Chronically Self-Centered Spouse Series

Nope, I'm not doing this series.
Nope, Visionary Womanhood is not doing this series. But I do thank Natalie for linking to it over there a couple years back.

No, this series comes to us courtesy of Brad Hambrick who put the series on his blog.

Marriage with a Chronically Self-Centered Spouse

Near as I can tell, it is a 17 post series divided into five parts.

Doug Wilson Thinks Marriage Saves You

Nope. Jesus is simply not enough in his world.

Well, let me rephrase that. He thinks marriage sanctifies you. So Jesus + Marriage saves and sanctifies you.

I'm sure the Apostle Paul would have something to say about that.

In case you are confused, here is Katie Botkin to explain it to you.

Doug Wilson on Marriage.

You go girl. Expose Wilson's false doctrine. Men like him need to stop having power over other people's lives.

Driscoll's Damaging Teaching.

Here is a link to Wendy's blog piece on Driscoll's damaging teachings on sex and marriage.

Harmful Teaching of Wives as Their Husband's Porn Stars.

Love and Respect Talking Past Each Other.

There is a dynamic that I often see at work in conversations like the one that went on over at Wendy's blog.

It goes something like this:

Christian women who have dealt with abusive men try to work out how to make sense of their lives and Scripture during or after a bad marriage. This is made difficult especially since the Bible, in particular Ephesians 5, was often used in the abuse. They still love God and want to hold onto Him. But the bad marriage situation made it difficult and even gave some of these women PTSD at any mention of Ephesians 5 due to it being use as a bludgeoning tool against them.

Then the other side of this is:

Christian men who have been chewed up and spit out by abusive wives--

[Cut and pasted from David's comment over at Wendy's concerning his ex-wife]--(argumentativeness, eye-rolling, contrariness, sexual refusal and oft-expressed contempt, obligated to earn her respect [an impossible task], and she was entitled to express her displeasure any time she disagreed )--

Anyway, men like David are looking for solutions in the Scriptures. They find and latch onto 'respect' as some sort of panacea that would have saved their marriage if the little woman would have just wised up and did what she was supposed to. The problem is that there is usually a whole lot more wrong with the situation than just a lack of respect.  But somewhere along the way, chewed up and spit out men like David are convinced that all women behave like their ex-wives and feel that it is their mission to let those women know that if they'd just do what they are supposed to, what is commanded in scripture, then there would a whole lot less divorcing going on.

Quote from David: "The negative comments here indicate how foreign that concept [of respect] is to wives"

Is it a foreign concept, David, or has it been so over used and abused to the neglect of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and the Second Greatest Commandment, "love you neighbor (including your wife) as yourself"?

It may have been David's experience that his wife was completely disrespect filled. Heck, from the way he describes her, she could have had a brain or personality disorder or was just plain psycho. But this doesn't entitle him to make such sweeping generalizations about all women and determine that it would all be solved if they would just embrace this 'foreign' concept call respect.

Rather than stating that marriages would be saved if women would just 'respect' or men would just 'love', perhaps it would be better to say:

Hey, guess what? There are abusive people out there, both male and female. And guess what else? There are abused spouses out there trying to make sense of their situation and wanting to use the Bible to do so. So let's not make sweeping generalizations and hand out shallow clichés and just expect everything to be hunky dory because life is far more complicated than that reducing everything down to a couple words that you can find in Ephesians 5.

And, in addition. I'd like to make a book recommendation. The book I am going to suggest runs circles around Eggrichs book. It has more depth in one chapter than Eggrich's whole book, DVD set, and every seminar he ever held.

The book is... wait for it...:

Boundaries in Marriage

I recommend it because it doesn't blame men or women. It calls out bad behavior, no matter which gender engages in it and gives spouses practical ways of dealing with that behavior.

Resolution Writing. Persuasive but Wrong, II

Okay, back to what's wrong with pages 11-13 of the book The Resolution for Men.

As mentioned, they start with a fictional story that is supposed to illustrate an eternal truth, the story of a guy falling asleep at the wheel, the chaos it causes, and the inability for his wife to be a true help meet, at least being able to hold it together until he's awake enough to do what (they think) he's supposed to be doing all the time.

I want to look at this short, inadequate story again.

First off...

Marriage is (or should be) a long trip.

I don't know about you all, but my family takes long road trips. And guess what. One person doesn't do all the driving all the time. We all take turns. This allows people to rest up for their next turn at the wheel.

What The Resolution Guys [TRG] seem to be saying is that the only person qualified to drive/lead is the husband/father. That when he gets tired, that's too darn bad. He's just going to have to suck it up, with no help from his helpmeet and stay awake 24/7.

Now, I understand that this is not what TRG are trying to say. But in essence, this is what they ARE saying. They are saying that only men can lead. If a woman interferes, even by default, it not only doesn't help, it has the potential to make things far worse. And (by God's design according to TRG)the woman can never, ever be in the driver's seat, no matter how long the trip will be. And as we had said before, marriage should be a long trip.

