I lost my best girlfriend because she hated me so much for being happy. Literally hated me, or hated herself for what she had. And it looked nothing like what I had at all. But I am the one who didn't look for someone to 'take care of me'. Yet I am the one who found that. Is it because I yield to 'us'. Is it because I listen and when I have to, say what bothers me? Or is it because I don't manipulate, talk down or scheme my way in or out of what I want or need? I think it's because someone loves me. And I love/adore/listen to him. I have been told I am the 'buzz' around the playground at my daughter's school as they watch me be buckled into the car. Or I have my hand taken before I walk anywhere. I love my relationship with my husband. What we do, or who we are is different from many others, including others with taken in hand relationships. My husband is a highly sensitive man, very successful and rarely social with anyone other than me. He interacts with dozens of business like minded people, yet remains aloof to everyone around him but me. He is tall, strong and handsome and I know I am envied. But I am the only one he focuses on. I am the only one who gets his full attention all day every day. And I also know it's my constant response that feeds his constant watchful eye. If any other of the women who chat about me were to have this kind of 'under the microscope' attention they would melt from the intensity. Not a very 'equal' feeling. But there is little equal in my taken in hand life. In fact I say I have the lions share of everything that is good! If responding to positive attention, time shared and enjoyed with family and intimacy is less than equal, bring it on! I am not a submissive woman, yet am very submissive to my husband. He is a feminist in all ways, except with me. I guess the best part of all this: I just have nothing to prove. Or argue or fight for. Mutual respect is such a simple concept. The yield is what makes it so good.

-Blush

It is so important for women to understand that “receiving” is an active process.

As Blush so insightfully said:

But I am the only one he focuses on. I am the only one who gets his full attention all day every day. And I also know it's my constant response that feeds his constant watchful eye. [emphasis mine]

It is sometimes said women want to change their men. You know, "he was perfect" before marrying but once that ring is on some women act like they have a license to decide what is and isn't acceptable behavior with their men. And, after reading Mercuria's post about "Kneejerkers", it is true there are a lot of women who are disrespectful and so selfishly self-focused.

It's like some can't wait to marry and then two or three years down the road they start the complaining.

What is it that changes? How does the magnetism of love settle in to the mundane boredom and complaining, and resulting changes of behavior? Is love so blind or do people think marriage is a safety net for them to say and act how they want, even when disrecting their partner?

It works both ways, of course. You can hear it in little bouts of sarcasm and sometimes catch rolling of the eyes between two partners reactng to each other. And it grows until their is a noticeable division between them.

No thank you. Taken in Hand may seem politically incorrect to many, but it keeps a great balance and seems to help prevent many needless power struggles that can chip away at loving relationships, over time.

Jean Gorski wrote

..the more people have in common, the more they fight over the few issues where they disagree.

There is a scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the Romans have rounded up a group of early Christians, probably for lion food or archery targets. The Christians start furious arguments about fine points of faith while the Roman soldiers look on with bewildered amusement.

I think what happenens in many online 'communities' comes from the fact that the members are not connected by location, occupation, ethnicity, or other things, but are connected by similar beliefs.

If my neighbor and I strongly disagree about a social practice, we can always change the subject. In a forum about things like Taken In Hand, it's not possible to change the subject.

RichM

I agree that you don`t have to be in a Taken in Hand Relationship to treat each other with respect. I`ve noticed pretty much the same thing among our friends that Aurora did. There`s women that constantly put their husbands down with no good reason at all. There`s this one friend of ours who constantly complains about her husbands driving. I can`t understand it because the way he drives is just fine. We just rode with them a week ago when there was a bad snowstorm going on. All of Germany was pretty much covered in snow and it made it almost impossible to drive and he got us where we wanted to go safely even though she bitched and complained the whole time about his driving he stayed calm. If my husband would`ve drove the same way I would`ve complimented him on his driving ability. And that`s probably the same thing that Aurora notices about her girlfriends. There complaining about not being married to real men for most likely not to much reason at all.

