel attractive and sexy. And, for equality's sake, when he pleases us and wins our admiration, he feels proud, sexy, and strong.

That's how men and women are made, and these natural gender roles don't make us weaker or less capable, nor do they make men brutish or domineering. We don't need a man to hold the door open for us, but we love how feminine we feel when he does.

As it turns out, the new division of labor John and I have is based partially on the strengths each of us brings
because of our respective genders
. For instance, while I was stressed out and resentful about making most of the money at a corporate job, John is happy and proud to be the primary breadwinner. While I'm neurotic about finding the perfect living room furniture and window treatments, John couldn't care less what our house looks like—as long as I'm happy. Instead of showing him couches and saying “Do you like that one?” I now acknowledge that couches are much more important to me than they are to him and say, “I like this one.” While managing the finances made me pull my hair out, John has a more relaxed approach that lets him make levelheaded decisions. I pretty much run the social calendar and invite people for dinner parties, which John enjoys but rarely initiates. We accept each other's different interests and priorities.

I was amazed to find out how many of the traditional gender roles worked better for us than the so-called “equality” of sharing everything, but there are things about traditional roles that don't fit for us. For instance, I would hate to give up my work and income to be a stay-at-home wife. I don't like to clean, so we have a housecleaner. He does the dishes and mails out the greeting cards for the holidays.

You could argue that with our current arrangements we have divided the work according to our strengths, rather than our genders. In some ways you would be right. But understanding the unique characteristics of our genders, rather than pretending that we were identical, helped me get there.

D
ISLODGING
R
OUND
P
EGS FROM
S
QUARE
H
OLES

We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate “I's” into one worldview.

—HARRIET LERNER

S
o, how can I advocate that women surrender to their husbands and still identify myself as a feminist?

I believe that feminism addresses what I want at work, but says little about what to do in my marriage. In the workplace, I would never settle for anything less than equal pay, equal opportunity, and having a voice equal to my male counterparts. But at home, those qualities contribute nothing to the romantic, intimate relationship I want. With John, I am softer and more flexible, a feminine spirit who delights in being attended to.

People sometimes ask me why the roles in a marriage can't be reversed. Why can't the husband defer to his wife and tell her what he wants? Perhaps they can be reversed; however, it did not work for me, and it wasn't working for the women I know who adopted the principles of surrendering in their marriage. John Gray has some ideas about why that is.

In
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
Gray put forth the best-selling message that men and women are indeed different: psychologically, emotionally, aspirationally. I was relieved because for years, so many of us had tried so hard to say that despite the obvious physical differences, men and women were alike. He says women are Venusians and men are Martians. Said another way, women are round pegs, and men are square pegs. Naturally
then, women are more comfortable in round holes and men are more comfortable in square holes. When a woman embraces the feminine role in her marriage and the man embraces the masculine role, everyone is more comfortable.

True, a square peg can go into a round hole, and vice versa, but we all know how uncomfortable that is.

Eastern philosophy describes the same concept using the words yin and yang. Yin is the spirit of the female and yang is the spirit of the male. These two concepts are represented by shapes that fit together exactly and form a perfect circle.

T
HIS
I
S THE
B
EST
T
IME IN
H
ISTORY TO
H
AVE AN
I
NTIMATE
M
ARRIAGE

“Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence.”

—DEBORAH TANNEN

I
am not implying that the 1950s when “men were men and women were women” was a panacea. Whether a woman stays home maintaining a “traditional” role has little to do with how intimate her marriage is. Perhaps my prefeminist grandmothers would have had an easier time admitting they liked to be taken care of than I do, but otherwise, I suspect they knew little more about being intimate with their husbands than I did when I first got married. The behaviors that lead to intimacy are rooted in virtue, self-understanding, and maturity, rather than social conditioning or a bygone era.

I don't know of a period in history that we could “return to” to find better emotional and spiritual connection in marriages than we can have now.

If anything, the remarkable peace and prosperity we've enjoyed in recent history puts us in a better position to foster intimacy in our marriages than ever before. Our mothers and grandmothers—who were preoccupied with immigrating to new countries, finding enough to eat during the Great Depression, sending their husbands and sons to war, and tending to lots of children—had little time to contemplate the behaviors that foster romance and passion.

We have more privilege now than ever before, and with this comes the opportunity and luxury to cultivate tender marriages, harmonious families, and our own integrity.

In some ways, feminism has also given us an even greater prospect for intimacy because we now have the ability to
choose
vulnerability and trust, rather than being forced into it economically or socially. Knowing that we can live on our own and then deciding not to is far more meaningful than depending on a man because we have a gaggle of kids to take care of and no means to earn a living. If we stay in our marriages and continue to trust and respect our men now—with the freedoms to own property, have bank accounts, and get divorced—it's only because we want to. Thank you Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for working to win us these freedoms.

Since I've been very public in describing my relationship with my husband, the people I work with professionally—my agent, my editor, and media contacts—know that I wear a feminine hat when I'm with John. I'm pleased to report that they treat me with no less respect knowing that I prefer to be treasured, pampered, protected, and adored when work is over. My experience with being treated well in the workplace supports my theory that the two arenas—work and home—are quite different and distinctly separate.

Obviously, a woman can take care of and protect herself and her family. Of course, a man likes to be taken care of at times. I'm not suggesting these gender-specific roles are the only way to live, but trying to deny how my gender effects my nature brought out the worst in me and put a huge strain on my marriage.

“Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.”