AIBU to wonder why anyone would want to live like this?

[LetThereBeRock]

I know this could be a controversial topic, most likely will be,and each to their own, none of my business etc but I really can't understand it.

A friend is getting married soon.She's a real bibliophile,as is her soon to be dh, and has asked for several books on her wedding list.

However some of the books she has asked for are rather odd,The Surrendered Wife for example, The Politically Incorrect Wife,Liberated Through Submission and similarly titled books.

I've Googled them and the lifestyle they advocate certainly isn't one that I agree with or would care for.

An example from The Surrendered Wife ' surrendered wife always says yes and is always available for sex."'

I thought at first that the wedding list was a bit of a joke, but I've spoken to her since,albeit briefly, and apparently it's not.

So AIBU to wonder why anyone would want to live a submissive life, and AIBU to think that's it rather odd to request such things on one's wedding list?

I

Could the wedding list be a cry for help?

Could it be the brides way of saying "People, talk to me about this!"

I would for sure avail myself with a listening ear and a non judgemental attitude to any wife to be with a wedding list like that.

I agree with Mrs R. I just think it's all gone too far. Mother nature knew what she was doing and trying to ignore her is making us all unhappy.

I am also very right wing and proud of it. This country used to be great and now it has all gone to the dogs because of woolly liberals and shouty ladies with short hair.

It's just my opinion, but my dh agrees and he is a councillor.

Your opinion of 'hating feminists' makes you a bit thick - not you.

Funny how its ok for you to say you hate the people who call themselves feminists on this thread - that's ok is it?

a Conservative voter I suppose you mean (with a large 'C') - I really am not surprised.

Hating feminists? Really? That makes me so so sad.

Re: Men are from Mars being sexist - I suppose if you feel that any book that states that men and women are different is sexist, then by that definition it is. I don't believe that it is; for me (from a pragmatic point of view) anything that aims to make both the woman and the man happier in a relationhip, and improve communication (based on the fact that men and women tend to communicate differently) is a good thing. There are far more dangerous things for women than TSW and MAFMWAFM - like the entire diet industry for a start, and this sort of thing.

re: self help for controlling men - amazon has lots, like this one which a psychologist colleague recommends. It's just that books about both men and women are more newsworthy and tend to sell more.

TSW is absolutely not about "managing men" - the very opposite in fact. It's about trusting your own judgement that you made a good call when you decided to spend your life with your partner, and to stop trying to manage him, and "surrender" the control over everything. It's saying "I can't do all this" not because you're incapable, but because there's too much (eg housework) to do, and your partner is not a useless lump who can't even be trusted to vacuum "properly". She uses "surrender" as short hand for giving up naggy over-controlling ways.

And re not aking for what you want - again, it's exactly the opposite. Instead of meandering round the subject, dropping hints, being passive aggressive, and nagging, Doyle suggests that you DO ask for what you want, clearly and in no uncertain terms, and then your partner will be in no doubt as to your opinion.

It's a self help book, not anti feminist propaganda. I know a few of those who've disliked it have actually read it (and that's fair enough; it's clearly not for everyone) my impression is a lot have not, and are arguing on the basis of out of context exerpts and what they think it might be about. Keep an open mind; I found it interesting, and helpful, and I certainly don't think it's watered down my feminist principles.

Great post ILAS. I really don't see what the problem is in trying to make a relationship work - it seems to be feminist now to expect men to do everything we want them to do, not to do anything they want us to do and to divorce if our DH's do to match up to the warped view of marriage portrayed by movies.

Like other posters I am not sure what 3rd wave feminism is trying to achieve. Had I been alive during the suffrage movement then I would have described myself as a feminist, likewise in the equal pay battles of the 70s and 80s. But when I look at the society around me I have to say I don't see women treated as second class citizens and wonder what there is left for feminism to achieve.

I think the last bastion of inequality is within the home, not without it. But how do we achieve a more equal division of labour/responsibility with our partners ? Certainly I don't find that trying to exert myself doesn't work as DH simply pulls away. Feminism would say you shouldn't put up with it - but it doesn't, in my experience, provide any solutions to how to live in harmony with a man. The main tenet is that women don't need men so if your man is not performing how you expect him to, get rid of him. There seems to be no acceptance that women can sometimes be unrealistic in their demands, just that men should assimilate into the role we want them to undertake.

