"Surrendering" to your femininity... Have you done this/ do you do this?

[MoreSacredDance]

Name change because this could be a bit "outing" put together with some other posts of mine.

My husband and I are currently going through the toughest period of our marriage. I am hopeful and positive though, because we both love each other very much and want to stay together.

In short, he feels emasculated and this has filtered into lots of different parts of our relationship, including a much reduced sex life. I accept that my behaviour have led to or worsened this. My job means I have to be strong, confident and in control. I have probably attempted to use a lot of the "tools" I employ to succeed at work within our marriage, and that has NOT worked well. I see that now.

I watched John Wineland's "What Men Crave" ten minute talk and it was like a lightbulb moment. My husband has actually told me all these things, just in different ways that I didn't take time to listen to and understand.

I don't think it's a bad thing for a husband to want to lead or feel like a hero or all those other cheesy things. Especially if that is what he feels is missing in his marriage. I think it IS possible for me to surrender to my femininity while still being strong, assured and confident. Submission and surrender are different in my eyes now. Deep down, I actually do want to surrender at times as I am exhausted from constantly fighting to control every little thing.

But how do I do this? Has anyone else recognised this and actively made this change? I'm not even sure where to start in a practical sense.

My ex told me I 'made all the decisions and never gave him a chance'. So I stepped back and told him it was his turn.

He faffed, and prevaricated and dithered and nothing ever got done, so I took over again. Whereupon he told me I nagged him.

Some men are just looking for a reason to be disatisfied.

Shoxfordian: i know, I think so. He said on more than one occasion "you're so fucking alpha female" with a very negative tone, because it made him feel bad for being so useless. If he had said "I love you are so alpha female" that would have been a compliment ;) I would not consider myself alpha alpha female. But I am strong and independent (not so confident anymore but working on it ;)

21 years together, so its still very raw. But I'm glad he is an ex too (he is still making my life hell ;)

You sound fairly alpha to me pudding21

It was obviously his issue that he couldn't cope with strong women

Op, if you genuinely say you believe you are overbearing then yes, you do need to alter your behaviour towards your dh. I think it boils down to being considerate, a basic courtesy that is essential in any successful relationship. However, if you have assumed the position of power because he isn't proactive and you've unknowingly been forced into it then different steps are required. You both need to talk and figure out which scenario it is.

I don't think "alpha" male/female is really something to be celebrated; it's always a situation of superiority over a subordinate partner. Equality is the important thing with the views, needs and expectations of both partners being considered.

I don't think alpha implies superiority. My boyfriend is alpha as well.
Confidence; assertiveness and strength should be celebrated

pudding21 I think I recognise you from the narc thread? Your ex sounds like mine. He was threatened by me (I am generally known to be a v capable person) but he wouldn't step up, just called me a control freak and sulked.
I spent the best part of 23 years trying to find the "right way" to handle him and then realised it wasn't me, it was him.

OP - I hear you, and have been through (keep tripping over) a similar thing in my marriage. I will come back and respond more fully this evening.

Boringusername17: that's me ;) He called me all sorts in a non jokey way- alpha female, controlling, melodramatic, sensationalist, usually when I was challenging why he was behaving in a certain way (these were the polite ones!)

I spoke to his mother last night, I had a good relationship with her before. last night I saw her in a whole new light. Minimising, denial, basically burying her head (like her son) in the sand. Denying that for Ex living with an verbally and sometimes verbally aggressive alcoholic form the age of 13, wouldn't have affected him, just like Ex's behaviour won't affect our kids. Its all becoming oh so clear!

Sorry OP. Hope this doesn't sound too familiar to you.

Op - I don't understand why you used language like "surrendering to your femininity" and talked about allowing your husband to be a "hero"!

Why didn't you just say that you wanted to have the strength and confidence to allow some of your vulnerabilities show? You must, surely, have realised that your language in your first post was inflammatory.

