Libby Doe

Let's talk about the BIG ONE. The big issue from us ladies that is the biggest hindrance in the lives of our SCM husbands. Before we get started, I must admit that this chapter was particularly difficult for me to write for two reasons:

1. I have so much content on the subject of "meaningless drama" that I could write an entire book about it, and it would be five times longer than this book!
2. I feel like I am the most guilty in this area. And yes, even though I have repented and accepted both God and my husband's forgiveness, it still hurts me and makes me feel bad to review the topic.

So what in the world am I referring to when I say "meaningless drama?" Well, we all know what this is. This is our female nature that creates issues where and when they should not exist. We make mountains out of molehills. We exaggerate the importance of trivial things. We complain in a wearisome manner. We fuss and we inflate things and amplify that which either does not exist, or does not exist to the dramatized level in which we pretend it does. Like we read previously in the Bible, we are fault-finders who spend our energy looking for reasons to be mad or sad because of something we think our husbands (or others) are at fault for.

It is all irrational. It makes no sense. We make a big deal out of things that are not big deals, and we consequently minimize things that are of actual import. Why do we do this? I don't know! I wish I had the answer. I wish I knew the root cause so I could help more of us women overcome it. But in the end, I guess the cause doesn't really matter. The key is to just STOP. We just have to repent of this.

So I guess the best way for me to keep this short is to describe 5 simple things you can do to help you to be overtly conscious and aware of the meaningless drama that we women are prone to creating:

1. STOP FIGHTING, THERE IS NO COMPETITION

Feminism created a fake war between the sexes. And ever since, women have set out to try to prove they are better or at least equal to their husbands. In practice, this subconsciously puts you in a place where you are always your husband's rival or enemy. And who wants to live with their enemy? Who wants to have to see their rival every day at the end of work?

By now, you should have noticed that the over-arching message of this book is for wives of Strong Men to stop being contentious. That's pretty much the main message. Because that is exactly how a woman slowly destroys her SCM husband. And one of the root causes of this is by creating this meaningless drama where you are always trying to prove yourself to him, or to prove that you are as good or better than him. Stop it. Just stop it.

2. YOU'RE NOT SMARTER THAN YOUR HUSBAND

Remember, your husband is so much smarter than you. In any other area of life, when someone is better or smarter than you at something, you just let them handle it! You don't tell Mario Andretti how to drive. You don't argue with Chuck Yeager about how to fly a plane. You don't try to show Warren Buffet how to invest. You don't try to explain to Paul McCartney how to write songs. You don't criticize Michael Jordan on how he dunks. You don't impose your opinion on General Douglas MacArthur on how to fight a war.

So why do you think you are your husband's equal? Why do you think you are justified in trying to tell him or show him how to lead your family, handle his priorities, manage his calling, or even what tone he should take when talking with you or your kids? Your opinion is the incorrect one, not his!

So stop creating meaningless drama by thinking you are smarter than your husband and that you are somehow authorized or capable of arguing with him.

3. HE'S ALWAYS BETTER THAN YOU

If you are self conscious, egotistical, or have low self-esteem, you will always feel inferior to your husband and this will cause conflict. This is because you will treat him as a challenge to fight against or as a rival to defend yourself against. This again, is taking things the wrong way. You shouldn't be angry that your husband is better than you. You should be happy! You should be thrilled! Do you really want a pathetic, useless, husband who is ignorant, weak, and directionless? No! But weak women see the success, strength, and aptitudes of their SCM husband's and use it as their foundation to go to war.

Get over it. He's better than you and that's a good thing! It is not something to fight over, it is something to revel in! You are blessed, now act like it!

4. HE IS THE LEADER, PERIOD.

Your husband is your leader and that is that. And in the case of a strong man, your husband is your leader on two fronts:

1. He is your spiritually authorized leader. God made him the head (Ephesians 5:23) and you will never be authorized by God to get above your husband's authority.
2. He is your intellectual leader. Remember, you are not his intellectual equal and that's okay. There will be lots of areas of life where you can be an ambassador for your husband. There will be things where you know more, have more experience, or just understand more than he does, because they are areas of life that are either irrelevant to him, or that he just has no interest in, or time available to dedicate to. So, enjoy those things. Just don't think that they make you smarter than him just because you know more about teddy bears, crochet, Pinterest, or women's gossip.

5. DON'T MAKE HIM WANT TO FIRE YOU.

Your husband is a leader in probably multiple areas of life. Therefore his natural instinct is to fire incompetence, but he can’t fire you because you are married. So do your best not to demonstrate incompetence. Don't do or say stupid things. And don't get sassy or egotistical about what you have said or done that he doesn't like. Instead, try to "do him good and not evil all the days of his life."

Otherwise, this is going to be another source of contention. Because you will note that over time, he has less and less patience with you. And then you are going to start to feel like he has no patience for you when he has patience for everyone else. So you will feel slighted. But the reason why it feels that way is because you know better and you’ve been with him a long time. So you have already learned how to do right, you just have refused to do so for all of the various reasons we have discussed in this book.

So he has already run out of patience with you, like the emotional bank account that Stephen Covey talks about in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you don't understand the metaphor, the idea is that you have an emotional bank account with everybody you have a relationship with. And you make deposits and withdrawals in that emotional bank account. With your husband, you make deposits by being lovely, kind, beautiful, giving him good sex, giving him respect, and properly raising his children. But you make withdrawals by fighting, being contentious, creating meaningless drama, etc.

So if your relational bank account with your husband is overdrawn by thousands, when you do or say something stupid or horrible, he is not going to have patience with you, even though he will have patience with somebody else, precisely because your account is overdrawn.

So instead of creating meaningless drama that would otherwise make your husband fire you if you worked for him at his company, treat your husband and work with him in such a way that he would want to use you as an example for all other employees to emulate!

I know women hate that analogy, but it never ceases to amaze me the efforts that a woman will take and make in order to get promoted at her company, and how she will kiss up to and do anything possible to make her boss or supervisor appreciate her, but she won't lift a finger to do the same for her husband. Amazing!