Who are the Four Moms of 35+ kids?
And ME!
Today’s issue is that touchy topic of how to handle it when husband and wife disagree on some of the issues like standards for dress, homeschooling, television, books and movies (not family size, we’ll discuss this elsewhere or when).
Problem is, the ways to handle this are as varied as the unique couples who deal with them. What my husband considers reasonable discussion another husband considers nagging. Some men care more than others about micromanaging. Some women do.
My husband and I are agreed on the big things. We are both believers and that’s how we started our marriage. We never had an argument about homeschooling- I asked, he said yes. He never wanted the kids in school, I never wanted them in school. He didn’t care about the headcovering. We are in general agreement about modesty (he’s stricter than I am in theory, I think I am stricter in practice). We didn’t really agree about the whole hunting and shooting thing, but since I recognize that a lot of my issues with those things are neurotic fears and not rational, I gave in but flinch a lot on the inside where it really counts. We don’t agree on the 16 year old driving, but we do agree that I don’t ride in the car with her when she’s driving- this is for everybody’s sake.
We did have a horrible argument about breast vs bottle one night when a bout of mastitis and a bad latch on a child had me in tears, chewing skin off my knuckles and rocking back and forth in pain trying to get a screaming baby latched on. He said “I’m going to the store to get some formula because I can’t take this anymore,” and I said more than a few choice words about who was taking what and the difference between what he had to put up with and the what the bleeding person with a crater in her anatomy had to put up with. A lot of birth hormones were talking, because I do know it’s harder to see your loved ones suffer than it is to be the sufferer. At least, I know that when somebody isn’t trying to give my infant formula. Fortunately, we lived in the country and a drive into town for formula that I was going to pitch out the window wasn’t really practical.
We do fight about things- mostly stupid things, mostly because I’m stubborn and he’s pigheaded. So I don’t have any advice for you that I wouldn’t feel like a hypocrite giving.
As a general rule, in an ideal world, I believe that the person with the conviction trumps the preference, and the person with the conviction cannot use it to impose more work on the person without the conviction, nor should one embarrass one’s spouse. But in the not so ideal world, that isn’t always practical.
I believe that both people should be able to sit down and discuss their differences clearly and rationally and come to a mutual agreement. But that cannot always happen.
I believe that if your spouse does not agree with you about certain standards and behaviors, that for the most part, you need to be respectful of their concerns and spend a lot of time in quiet prayer. You also need NOT to spend a lot of time in communication with other people who think you are right and the other person is wrong and insist on saying so.
10 Comments
I agree with you wholeheartedly about conviction vs. preference.
Something that has been helpful in my marriage has been voting by mail (weird, I know). Since my husband is busy, voting by mail gives us time to discuss our ballots that we would not normally take if we went to a booth. Why is this important?
We agreed a couple years ago that our ballots needed to match. We believe that, in an ideal world, people would vote according to the best interests of everyone for whom they bore responsibility, not according to personal or selfish preferences. In our case, that’s children. For dh’s boss, that would include children and employees. That means that our disagreeing on the ballot deprives both of us of benefitting our household. It also means that we have to discuss, at least once a year, what our household’s best interests are. When we have a conscious understanding of and agreement on our family’s best interests, it makes everything else much easier to handle.
I enjoyed and appreciated your response. Thanks for being real. By that I mean that the simplistic answer would be, “Well, let your husband decide thus and such,” but as you pointed out, a conviction is different from a preference. Thankfully my husband is a wonderful person who is much more tolerant of differing views than I am (ahem). I have more convictions or at least initial conscientious concerns about things than he does. He is less emotional, more rational than I am. That plays into it as well. Anyway, thanks.
Your last sentence about what NOT to do is excellent advice. I wish I could state my differences as gracefully and humorously as you did. I take things too personally, something I am working on.
Oh, Sharlene, I am not so very graceful. I just write like I am. On good days.
but the elephant in the room is….what if you disagree about family size? what if you agree about everything but
We agreed that was an elephant and would have to be addressed some time later in a post all its own.
“As a general rule, in an ideal world, I believe that the person with the conviction trumps the preference, and the person with the conviction cannot use it to impose more work on the person without the conviction…”
This! I wish I’d seen this spelled out before I’d met my husband–it would have made life way easier in the beginning (maybe I’ll write it in a shower card or something someday…give a newbie a heads up!)
This! Exactly! A year or two ago my husband really thought that we should let our son cry it out. I had researched this, studied it, read book after book, and I really didn’t want to do it — not least because my instincts scream “don’t let the baby cry alone!” And yet, my husband wanted it … so shouldn’t I do what he said? Eventually I told him, “Look, I’m the one who puts him to bed. I’m the one who gets up with him at night. And I’m the one who cares about this, has researched this, and has experience with this. Shouldn’t I be the one to decide?” He couldn’t really answer that, so we left things as they were. About a year later, with my husband having taken over most nighttime duties, he told me, “You were right. No secret sleep trick is going to get this kid to sleep. He’s just a bad sleeper.” All he needed was to experience what I had, and he knew.
Ditto for circumcision — I was STRONGLY opposed to it, he had a preference for it. In the end, he just decided that since I cared more, I should get my way. And now he agrees that that too was the right choice.
On pretty much every other issue, we’ve done things more or less my husband’s way. He just has stronger opinions about most stuff, whereas I very readily give in if given a good reason to. We’ve never had a disagreement yet that wasn’t solved very simply, by us discussing it and either bringing the other around, or giving way because the other cared more.
What a great post. I appreciate you being godly and real at the same time.
Regarding some of the comments, I have fought for my own way in a few big areas but usually when I look back I regret it or the impact of the decision. Even though I know and agree with all the verses on submission, it is easy when you have an easygoing husband to try to push from behind. This is generally a mistake as I have experienced firsthand.
I think it’s appropriate to submit even if we don’t think there’s a good reason for it. It’s not really submission if we agree, after all.
I’m not talking about violating our own convictions or subjecting ourselves to evil, or being such doormats our husbands never know our own opinions.
Sometimes even when it’s a neutral point, the impact of getting my own way just because I talk better and am better at mustering up my thoughts quickly has had long term ramifications that weren’t ideal.