There is no knight in shining armour

Before I married R, I told him I was afraid I'd walk all over him. His reply was, “if you think you can!”

The ensuing years were submissive ones for me. I let him be the man, make the decisions, start new businesses, while I home-schooled and housekept and was the social instigator for our life. I used to command all the finances, but felt I was becoming a shrew when I wouldn't let him spend our money. I turned them over to him. All was well. By the recession of '91, it was obvious that one income could not sustain our little family. I went to work.

I am a workaholic, competitive, and responsible to a fault. He is unable to work for someone other than himself. I scrimped and scrimped, cut my own hair and never bought a thing for myself. He bought every toy and gadget that he fancied. After 23 years, I realized that I was very angry at him. He never thought of me, but assumed I was still sitting behind him on the "bitch seat" (biker's term) happy to be along for the ride. Was he ever surprised and threatened when I woke up to my own dreams, too long on hold while waiting for him to find himself and get happy. But, he's a good man, and he got it.

Girls, Guys, there are no shining knights who come along and make everything right. There's just yourself, and what you do with that. It's been a bumpy adjustment, but I took my life carefully into my own hands, freed myself from expecting anything from my husband, and made a life for myself. We're still adjusting, but he's happy because I'm no longer angry with him. And I like him a lot more since I'm spending my money on what I want to see developed, the work I want to do (not a bloody office job forever!) and I've been encouraging him to do what he loves and not worry about me. We're adults, after all.

It's a kind of separation that has made us both stronger. He realizes now how much I've contributed to his comfort and goals. He appreciates that I want to spend my hard-earned money on my own business investment. It's hard to see him financially uncomfortable, since I had previously dedicated my life and income to making him happy. No more. I'm making me happy, and it's helping us both. He's being pushed out of his nest a bit, but it's making him remember what it was like to be competitive, alive, moving forward. Personal growth is messy and uncomfortable, (just look at a teenager!) but growth is a sign of health. Will our marriage survive? I'm not sure yet. But a better relationship has arisen from all the chaotic changes.

Get healthy, get happy, be yourself by yourself. If it's just about sexual gratification, spanking can be a part or not. If it's about mutual respect and personal growth, then the sex will be hot, whether you spank or not.

Lana

Take the Taken In Hand tour

Have you seen the following articles?
Who says you have to be submissive?
My fascinating journey
Don't tell anyone I'm here!
About Schmidt: choose engagement, not withdrawal
Who needs forbidden fruit when you have this?
I want it all, and I want it now!
The healing power of taking her in hand
Taken In Hand saved our marriage from doom
Maybe these surrendered women are on to something
Is he who (or where) he says he is?

2004 Aug 9 - 01:10 | add new comment | latest article | previous article | next article |

Long Marriages

I have been reading this site for a few months and have enjoyed it immensely. I am still exploring my needs and desires.

You questioned whether your marriage will survive the latest upheaval. I have been married for 30 yrs this year. If I have learned anything in that time, is that long marriages have a tendency to keep on going. In my marriage we survived the loss of a child, an affair (his), and several points where we seriously considered divorce.

At the point, as my husband now says, no matter what happens we can resolve it. The most important thing is to keep talking. As long as you can meet his top priority needs and he, yours; the lower level needs will not be a major problem.

It is strange but I found I have changed dramaticly over time. When I met my husband I was intensely shy and quiet. As I grew in my career and gained confidence, I lost my shyness and quiet demeanour on the outside. People I work with, do not believe I could have ever been that way. This also affected my home life. When I became unhappy with my husband's parenting skills, my new agressive attitude resulted in our marriage taking a change where as my almost grown children and friends note - I run the marriage.

Of late, I have felt that many of our current issues are related to that. Because, I run everything, I am also responsible for everything and I am tired. My husband does nothing, takes ownership of nothing. Ironicly he is an assertive person - naturally so - I just argue and debate better - so he says - "I will lose - so why bother"

I recognize that for the health of our marriage and happiness - something needs to change. There has much to thing about and this site has certainly helped. I have not just yet had the courage to tell my husband that I know after all this time want to take a more submissive role in this house, that I want him to be head of the household.

It is funny how sometimes things are a circle.

by Catherine on 2004 Aug 9 - 15:44 | reply to this comment

Change...

The one thing I've found that seems to hold true is that whilst something works, keep it. - and when it stops working, change it.

'course - the challenge can be finding what to change to...

--

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" Hamlet, somewhere.

by ConfusedOfHomeCounties on 2004 Aug 9 - 20:45 | reply to this comment

arguing and debating

Catherine, don't I have sympathy for your husband! I'm hopeless at arguing and debating, even when I know I'm right I can't often think of the right things to say to back up my position until much later when I've had time to think it over. My wife's principal skill is arguing her way out of a tight corner, defending herself no matter how indefensible her position may be.

So I don't do much arguing, I just keep quiet, let her have the last word but stick with my point of view and come back later. Likely my wife will have got over her desire to win the argument and silently behave as though I was right all along, even though she doesn't admit it. I don't force the issue.