Language is important. If what you wanted to say was, "Sometimes I am a dick to my DH and need to let go a bit", this would have gone very differently. I also believe you don't simply mean that. It sounds to me like you have convinced yourself you can improve (save?) your marriage by being more 'feminine' which someone has convinced you involves being submissive. It will never work. If you are not naturally submissive, all the pretending will simply make you resent the fact that your DH gets off on seeing you move personality mountains to make him happy.

To be fair to the OP unless she is advertising the guru she's advocating she is using the terminology used in the vom-inducing video she mentioned.

I would also be wondering: why now? If you have always been this way, he has always been this way and he married you knowing you were this way, he is unlikely to have woken up one day wanting to make decisions about domestic chores and when the car goes in for the MOT. There will be something else going on. Be careful how much of your dignity you 'surrender' before you find out what that something is!

Why do you feel the need to be so controlling?

I suspect when he says he feels "emasculated", he really means that he feels controlled and powerless. They're not the same thing.

Yes, I agree with Trifle, and once you have surrendered it it will be extremely difficult to get it back.

Ditch him and get a real man whose dick doesn't wilt because a women is strong and confident.

This.

See, I don't doubt that you love him very much.

But try to see things from his point of view. Try to really do this.

Would you demand from someone you love that he surrender to the belief in the inherent inferiority of his sex, (which is what femininity is, in a nutshell) so that you can feel better about yourself?

Treat your husband like you yourself want to be treated. No more, no less.

I suspect when he says he feels "emasculated", he really means that he feels controlled and powerless. They're not the same thing.

When he says he feels emasculated, then he feels emasculated, and it is high time to get rid of him.

A man who does not believe that women should worship at his feet would not say that he feels emasculated. He would say that he feels controlled.

Words matter.

Words matter, but sometimes people don't choose exactly the right words for what they mean. I'm not sore the OP did, maybe her DH didn't either.

If he did use the word emasculated, then I agree this is very different to feeling controlled. Emasculated means to be made less of a man (literally to have your manhood removed).
Is there an equivalent? De-feminised?
If my husband screams and wibbles when he sees a spider, and I have to deal with it, would it irritate me? Possibly.
If he is physically weak and a bit feeble,would I stop wanting to sleep with him? Probably.
Would any of these "feminine" behaviours make me less of a woman? Of course not. I am a woman no matter how my partner behaves.
OP, if your husband doesn't feel like a real man, that's because he doesn't feel like a real man. It comes from him. You might be a right 'mare, who knows, but his masculinity and how he feels about it is his own affair.

I can't tell from the information given here whether you're overbearing or not.

I think I do understand what you're trying to say, though you expressed it clumsily. But in my experience, this is not the kind of dynamic you can contrive (which it sounds like you're doing). You either naturally bring this out in each other because it's how your personalities play off, or you don't. I know couples should talk about their feelings and what's going on, but I just couldn't respect or be attracted to a man who needed me to contrive situations and behaviours where he felt manly and heroic and decisive or whatever. It should be organic.

I don't think you can manufacture this if he doesn't naturally bring it out in you and vice versa. I guess I just don't find that truly 'manly' men, for want of a better word, get sulky and complain about feeling emasculated. They just kind of do it and find women who respond accordingly.

I should add that I am absolutely not referring to controlling or abusive men, who are something else entirely.

This is my experience, anyway. YMMV.

OP said that her husband tried to tell her how he was feeling but she didn't listen or understand.

Then she watched this video about surrendering and 'got it'.

So I suspect her husband didn't go in all guns blazing with mysogynist language about submission and heroes. Maybe he just said hmm you know it would be nice if you talked to me a bit more about big joint decisions.

Strikes me that the OP prefers a dramatic change and having tasks to fulfill (i.e. complete the submission detailed by this relationship advisor) than the boring slog of just sitting there and properly listening.

OP- could you give some practical examples of how this would work? I don't think I understand.

I just tried to watch his video. I got as far as "sassy co-eds" before I had to turn it off before I threw up.

I didn't bother watching. I find it odd that anyone would feel a need to make a video about what men want, like we ever stop hearing about that.

Ah, so you missed "cock worshipping whore" then, Trifle!