Domestic feminism just seems to me to promote the relationship between men and women as some sort of battlefield. Is this really helpful on a day to day basis ? I don't think so.

I look now around me at what 80 years of feminism has achieved and I see my female colleagues struggling to manage work, childcare, homes, care of their parents etc etc. The men I work with manage going to work and relaxing - the majority of households I know still fall into a traditional division of labour, despite the fact that both male and female work outside the home. Have we moved forward since the 50s ? We may be more equal but are we happier ?

The thing I can't get around in the book is the idea expressed that if a husband takes the wrong turn while driving, the wife should not correct him. WTF? That would be a shortcut to a very big row in the Longtall household. Picture the scene:

My DH: Fucking hell we're in Newport Pagnell! We're supposed to be in Cornwall! What the hell are we doing here?
LTJ: (supportively) Oh well!
DH: Did you notice we were going the wrong way?
LTJ: (unless this book advocates lying outright) Oh I did, yes, but didn't want to be a control freak by pointing it out
DH: What? Are you insane? (continues from there)

I agree with everything apart from your 2nd para - when women are going to court to ensure their reproductive rights, getting paid 17% less than men for equal work, and children in other parts of the world are having their clitorises cut off with rusty knives and married off at 10, feminism still has a very long way to go.

Otherwise, I agree - I'm a pragmatist, though. If it's a choice of getting my own way and always being right, but living in conflict because of it - or picking my battles and relinquishing control some of the time, but living in a harmonious and mutually respectful marriage, give me the latter any day.

MrsRigby - if you;re too dim to understand the difference between 'equal' and 'identical' how the fuck did you get into Mensa?

LTJ - I tried that, purely as an experiment. It went more like this:

MrILA: oh ffs
ILA: never mind; I do that sort of thing all the time. It's annoying isn't it?
MrILA

And no fight! Result.

So maybe it depends on your husband? Or his sense of direction... Most people (even me) would have worked it out before Newport Pagnell, so it wouldn't usually come to that. Of course, if he asks for help, that's a different story, but mine rarely does.

Wow, thick and dim - not bad for someone from Mensa.

ILAS, I certainly agree with you that feminism has a huge amount of work to do in places like sub-saharan south africa and the middle east. But for Western women I'm not sure how much more can be achieved.

I always wonder how they actually work out the pay gap figures. Do women achieve less at work than men because after they have a family the workplace becomes more of a means to an end than how they define themselves ? I think the pay gap is a very interesting topic because while it looks very black and white on the face of it, it actually involves so many factors. It's a bit like saying that police forces are institutionally racist when they have a low ratio of VEM officers that is not representative of their communities. On the face of it this is a simple equation - if the VEM ratio in a town is 30% then logically the ratio of VEM officers should be 30%. But this does not take into account cultural influences

Until childcare and parental leave provisions are split equally between the sexes I do not think we will ever see parity in wages.

Fibilou

"when I look at the society around me I have to say I don't see women treated as second class citizens and wonder what there is left for feminism to achieve."

"I see my female colleagues struggling to manage work, childcare, homes, care of their parents etc etc. The men I work with manage going to work and relaxing"

You've answered your own question there.

Women have taken on WOHM responsibilities, but men haven't taken on domestic responsibilities. I fail to see how telling your husband 'Whatever you think' when he says you need to clean the skirting boards while he reads the paper, is going to help this situation in any way.

The State does not treat us as second class citizens.
It is within our domestic relationships that there is still a huge imbalance between men and women.

I'm not going to go over the point of "whatever you think" again. I explained the point of that exercise several pages ago.

Maybe they are doing it to weed out people who don't share their views for future get-togethers!

Wasn't there a tread re this very 'way of life' and some were following it and I believe were happy with the results?

"Women have taken on WOHM responsibilities, but men haven't taken on domestic responsibilities. I fail to see how telling your husband 'Whatever you think' when he says you need to clean the skirting boards while he reads the paper, is going to help this situation in any way."

It rather depends on you not marrying an arsehole in the first place. I don't know many (any?) men who would "tell" their wives to clean the skirting boards, and if I did I'd be having words with the wife.

As I've said, I've read TSW and found it really useful. My husband and I share our domestic tasks absolutely equally, including childcare (he does a day on his own a week, for example). We take it in turns to relax and read the paper.

