Friday, November 20, 2009

My husband's/wife's deepest needs

I have never cared about gender issues. When I was younger, I would hear people talk about women being disadvantaged in the academy and the workplace, and I would wonder why they couldn't just get over it--be really good at what you do and your gender won't matter. I still believe that to some extent, and I try really hard only to call foul when it's a real issue, but I'm finding that more and more I'm becoming a (*insert heavy sigh here*) feminist. I really hate that word, because it has bad connotations for me, but through life experience (some of it, unfortunately, bad) and just growing up, I'm starting to see more and more the ways in which the world and (sometimes especially) the church screws up gender roles and expectations. It's going to be fun for me when I really come into my prime after being underestimated and type-cast since high school.

Anyway, here's where some of this is coming from: I recently helped with music at a church marriage retreat. To preface, I'm not going to say which church because I don't want to seem like I'm dissing them, which is not at all my purpose. Also, I want to stress that I think a marriage retreat is a GREAT idea. The church needs to do a better job in general of talking about relationships, marriage, love, sex, all of that stuff. Too often I feel like the emphasis is placed on saving yourself for marriage, but then nobody tells you what you're supposed to do once you get there. I'm all for lots and lots of premarital counseling (Protestants, we suck at this. Let's please learn from the Catholics) and lots and lots of postmarital (er, during-marital?) counseling and whatnot. The divorce rate in this country is appalling, and the church is failing couples constantly by not giving them the resources to make and follow through on commitments.

OK, so this marriage retreat. I was behind the scenes for part of it, so I didn't get to hear it all, but some of it sounded really great. I heard lots of talk of communication and honesty, of moving out of an economy of shame into a life of grace, of forgiveness and joy and lots of great stuff. I'm sure a lot of couples were blessed--I know I was, one of a handful of single folks in the room.

I'm writing all this because I want to stress that my hang-up was over something minor. On each seat was a slip of paper with writing on both sides. Side one:

My Wife's Deepest Needs:
1. My wife needs a Godly man and my unconditional love.
2. My wife needs my affection, security, comfort, approval, tenderness, touch, cards and gifts.
3. My wife needs conversation with me.
4. My wife needs my honesty and openness.
5. My wife needs financial security.
6. My wife needs my commitment to the family--be faithful to my wife, share parenting responsibilities, take initiative in home repairs and be the spiritual leader in my home.


Side two:

My Husband's Deepest Needs:
1. My husband needs a Godly wife and my unconditional love.
2. My husband needs sexual fulfillment.
3. My husband needs recreational companionship.
4. My husband needs an attractive wife.
5. My husband needs domestic support.
6. My husband needs my admiration.


OK. Word to Godliness, unconditional love, etc. However, I have a few questions/comments:

-- #2 on side one sure makes women sound needy.
-- The claim that women need financial security is just funny to a woman whose boyfriend refers to her as his "sugar momma."
-- If anyone does house repairs in my family, it's my...sister.
-- Do wives not need sexual fulfillment?
-- Do wives not need attractive husbands? Is #4 on side two suggesting that it's the duty of a woman to stay beautiful for her husband? What about his beer belly?
-- I just hate the word "domestic," even if I've found in the past few years that I do enjoy cooking and cleaning. *sigh*

So...yeah. Just some thoughts. I could get all indignant over some of this stuff, but it's not worth it. Mostly I just found the card funny (yes, I kept it).

Thoughts?

Truth-telling modifies behavior

The question of truth-telling has been an interesting one throughout my life. As a child, I was utterly guileless. The other day, commenting on how my younger brother was grounded for something or another that involved lying--and inept lying, at that--my dad noted that Noah is only slightly better at lying than I am, and we both knew that was a pretty bad insult (if having one's talent at lying slighted can be called an insult). I learned very quickly when I was young that I was a terrible liar, and I had such a deep fear of angering or disappointing anyone that I did all I could to avoid any situation that would require (or maybe I should say tempt) me to lie later.

My freshman year of college, I wound up in a romantic relationship that thankfully did not pan out as horribly as it could have, but still reflected lots and lots of bad judgment. The other person involved had the gall to lecture me on honesty when our whole relationship was largely secret and based on deception. I learned from that mistake, though unfortunately it took me one or two more similar situations to really figure out that any relationship that involves deception is not OK. Period.

