Opinions on the Surrended Wife book

[OopsyDaisie]

I've just started trading this book after seeing it recommended and teafung great reviews on Amazon.
It is making me want to puke and cry at the same time!!! It's like being taken back to the 50s with the smiling wife saying "year dear" "whatever you want dear" ...
I'm hoping it takes a turn and gets better? Anyone has read it, can you please tell me it does?

I think this is all I need to take from it...
I feel if I keep reading it, my anger will go through the roof!

MissHollysDolly
I don't quite understand.
Why did you need to read a book to give you the idea of not going to an outing you wouldn't enjoy?
Isn't that just common sense.

i mean what we're you doing previously then.

Funnily enough, the onus is never on the husbands to reflect upon and adjust their behaviours to enhance marital harmony. It's just the woman who has to do all that work to change her behaviours.

Almost as if it was written by and for the kinds of people who think that Eve was the original sinner...

The principles make sense but you have to practice them to see the power of them not just read about them. So one of them is saying ‘whatever you think’ when they’re asking your advice and when I say this it’s so relaxing not to have to try and solve the problem or answer the question sounds silly but give it a try.

If my husband is asking me for my advice, it's because he actually wants it! Responding every time with 'whatever you think' suggests a lack of interest and would only work with completely self centred men who want a wife who doesn't think for herself!

Surely you play to your strengths? Dh has made a few key decisions where I would have done the opposite and he had been right and saved us a fortune. Conversely so have I - as a team you are stronger using the full brain power and emotional intelligence of two adults not just one.

Op, I'd recommend 'Women who Love Too Much' as a self help book based on your second post, I haven't read 'The Surrendered Wife' so I can't comment on it.

Oh boy....

...I'm guessing you haven't heard about the whole "Trad wife" movement on social media? It's mainly influencers on tiktok and youtube putting out this 1950s housewife vibe with cute aesthetics but it's frighteningly huge, and people will always trying copy influencers' lifestyles.....

Probably where all those reviews came from.

NC for this. I read it about 8 years ago and at the time would have spoken really highly about it.
I was drawn to it because I WAS very controlling in an unhealthy way and wanted advice about how to break that dynamic. I brought a lot of distrust into the marriage after being cheated on in a previous marriage, and would check DH's phone, call him on work nights out and ask who was there, check his social media etc. I also come from a family where my mum was constantly harping at my dad for minor things like folding the towels "wrong" or eating food she considered unhealthy (like sausages once in a blue moon), and I echoed some of that in my marriage too.
The book was helpful in teaching some of the basics of how to trust another person, not be constantly nagging or criticising, and accepting that there could be more than one "right" way to do things. Which are probably common sense to most people, but I never had that modelled me growing up - it was my mum's way or the highway - so that was helpful for me.
BUT, years down the line, some of the advice has caused serious problems for us. Years of me saying "whatever you think" when DH has asked for my opinion on his career decisions has left him feeling like I don't give a shit, and like he bears the sole burden of making huge decisions that have a big impact on the family (he earns about 2/3 of our family income). Similarly with saving/spending, he made some decisions that didn't play out well for us, and now resents that I put him in the position of being solely responsible for that. Also, he doesn't respect the whole tradwife movement, and wanted someone with their own thoughts and opinions (albeit not the pathological ones that I had initially), so he lost quite a lot of respect for me as a person when I turned into a complete doormat.
I think the book did serve a short term purpose in pulling us out of a sort of crisis point where my behaviour was really destructive/abusive, but it had other detrimental effects long term. I think it would have been better if I had accessed some kind of therapy to get help changing my thoughts and behaviour early on in the marriage without taking on all the tradwife baggage along with it.

If it’s about a house we’re buying then yes I’ll
give my input, or a strategic business decision (we’re both self employed) but every day stuff I’d prefer he just made most of the decisions because I trust him to make the right ones because he’s a grown man and he wants me to be happy.

Don’t we all complain about mental load? This has helped me drop the rope on a few things.

it’s not trad wife in my eyes it’s about me making space for me and letting him pick up the rest rather than me making decisions on what’s for dinner, where we are going, what time we are leaving, what presents should be bought etc etc.

theres another section about saying ‘I can’t’ which is so powerful. But anyway if you hate it and haven’t read it or read it and hate it I’m not here to change your mind I’m just replying to the OP. I have read it AND practiced it so thought my input would be useful.

Again it only works if you love and trust your DH to make the right decisions and pick up the slack when you drop the rope so I wouldn’t say it works for everyone.

Yes, English is not my first language so I was a fool.... money wasted!

I've not read it so I suppose that some would argue I can't therefore critique it, but the whole principle goes against who I am and my values. Guess I'll have to get used to being a mouthy mid-fifties single then!

I have not really and will not again subjugate my views to hold onto a relationship and have always been vocal which is likely the main reason they haven't worked out. Women through the ages worked hard just to get us to where we are today, which imo still isn't far enough.

If this was a book directed at men saying they should just accept that women do the bulk of the housework/childcare and how this is unfair and so should pitch in 50/50, and that women's gut instincts are generally correct and they should just agree with us and act accordingly on our instruction, can you imagine the outrage? Andrew Tate would have a field day.

Sacrificing ones autonomy for the sake of a relationship which was perfectly fine enough for both parties to commit and with no issues at that juncture and now puts a woman in a position of keeping her trap shut for the sake of harmony - well. My view is he was fine with you at the start and if he isn't now, he needs to do some introspection.

Rant over.

The very title suggests marriage is an antagonistic relationship with winners and losers rather than a true equal partnership, doesn't it?

I am in a similar situation to you @Gotthemoozles although I am not controlling in the means you describe at ALL, my H many times say I am. Amd i have a high profile career whwre i manage manybpeople and i am conscious i might "being it home". But I am very worried of the detrimental effects of "relinquishing control" in this way, as you mention on your post.
I have had a lot if useful feedback from all you ladies and I think this discussion is really interesting, because the vit of truth there is on the concepts of this book need to be REALLY tuned down (waaay down) to make sense and IMO to Foster a respectful and fulfilling relationship.
However the author specifically says there's no exception to the "whatever you think" rule (bar physical or metal harm/inability) and that is SO detrimental to where us women managed to get so far.

Gosh, it's so sad to see women infantislising themselves in this manner.

I assume your husband must be a raging misogynist to be able to put up with this. Any halfway decent man would want an equal partner rather than someone who abdicates all responsibility for adult life.

I hope that you don't have children growing up in such a dysfunctional environment.

@WrylyAmused thank you foe recommending the F*It therapy, I'm reading it and love it!