Just because I respect my husband, don't nag him, let him get on with things that we've agreed are his responsibility without micromanaging (and he does the same for me), and we talk like adults about the division of labour, does not mean I'm some cowering submissive who is scared when he walks through the door.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/489084-a-thread-for-those-of-us-who-have-realised-our

I think that women earn less than men before they have children, which scuppers the whole "it's because you've taken a year out" argument.

MrsR out of interest, do you mean you think we have done enough and would like women to stop askiing for more now, or would you like to roll back to pre-feminism roles and values for everyone?

I am a shrew to my DH ALOT of the time.
My friends are shrews to their DHs alot of the time.
On MN there are many shrew like women.

So I do often sympathise with men, especially my DH. He works hard, helps in the home, does alot with the DCs at the weekend and evenings and yet I am still often wanting more from him.
For that reason I can see why a book might help someone like me take a gentler path to not being a twunt to him.
I quite like the example of driving that ILAS gave. Would a situation like that really help with me being shrill?
Again, I am a feminist, but I wonder that blokes are often getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop with some of our agenda and that they are no longer respected.,

Jeez, some of the man hating petty comments on MN alone would have we feminists howling in outrage if the 'he' was changed to a 'she'

I came across a site a while ago about this sort of relationship and have to say it sounded very odd. I suppose that I am in a very traditional type relationship, SAHM and my husband I suppose leads us in many ways BUT I would never say he was in charge (unless its changing the cat litter he is in charge of that!). In fact if anyone has the last say i would think it would be me as I have to say some of his choices can be shall we say less than sound.

imsonottelling I think women do want and expect too much. I think this is because of bloody feminists. I think feminists will always want more and will never be happy until there are no men on the planet.

I can't see us rolling back to pre-feminism roles and values.

I'm happy being a housewife. I'm currently on maternity leave and return to work in January, don't want to go back and I'm not looking forward to it.

I try hard not to be a shrew. I don't nag. I think both qualities are unpleasant. That is not because I am 'surrendered', it is because I am a grown-up and so is DH. Being a shrew and a nag has fuck all to with being a feminist.

Yes, Mrs Rigby, Yes. You tell them.

I am very impressed by your wide understanding of the subject. What would you say were the core values and roles pre-feminalists?

I haven't read all of TSW but I did the sample chapters on the B&N website. What struck me was the similarity between its message and those in both "Codependent No More" and "Games People Play".

"Codependent No More" is written for people who are in some form of relationship with an addict. The point of the book is to help you to realise you can't control how other people behave, the only thing you can control is how you behave yourself. So the book goes through both identifying controlling/enabling behaviours and how to deal with those situations differently. One of the principle ways of doing that is to be clear about who is responsible for what and to not take on the other person's self-caused problems. To go back to the driving thing, the CNM approach to taking a wrong turn would be to let the driver deal with it. It's their problem to deal with.

"Games People Play" is about the psychological theory called Transactional Analysis, which looks at interpersonal relationships as expressed in how people interact. One of the things in GPP is about how people tend to unconsciously take one of three positions in a conversation - Parent, Adult or Child. If one person takes a Parental approach, the other person often unconsciously takes on a Child position. And so you get controlling nagging on one side and petulant disobedience on the other. One of the points of TA is to help you identify those kinds of situations and, instead, to aim for Adult-Adult interactions where both participants are assumed to be capable grown-ups.

I got a huge amount from "Codependent No More" not just in dealing with the fall-out from my alcoholic ex but also in general. "Games People Play" was recommended to me by a counsellor and, again, it's been very useful. They are both, as far as I am aware, reasonably well-respected books. Apart from the provocative title, and again with the caveat that I haven't read all of TSW, I haven't yet seen anything in TSW that says something radically different from those two books.

The thing which irritates me about these sort of books is that they assume that all women are like this and that all men are like that. That all men will appreciate being treated a certain way by their wives.

All of this (like the girls=pink boys=blue) stuff leaves no room for people to be people. For example, my personality is that I am fairly decisive, organised, and yes quite bossy. I have always been like this. My DH is even tempered, relaxed, indecisive, not at all organised and eager to please. Our personalities fit together well, we are happy in our roles, and our family life runs very smoothly - we rarely argue.

In these men vs women books and ideas there is never any room for differences within the sexes, that some men display many stereotypically female traits and vice versa. It always seems to be about budling people into boxes. "Women all love shoes" "Men all want sex all the time" it's all rubbish.

If I tried to fololow the instructions in the book eg get DH to make decisions he would brick it bigtime I guess this book is not for us...