A friend of mine was in a scarily similar situation a few years ago and protested my concerns by asking why it was anyone's business what people did with their personal lives. Unluckily (or luckily?) for her, she's a Christian, and folks, being a Christian means that you don't get the kind of personal life we talk about in America--the kind where you keep your problems to yourself and think that mistakes won't affect anyone but you. We are called to bear one another's burdens, and guess what that means? We have to know about each other's burdens. And sins. And mistakes. And joys!

My dad and I had an interesting conversation the other day (stemming from shaking our heads in amusement at my little brother). He told me about something he heard from a Jewish man who grew up in Europe, I think in the early 20th century. What he said was that being a Jew in Europe meant that you couldn't make any mistakes. If you stole someone, suddenly all Jews were thieves. If you had family problems, suddenly all Jewish marriages were dysfunctional. And on and on. What he said was that, far from encouraging good behavior and high moral standards, this pressure cultivated deception. You had to maintain your outward appearance and reputation, but if you could violate that image in secret, you would.

My response summed up some things I've been thinking about a lot lately. To me, I think the problem is a matter of priority. If our main concern is our image, what others think of us, then the truth can become secondary and inevitably it will be sacrificed if it comes into conflict with the maintenance of that image. Whether it is your economic status, marital bliss, academic prowess or what have you, if other people's perception of that is more important than their integrity, when push comes to shove the truth will lose every time.

On the other hand, if truth is the most important thing, it's a whole different ball game. If you commit to being honest all the time, there are tons of things you might say or do otherwise that you won't do if you know you'd have to tell someone about it. Truth-telling modifies behavior. Sometimes, you may even know that you are behaving in a way that is inconsistent with your beliefs, but trying to change that on your own is not enough. But, if you just tell someone what's actually going on, suddenly whatever you're doing is no longer your personal life, no longer just your business. Suddenly, whether you change a behavior or not affects someone else, and someone else cares.

I wish that I had understood this earlier in life, and also that I had had people in my world at certain points with whom I could be completely honest all the time. I'm still really bad at lying, but I'm ashamed to say that there have been times when I've found myself telling selective truths to different people. For a while at one point, I was basically living two separate lives, one all happy and Christian-y and the other pretty much a mess, but neither really knew much about the other. Oh, and by the way, this person to whom I would have liked to have been able to honest would have had to have been a Christian, or at least someone whose values aligned with mine (because I have plenty of non-Christian friends whose morals rock way harder than those of a lot of Christians out there). There were some people who knew when I wasn't always acting the way I should, but they didn't care because they were doing it too. That's just self-justification.

My thesis is in the subject line. If your first commitment is to truth-telling, everything else has to fall in line with that. If anything else is more important--your looks, your relationship, your popularity, your job--you will find yourself sacrificing truth to that, and though I have neither the time nor the emotional energy to go into what happens when that goes down, we've all been there. Let's hold each other to a higher standard of integrity. Let's be people who tell the truth and are willing to hear the truth from others--without being offended, without judging or condemning. Only in this way can we seek the Truth of the One who made us all.

Friday, November 20, 2009

My husband's/wife's deepest needs

I have never cared about gender issues. When I was younger, I would hear people talk about women being disadvantaged in the academy and the workplace, and I would wonder why they couldn't just get over it--be really good at what you do and your gender won't matter. I still believe that to some extent, and I try really hard only to call foul when it's a real issue, but I'm finding that more and more I'm becoming a (*insert heavy sigh here*) feminist. I really hate that word, because it has bad connotations for me, but through life experience (some of it, unfortunately, bad) and just growing up, I'm starting to see more and more the ways in which the world and (sometimes especially) the church screws up gender roles and expectations. It's going to be fun for me when I really come into my prime after being underestimated and type-cast since high school.

Anyway, here's where some of this is coming from: I recently helped with music at a church marriage retreat. To preface, I'm not going to say which church because I don't want to seem like I'm dissing them, which is not at all my purpose. Also, I want to stress that I think a marriage retreat is a GREAT idea. The church needs to do a better job in general of talking about relationships, marriage, love, sex, all of that stuff. Too often I feel like the emphasis is placed on saving yourself for marriage, but then nobody tells you what you're supposed to do once you get there. I'm all for lots and lots of premarital counseling (Protestants, we suck at this. Let's please learn from the Catholics) and lots and lots of postmarital (er, during-marital?) counseling and whatnot. The divorce rate in this country is appalling, and the church is failing couples constantly by not giving them the resources to make and follow through on commitments.

OK, so this marriage retreat. I was behind the scenes for part of it, so I didn't get to hear it all, but some of it sounded really great. I heard lots of talk of communication and honesty, of moving out of an economy of shame into a life of grace, of forgiveness and joy and lots of great stuff. I'm sure a lot of couples were blessed--I know I was, one of a handful of single folks in the room.