Plus I remember a thread that was made just recently where a man explained that his wife`s ex husband was at fault for her first marriage not to work out because he didn`t put to much of an efford into the relationship. There you took the side of the ex husband and said maybe he was just easy going.

I believe that it takes two to tangle too, but sometimes people just don`t fit together. I blame it on the efford that people want to put into a relationship and sorry to mention it again - on how their zodiac signs fit together. Autumn

Autumn, just because you've "seen this behavior" it doesn't mean you know the whole story. Sometimes it's about people being a bad match, yes. But everyone goes into marriage wanting it to work. Not everyone has the social skills and the patience to make it work.

That goes for men as well as women.

When you see behavior like that it's easy to blame the wives. But you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Maybe she's really a shrew and eventually he will leave her. But there are other explanations below the surface that you don't know unless you are a fly in the wall of their home.

We went through a bad year that for many couples would have ended in divorce. Here is what happened. I had breast cancer. My husband stood by me physically but he retreated somewhat emotionally. I didn't blame him for that. We had a mutual friend, a man from our church, who was dying of another disease, but he was the head of the Caring committee at the church and he gave me the most important support of anyone during that time (though there were many other friends who came through for me too, bless them).

A few months after I got the all clear this friend of ours died. My husband was probably a little jealous at the amount of grief he saw me going through over this man. He made a lot of smartaleck remarks about our friend. He meant no harm and said, afterwards, that this was part of his own grieving process. But it impacted on me very badly. I asked him to stop and he blew it off and kept doing it.

After a while I was sick of it and began blowing up at him. The conflict spread to the point where any little remark could be like touching a match to tinder. Once, we were in a fast food place with some friends, and hubby made a casual remark about something where I thought he was wrong and was putting down my contribution to the marriage. I jumped right down his throat, in front of them.

Now if you had seen that scene and didn't know anything else about me, you would have thought I was one of those women who doesn't respect her husband. But what you wouldn't have known was that over a period of months he had pushed my buttons to the point where any little thing became explosive.

Well, we didn't become a Taken In Hand couple. Good thing, because if we had, I might have throttled him the first time he tried to spank me. We went for marriage counseling and got a few things out in the open. After that there was a healing process.

Years later, another beloved man at the church died. A friend of my husband's there made one of the same smartass remarks to my husband and guess what? He found it really hurtful. And suddenly he realized why I had been so angry with him years earlier. He saw that though he didn't mean it, his remarks had been very painful to me, and he came to me and told me he understood now. He also realized that he must have been somewhat jealous of this man (though there was never anything wrong between us) even though at the time he'd denied it and said how can you be jealous of a dead man?

So, Autumn, before you pass judgment on your friends' behavior, realize that it's very possible that there is some underlying thing that is unresolved in this couple's marriage, and she may be lacing into him out of frustration over it, not because she is simply a nag who wants to pick on him.

Also, when I hear about all the hard work that has to go into a relationship, I feel tired. Relationships should be a place where I can relax. I honestly don't know what all this hard work is about. Maybe we had some work to do to repair the damage done in that one bad year, but it's not a problem any more and we don't have to "work" at our marriage. Thank goodness.

"Pat"

because you asked why it`s always the women`s fault, but I read just as many things of people blaming men for relationships going wrong.
Of course I`m not a fly on the wall at my friends house, but it`s not like among good friends I wouldn`t know if there was a serious problem at the time. And that particular friend of ours treats her husband that way no matter if things are going right or not. We know another couple and they both have been unemployed for a long time. They always treated each other with respect.
I might not know what`s going on with people that don`t talk much but the friends we have who talk over their problems with us, I do know a lot about them without having to be a fly on their wall.
Autumn

Two assumptions that less strident critics of Taken In Hand seem to make are that value and power are necessarily synonymous in a relationship, and that nurturing is possible in an “equal” relationship.

In a good Taken In Hand relationship, the more a woman belongs to her man, the more she becomes a treasure to be cherished. And, by actively taking control, her man is able (among other things!) to indulge and spoil her completely, while still remaining the dominant one in the relationship. (And I am talking here about good Taken In Hand men. Of course, there are good men with other types of personalities. And narcissistic jerks are available everywhere.)

