Running a tight ship grants freedom.

Readership: Married Men; Marriage Minded Men;
Theme: Boundaries
Author’s Note: The contents of this post are the gleanings of an email string between me and Jack.  Jack organized and compiled the content.  Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Length: 1,450 words
Reading Time: 8 minutes

Continuing on the same topic from Jack’s post, Setting Boundaries Changes Reality (2024/1/26), we have a case study for The Law of Activity.

Harnessing Her Desire for Openness

I used to keep my activity on Σ Frame predominantly to myself and this naturally aroused my wife’s curiosity about what I was up to.  She started reading the blog and sometimes objected to what I had disclosed about our relationship. I told her that it was none of her business what I chose to reveal.  This bothered her to her core because she felt like I was keeping parts of my life from her that I was revealing to others.

With her envy stoked to full heat, I used this occasion to express that a level of openness with my wife is what I want and expect in marriage, as this is part of what makes marriage worth it to me.

This led to the logical conclusion that either we’re going to be more open or else marriage is not something I would be interested in anymore.  Of course, her envy / jealousy about my blogging opened her ears to ‘hear’ me.

So then I laid out the framework that addresses the fickle immaturity issues of my wife that prevents more openness.  Basically, the solution is hard boundaries on her behavior.  For me this means…

  • If she ever uses something I have done to justify her becoming emotionally crazed where she has no rules for her behavior in order to hurt me or exert power, we divorce that week.
  • If she ever uses intimate knowledge in an argument for the sole purpose of hurting me in order to win through exerting power, we divorce that week.
  • If she ever uses sex as a tool to exert power through withholding, we divorce that week.
  • If she ever uses our children against me to hurt me, we divorce that week.
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Some readers might think this is harsh, but these actions constitute willful rebellion on her part.  There is a ton of room built in between a regular disagreement and these triggers, so it is not as if she will accidentally stumble across one of the boundaries. (See Notes on Setting Boundaries below.)

On my wife’s part, the major shift is accepting that she’s responsible for her own actions and responses.  Although she’s not all the way there yet and maybe never will be, little by little she is getting better at dealing with the serious issues of life.

Purpose Directed Self-Control

The primary risk to this approach is that I am dealing with a woman and all the emotionally unstable issues that this entails. 

On my part, I had a lot of grappling with reality in my shift from BP to RP.  The shift very much changed how I deal with adversity which is expressed in my behavior, largely by…

  1. Avoiding domineering behavior (i.e. arguing, especially to get her to agree with me, which I learned from Cane Caldo is a no win approach).
  2. Being comfortable that she’s a big girl who won’t like what I tell her but will have to deal with it.
  3. Focusing on and caring about how I respond, NOT in the precise outcome.

On that last point, I, like most men, found it difficult to understand that women get more satisfaction and a greater sense of security from seeing a man deal with a difficult situation with a cool head than they do out of seeing the man actually solve the problem.  This myopic vision in women is to our benefit, gentlemen, as long as we are able to drum up some confidence, faith, and positivity.

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With respect to The Law of Proactivity, all this is to say that I cannot very well control her, but I can control myself.  That means that I must exhibit mature behavior at all times.  I must limit the gushing of emotions, and as I’ve grown more emotionally mature, there are fewer emotions that I need to regulate, and less frequently too.  I do feel, but I also trust that I’ll be OK.  I worry less about the outcome of issues in favor of actively solving issues, and that comes out in what my ‘concerns’ are when I talk with Mrs. Apostle.

I mess up occasionally because I’m reforming old bad habits, but at least now I’m getting quicker at recognizing them so I can prevent small instances from becoming big ones.

The Proper Place and Purpose of Male Vulnerability

For example, if there is an issue at work that causes me to worry about my income and meeting our expenses, I will reframe the issue as a ‘concern’ over whether my current situation has the resources to accomplish what I want to accomplish.  If things turn out well, then the resulting accomplishments appear to her as though I’m doing exceptionally well.  If not, then it places no added or sudden burdens on her ‘concern’.  Additionally, I have taken steps under my power to shore up the weaknesses I see to increase the probability of success, while taking actions like updating my resume to protect against a worse case.

I’m not stonewalling her by telling her it’s all peachy, but I am taking care to filter out the aroma of incompetency in the vulnerability being shown.  Ruminating over your weaknesses in fear while drowning your tears in a carton of Ben & Jerry’s like a chick who just got dumped does no one any good.  What I show her is a thoughtful assessment of the situation with the realization that nothing is perfect in life.

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The importance of displaying some vulnerability is that it exists in parallel with the confidence that I will figure out a solution to any problem that comes up.  This comes across as me being a real human but also as a masculine man, and gives opportunities for me to come off as a hero in her eyes at times.  Plus, if you are married, then she already knows what you are good at and what you aren’t good at.  You can’t bluff bravado after 20 years of marriage, so it’s best to keep it real.

Concluding Statements

The main point of this post is that drawing clear boundaries permits greater freedom within those boundaries, leading to more authenticity and openness. However, there are essentially four components that provide an environment where a man can be more authentic and emotionally open with his wife.

  1. The maturity of both parties is critically important.  A man’s wife should not be his emotional tampon, nor should a husband need one.
  2. Setting boundaries on her behavior, and being willing to enforce them.  (See notes below.)
  3. Making steady moves in the direction of a Headship structure.
  4. Accepting, or at least acknowledging agency, according to the respective roles of husband and wife within a Headship structure.

These are the biggest factors for me to keep my marriage stable, and for her being able to retain her respect for me during moments of emotional honesty and vulnerability.

These characteristics are important with disciplining children too.

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Notes on Drawing Boundaries

Boundaries must be enforced, or else the boundaries will disintegrate. The consequences of transgressing the boundaries must be catastrophic to some degree, or else there can be no real enforcement.  Fortunately, it is sufficient to be willing to go further than she will, because of your seriousness to correct her behavior.  That is to say, one of the more important mental concepts about boundaries is to be willing to risk it all in order to actually build something worth having.  As such, a man best be very thoughtful in establishing what he wants from marriage and where those boundaries will be set.

Divorce is the nuclear option because there is no putting the genie back in the bottle once he’s out.  Fortunately, there are many steps and strategies that fall way short of divorce that a man can use.  However, if the wife brandishes the nuclear option, then the husband must go one step further, unfortunately.  But ultimately, he will have to decide to act how he thinks is right and do so without regard to what she’ll do.   If she leaves, then so be it.  The marriage cannot amount to much with a rebellious wife anyway. However, I think that with the way God made women, the very fact that he’s willing to act and hold course without yielding to her whims will prevent most divorces from occurring simply because he’s become dominant relative to her.

I do expect there to be disagreement over divorce on any post involving boundary enforcement.  What will be interesting is how men will tease out the idea that women have agency and can choose to not divorce versus men acting in leadership without consideration if his wife will leave him or not.  I have hashed this out in my own life a good bit because of how headstrong Mrs. Apostle was about control.  Based on my conversations with Thedeti, it took me much, MUCH more effort with Mrs. Apostle than what he had to exert with his wife to get her in line.

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