I am submissive to my husband AMA

[Peachesx2606]

Please AMA but please be kind.

I'm interested in other thoughts/opinions and will try to give mine.

This is just something that seems to work for us x

I hope your three young daughters don't see the (obviously sexual fetish - even if you don't see it that way) behaviour of you being "sent to bed" and "told off" like a child. I would not want a man like that around me, much less a female child, much much less one he wasn't related to.

So you aren't submissive when your children are there?

How does that difference play out?

I think childhood trauma has affected me. Finances are in both names.

What is stopping me? Myself, I suppose.

My life is improved as I have less mental load and I feel secure.

I don't feel he takes advantage of me. I reapect him for being strong and supportive and taking care of me.

@Peachesx2606 - other posters and I have posted to challenge your position that being "feminine" apparently equals being submissive and letting a man run your life. I can't see that you have addressed that so far. To many of us, that is an appalling way to think. It’s perfectly possible to be very feminine and to adult properly including earning your own money and running your own adult life. I hope you’re not teaching your daughters that it’s somehow masculine to be independent, earn your own living and generally be an adult.

Adopting the position that it is your femininity which makes you submissive is doing a massive disservice to women generally - it's the kind of tradwife bullshit which is seeking to undo all the progress which has been made for women over the last decades. It would be good to see you reflect on this and accept that there is something in you which appears to want a submissive relationship but that that is not what being feminine and being a woman is about. You mention that you are doing therapy. Hopefully, with therapy you can unpack the effects of your abusive first marriage which have likely massively contributed to the anxiety you feel when faced with making decisions. It may well lead to you wanting to take more of the reins in your own life.

OP- look into your emotions, deeply.

Was this thread a cry for help?
I can't see it any other way.

We've not even started on the sex but my guess is you're forced into that perhaps when you don't want to.

I actually think it’s a massive risk you’re taking having three girls live in a home with a man capable and willing of ‘telling off’ and sending to bed an adult woman (their mum).

A man who behaves that way is so far away from being a healthy person for young women to be under the same roof as for so many reasons, even if you personally have signed up for it.

I dread to think what will happen when your daughters start dating etc. It’s a minefield at the best of times, let alone when their mum is with a man who thinks it’s his right to tell a woman when to go to sleep or punish her by sending her to bed / telling her off.

What was the last thing you did that you were sent to bed for as a ‘consequence’ as you call it?

What happens if you say you’re not in the mood for sex when he instigates?

Yes, I am. I didn't feel safe in my childhood or my first marriage. Maybe because I don't trust myself to keep me safe.

I'm in therapy now.

I was politely disagreeing with issues your raised, particularly the assumptions you made about someone I know and you do not, (and which you also phrased quite aggressively btw). There is nothing for me to back off from. Your are being ridiculously aggressive.

Wow, that's a bit harsh. 😳

Maybe the OP feels safer, better, more confident, knowing she has a husband that has her back. Some of us don't have very high self esteem or confidence, for whatever reason, and it's stuck, so we need some extra help to make us feel OK. And that's ok too.

Yes, it's good to have faith in one's abilities and develop skills and confidence, but equally, there isn't anything wrong with being able to find confidence in the fact someone will be there for you. Absolutely, yes be self sufficient, but don't put someone down if they are happy to give some responsibilities to someone else too, to take the pressure off a bit.

I don't feel he takes advantage of me. I reapect him for being strong and supportive and taking care of me.

Strong men do not control their wives and punish them.
Strong men are kind, secure, confident, they don't need to control anyone to make them feel 'strong'.

Only weak men and bullies control other people and punish them.

He takes care of the roof over your head.
He allows you to decide the small stuff like meals.
But when you want something he doesn't agree with, you're punished.

Does the therapist you see know everything?
Do they know your H punishes you- sends yo to bed, and whatever other punishment he thinks you deserve?

Therapy only works if the talking is honest. 100% honest. Otherwise it's a waste of time and money.

So work on your childhood trauma in therapy, don’t just retreat from the normal components of adulthood, particularly when you’re modeling an incredibly unhealthy, actively harmful way of existing for your children!

I don't think they do.

I agree with this.

It doesn't matter what you tell them. Unconsciously, they will have absorbed your first and current marriages as models for what relationships look like. This will prime them to either unconsciously seek that out or to fail to spot the red flags as those red flags are normal to them ( even if they don't like them). I know because that happened to me and someone who is now a good friend of mine.

Your husband punishes you. That is deeply unhealthy. Spouses do not punish each other in healthy relationships.

So OP, you’re basically describing a marriage most women had 70 plus years ago.

I can’t see anything of interest, it’s just a bit sad and I pity you as you’re clearly lacking self esteem.

Why don’t you just have a joint account that you can both access, for personal and for household items, according to your wants and needs and without any questions asked?
It's the he gives me “money from his salary” which is, erm, illustrative (and a little concerning.) I.e. it's basically his money and he lets you have some of it.
It seems as if he actually likes to keep control of it and it doesn’t sound healthy. Especially if you generally have to ask if you can have, say, extra money for you and your DC for clothes, activities and just a bit of fun sometimes.

You are wrong.

You think "telling them about the suffragettes" is going to have an impact on them but seeing their stepdad telling their mum off about her bedtime isn't?

Several posters have asked you what 'punishment', or what things you like are withheld from you, if you don't go to bed when you're told. I have to admit, I'm curious.

I don't think you understand what modelling behaviour to children actually means. Nobody's asking you if you're modelling this to your daughters.

Everyone is saying that you ARE modelling this to your young, impressionable daughters, and asking if you think that's acceptable.

That’s nonsense, both my grandmothers had equality in their marriages, neither was told when to go to bed, was punished or had things with held. That’s never been a marriage model.

I agree that this is a cry for help.

You just keep repeating you feel safe if you have no autonomy in your day to day life, are even told when to go to bed, and are punished or have things withheld if you don’t do as you’re told.

I really hope therapy works for you as this is utterly disturbing stuff whay you’re posting, you really need help and I feel really sorry for you that you married a man who engages in this warped and damaging dynamic.

I also agree with you both.

Along with a tendency to belittle and demean her own very adult contibutons to family life and decision making. In my opinion decisions about what everyone eats every day are s important as any other.

And he also chose OP as he identified she was vulnerable. Because the number of men willing to do such bizarre a thing as punish their wife by “telling them off” or sending them to bed for disagreeing / disobeying is quite small one would hope. Yet he found someone with such low self esteem that she not only accepts it, he’s convinced her it keeps her ‘safe’.

Unfortunately I imagine that a substantial number of the men who identify vulnerable women to control are also men who identify vulnerable women who specifically have a daughter or daughters.

OP’s eldest being 18 and 14 and not being his kids, but him getting the final say in the house to the point he can send OP to bed as a ‘consequence’ of her not doing what he wants is massively concerning.

Poor girls.