Equality doesn’t permit nurturing. If you try to nurture someone who considers you an equal in terms of power, your actions will be seen as an attempt to dominate, and a power struggle will ensue. To avoid such a struggle, you would have to act submissively, in some way. But then the relationship would no longer be equal.

“Equality” sometimes seems to bring with it a form of independence that has more than a tinge of indifference, for lack of a better word. And yet, it is delightfully easy for both partners in a good “unequal” relationship to take care of each other and to bring joy to each other, on an ongoing basis.

John,

Good post, but there is this one part that I don't follow. You wrote

Equality doesn’t permit nurturing. If you try to nurture someone who considers you an equal in terms of power, your actions will be seen as an attempt to dominate, and a power struggle will ensue

That makes sense but in the next paragraph you wrote

And yet, it is delightfully easy for both partners in a good “unequal” relationship to take care of each other...

It seems to me that nurturing and 'taking care of each other' are about the same. Do you see a significant difference ?

RichM

You are right that nurturing and equality are not necessarily incompatible, depending on how you define equality. They are especially compatible when “equality” is simply a synonym for collaboration and cooperation, and when power and control are irrelevant to the relationship and leadership is strictly situational.

In addressing their assumption, I was implicitly using the definition preferred by critics of Taken In Hand. When someone consciously “considers you an equal in terms of power,” relative power is a significant element in the relationship. And, when maintaining strict equality is philosophically essential, any act can be interpreted as an attempt to shift the balance of power or to imply incompetence, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

If I correctly understand your comments about your relationship, I think that you are describing the effects of being cherished. The more a woman is cherished, the more she experiences the benefits of power, regardless of how much power she actually has.

Regarding equality and nurturing, read my replies to Louise and to Rich.

Giving up power may or may not mean devaluing. The fact that a woman who has given up her power in a relationship is being "spoiled" by her loving husband may or may not mean she has the same value as he does. You could spoil and pamper your poodle, too, but does it have the same value as you? Maybe she does have the same value in the relationship, but being pampered and petted doesn't prove it to me. She might, or she might be an ornamental trophy wife. It depends on the people involved.

In my second paragraph, I was talking about women in good Taken In Hand relationships. I know this because my first line stated “In a good Taken In Hand relationship, the more a woman belongs to her man, the more she becomes a treasure to be cherished.”

“Cherish as a treasure” means, according to the dictionary, to hold dear (highly esteemed or regarded) one considered especially precious or valuable.

And perhaps you should reread some of the many articles and comments, on this site, that were written by women who are in good Taken In Hand relationships. They are best qualified to know their feelings about their value in their relationships.

I really hate being with groups of women or even one woman, who criticises her man publicly, which is something mentioned in the first post on this thread. It's very very disloyal and if we publicly castigate anyone it usually reflects worse on us than the person we're talking about. I don't know why so many women do it. I expect men do as well, but not as much. Also why whinge rather than doing something about what you're not happy with? Change things if you don't like them.

I always make a point of not agreeing with it too. If you collude in this view that men are useless that some women have then you are condoning the view. Obviously I'm polite to them but I don't go along with it. In fact when I was married I'd always think of something good to say about my own husband (who was very much involved at home as we both work) to counteract those comments. Obviously couples differ and some men will be awful whether you're submissive to them or not and some will react best if they're dominated because they're submissive men but those that prefer a takeninhand kind woman, want someone who is a pleasure to be with.

Whether I am like this because I'm submissive and like men in charge I don't know, but it might be related to that.

On the general point on this thread, taking a woman in hand/dominating her is actually quite a task. It requires effort and understanding. It's not just a question of getting your own way all the time. The other element is ensuring you both get something out of the relationship, even if he knows best. And for women like me pleasing someone at home is I hope bound to make them want more to be with you than if home equals criticism from the wife.

Part of my own solution is to have interesting work. I work from home. Personally I can fit that into a takeinhand relationship and I know that doesn't suit everyone but it works for me. It also means I'm spending my days doing work I enjoy and have lots of talk about.