I guess there's no help, you must just eventually tell your husband you want him to take over. Could you try with one thing at a time - the finances, for example? I recently read Fascinating Womanhood, by Helen Andelin. It's reviewed elsewhere on this site. Although there's much she writes that I can't swallow, she does have some brilliant ideas about how to get your man to take the reins, and I can recommend it for taking from it what you like and leaving the rest

You say "The most important thing is to keep talking. As long as you can meet his top priority needs and he, yours..." -- easier said than done. My wife isn't demanding, needs very little, it seems. It's hard to know what her top priorities are. I need a clean, tidy house and her consent to punish her when she doesn't provide it. This has become my main project in my domestic life at the moment.

In a former marriage, which lasted 25 years, I thought we could talk our way through any difficulties, but that proved to be wrong -- it suddenly fell apart and it was because we were NOT providing each other with our top priority needs. My present marriage is better in many ways but there are still difficult areas. Talking them through is not easy as my wife is not a native English speaker and is not comfortable with the language, nor is she very articulate about her feelings, but it does seem that one of her needs is -- not to be punished for her neglect of chores!

Malcolm

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2004 Aug 11 - 11:54 | reply to this comment

No knights but some princes

Girls, Guys, there are no shining knights who come along and make everything right. There's just yourself, and what you do with that.

Ain't this the truth! My expectations of what would come from surrendering control and what I got from it were quite different. Same-same for my beloved and his taking control.

Benefits derived by both of us were greater harmony, self awareness, and mutual respect.

But we are still the people we were before. He still tends to run late for every appointment, I still tend to be ready early. We have learned to live with these differences a whole lot better than we used to.

I am a neat freak and organised to a fault. He can turn a room upside down just by walking through it and would never have clean clothes if I didn't perform laundry fairy duties. Again the change in us (after Taken In Hand) is how we deal with these seemingly incompatible qualities.

Yet I have seen posts from women at sites like this saying if only their man would take them in hand then they would lose that last ten pounds, they'd be better housekeepers, they'd keep their phone bills under control, they'd finish their university degree....etc.

Well maybe a Taken In Hand relationship is a kind of make over program for a lot of people but the one thing that worries me about that is once you have corrected the original roster of faults, what does he move on to next? Having exhausted the first fix-up list will he then attack underlying aspects of personality because he's a man who likes a 'project'?

The other side of that coin is women who do finally get their partners to take control - do they think that those men will be vested with every desirable leadership quality?

It doesn't happen - not permanently. There may be room for improvement in all of us but I am doubtful whether deep and lasting personality changes are possible.

Can the leopard change its spots? Or is waiting for that to happen a one way ticket to chronic disappointment?

Get healthy, get happy, be yourself by yourself.

I agree. It seems to me that a fulfilled and happy partner brings much more to a balanced relationship than someone who is hanging on needily to someone else's strength, vigor, and sense of purpose.

The one thing I've found that seems to hold true is that whilst something works, keep it. - and when it stops working, change it.

Absolutely - the only thing we can count on in life is change. We have to be flexible enough to accept changes when they roll over our lives, often uninvited and unwanted, and brave enough to know when it's time to instigate changes of our own, often difficult and challenging.

'course - the challenge can be finding what to change to...

There's always a catch. ;-)

Maddy

by Mad4Him on 2004 Aug 12 - 04:40 | reply to this comment

No Knights

Your description of your husband turning the room upside down made me laugh, sounds rather like me. I personally have found that being Taken In Hand has made me a better housekeeper(let's face it, I could hardly have become a worse one), though I am never ever going to be as good as my husband, but then he really cares and I don't, that is I care about trying to make him happier, but still don't really give a damn about the housework for its own sake. however, the fact that I am trying harder to be tidier, more organised etc seems to be enough to make him happy. We just came back from spending a week staying in a holiday camp with our two younger children without having a single row all week, and that has to be an all-time record. There were a couple of unfortunate incidents which led to subsequent retribution, but no actual rows. Being Taken In Hand can't actually change you, but in my case at least it seems to have given me the will to try harder. My husband isn't a knight, but would probably have made a very good armourer, he could have knocked up swords, shields, helmets etc quite easily.

by Louise C on 2004 Aug 14 - 18:41 | reply to this comment

There is no knight in Shining Armour

Catherine,
Bless your heart! I relate. We have been married for thirty years. We have been through some rough times such as a child with cancer among other illness It has been quite a journey.

One day I decided to write my husband a letter sharing my innermost desires. He was surprised at first but did not have a problem with it. It was kind of awkward at first. I get embarrassed very easily.

Anyway in the last month or so I began reading this site and it is just what I have always wanted. The problem with me is that I have always been a controlling woman through our marriage, in control with our children, my job, etc., that my husband really had no place to display his authority! So, he didn't.

Since finding this site, I did introduce it to my husband and after looking into it himself decided that this is what we want in our marriage.

The difficulty for me is the control issues. I am on a new journey discovering what that all means and how I am learning to let go and allow my husband to be the man in charge. He is a wonderful person and I love him deeply. His love for me is such a priceless gift and it leaves me in awe. I know that I am a strong woman I am not a doormat of any kind! However, I want him to be the head of the household and I want to give him that control. Our love making is now incredible!

Reading your letter inspired me to share because of the control that I wouldn't give up and due to my control my husband would do nothing. I mean he would go to work etc, help with house chores ect but I never gave him the freedom to be the man he was meant to be.

I am so excited because even though we are new at this it is already changing our marriage for the better! There are things we are working through but at least we aare on our way.

I wish for you all of the best.

by Kat on 2004 Aug 26 - 18:46 | reply to this comment

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