TRG are setting up an either/or, "All or Nothing" as the only possibility for marriage. EITHER the husband is in charge OR the wife is in charge (by default of otherwise). They can not be in agreement and take turns driving, sharing the burden and responsibility. Not according to TRG. According to TRG, Almighty God has placed the man in the driver's seat, never to be relieved when he's tired, never, ever learning how to trust the helpmeet God made for him to take the wheel for one leg of the trip so he can get some much needed shut-eye. The husband/father is denied any Sabbath Rest because he's too busy having the dickens scared out of him over whether or not he is properly leading his family or whether they are headed for disaster because he's fallen asleep from shear exhaustion.

I realize TRG don't mean to be saying this. But they are.

They are saying that the only cure for exhausted wives is for them to dump everything onto their husbands so that their husbands can be overburdened and exhausted instead. They can't share the load. The husband can't come in and take on some/half/a lot of the responsibility and authority. He has to come in and TAKE IT ALL. All or nothing. That kind of thinking can kill a person and can kill a marriage.

And yet, this is what TRG claim that God commands men to do. God commands this of all husbands/fathers. There is no meeting half way, no meeting 40/60 even. It's all or nothing because TRG have made in it into that.

And here I go again, over ten paragraphs. So much for keeping things brief. I think I'll stop here and give a little more homework for those who like that sort of thing.

The Single Story and Structure

You Have Heard It Said Today
In which we look at a familiar "All or Nothing" view of marriage that is common today.

Resolution Writing. Persuasive but Wrong

This conversation actually started on Shirley's blog under one of her posts. I said a few things there but want to say more, perhaps more of the same, perhaps from a different approach, I don't know. I just know that reading a few pages from the book The Resolution for Men has ticked me off again.

In reading pages 11-13 from the Resolution for Men which can be viewed using Amazon's "click to look inside" feature, I'm both impressed with how hard the authors worked to be respectful towards women while persuading men and (possible) female readers of their pet doctrine. If you get a chance to read it, do so, so you will understand what I'm talking about.

I'm equally impressed with the massive amount of assuming they make concerning women and God in those few pages.

First, they tell a story about a guy who fell asleep at the wheel and about how his wife is screaming and can't manage to steer the car long enough for him to wake up and fix the problem he created by falling asleep. They have taken one possible scenario, of one woman who can't steer from the passenger seat, who overcompensates for him and causes the car to swerve off the other way. They make this the single story of all women. Not all women are this incompetent, not even most women. Yet this is a persuasion tactic they use to make their "All or Nothing" case for their pet doctrine.

Speaking the of "All or Nothing" case. Let's take a look at "All or Nothing" thinking which causes some men to come up with such faulty conclusions. One form of "All or Nothing" is the fight or flight reactions to conflict. They have recently learned that this is a masculine response where as a feminine response is more along the lines of "Tend and Befriend".

Gosh, darn it. I didn't mean to get into all of this. I really only wanted to deal with those few pages in the Resolution for Men. I give those writers "A"s for persuasive writing, but "F"s for understanding women and what they need, and "F"s for understanding what God's Word teaches and "Commands".

I guess I'll have to make this a two-parter (or three, depending on how it goes.)

Anyway, back to the woman in their fictional story who can't steer and who is representative of all women to the Resolution writers. They believe that women can't steer, or at least they can't do so in a crisis situation from the passenger seat when there is a man around who is supposed to be in charge. I'm sure they didn't mean to be insulting. But they were insulting by boxing all women in the same package and using this false package as persuasion for the doctrine they are pushing, the doctrine that says as long as men are in charge and stay awake and on duty, everything will be fine. As soon as women get involved in any leadership situation, by default or otherwise, it can only end in disaster. This disaster can only be diverted if men wake up and do their job of being the boss.

There, now see, I've done it. I've barely scratched the surface of what is wrong with pages 11-13 of The Resolution for Men and I have over eight paragraphs with four links.

Tell you what.
If you are interested in what I have to say, I'll give you homework that you can read that will bring you up to speed. First, read the four different links I've given, the one to Shirley's blog and pages 11-13 of the Resolution which can be found here. Then listen to and watch The Single Story on youtube. Then read my reflections ONE and TWO  on the Single Story and how the Single Story affects Marriage and Womanhood.

I know this is a lot of homework and I definitely don't require it of anyone. But those who are interested in this, the homework will make more sense of the things I say and plan to say . Some of it will be review for some of my long time readers who chose to look back over some of this stuff. But if you look at it all and get an overview, you can get a better grasp on what is going on here and how wrong those few pages of The Resolution for Men really is. They really have gone to a lot of trouble trying to respectfully convince people of their doctrine. Too bad it is assuming so much that is just plain wrong and not Biblically supported.