I'm writing all this because I want to stress that my hang-up was over something minor. On each seat was a slip of paper with writing on both sides. Side one:

My Wife's Deepest Needs:
1. My wife needs a Godly man and my unconditional love.
2. My wife needs my affection, security, comfort, approval, tenderness, touch, cards and gifts.
3. My wife needs conversation with me.
4. My wife needs my honesty and openness.
5. My wife needs financial security.
6. My wife needs my commitment to the family--be faithful to my wife, share parenting responsibilities, take initiative in home repairs and be the spiritual leader in my home.


Side two:

My Husband's Deepest Needs:
1. My husband needs a Godly wife and my unconditional love.
2. My husband needs sexual fulfillment.
3. My husband needs recreational companionship.
4. My husband needs an attractive wife.
5. My husband needs domestic support.
6. My husband needs my admiration.


OK. Word to Godliness, unconditional love, etc. However, I have a few questions/comments:

-- #2 on side one sure makes women sound needy.
-- The claim that women need financial security is just funny to a woman whose boyfriend refers to her as his "sugar momma."
-- If anyone does house repairs in my family, it's my...sister.
-- Do wives not need sexual fulfillment?
-- Do wives not need attractive husbands? Is #4 on side two suggesting that it's the duty of a woman to stay beautiful for her husband? What about his beer belly?
-- I just hate the word "domestic," even if I've found in the past few years that I do enjoy cooking and cleaning. *sigh*

So...yeah. Just some thoughts. I could get all indignant over some of this stuff, but it's not worth it. Mostly I just found the card funny (yes, I kept it).

Thoughts?

Truth-telling modifies behavior

The question of truth-telling has been an interesting one throughout my life. As a child, I was utterly guileless. The other day, commenting on how my younger brother was grounded for something or another that involved lying--and inept lying, at that--my dad noted that Noah is only slightly better at lying than I am, and we both knew that was a pretty bad insult (if having one's talent at lying slighted can be called an insult). I learned very quickly when I was young that I was a terrible liar, and I had such a deep fear of angering or disappointing anyone that I did all I could to avoid any situation that would require (or maybe I should say tempt) me to lie later.

My freshman year of college, I wound up in a romantic relationship that thankfully did not pan out as horribly as it could have, but still reflected lots and lots of bad judgment. The other person involved had the gall to lecture me on honesty when our whole relationship was largely secret and based on deception. I learned from that mistake, though unfortunately it took me one or two more similar situations to really figure out that any relationship that involves deception is not OK. Period.

A friend of mine was in a scarily similar situation a few years ago and protested my concerns by asking why it was anyone's business what people did with their personal lives. Unluckily (or luckily?) for her, she's a Christian, and folks, being a Christian means that you don't get the kind of personal life we talk about in America--the kind where you keep your problems to yourself and think that mistakes won't affect anyone but you. We are called to bear one another's burdens, and guess what that means? We have to know about each other's burdens. And sins. And mistakes. And joys!

My dad and I had an interesting conversation the other day (stemming from shaking our heads in amusement at my little brother). He told me about something he heard from a Jewish man who grew up in Europe, I think in the early 20th century. What he said was that being a Jew in Europe meant that you couldn't make any mistakes. If you stole someone, suddenly all Jews were thieves. If you had family problems, suddenly all Jewish marriages were dysfunctional. And on and on. What he said was that, far from encouraging good behavior and high moral standards, this pressure cultivated deception. You had to maintain your outward appearance and reputation, but if you could violate that image in secret, you would.

My response summed up some things I've been thinking about a lot lately. To me, I think the problem is a matter of priority. If our main concern is our image, what others think of us, then the truth can become secondary and inevitably it will be sacrificed if it comes into conflict with the maintenance of that image. Whether it is your economic status, marital bliss, academic prowess or what have you, if other people's perception of that is more important than their integrity, when push comes to shove the truth will lose every time.

On the other hand, if truth is the most important thing, it's a whole different ball game. If you commit to being honest all the time, there are tons of things you might say or do otherwise that you won't do if you know you'd have to tell someone about it. Truth-telling modifies behavior. Sometimes, you may even know that you are behaving in a way that is inconsistent with your beliefs, but trying to change that on your own is not enough. But, if you just tell someone what's actually going on, suddenly whatever you're doing is no longer your personal life, no longer just your business. Suddenly, whether you change a behavior or not affects someone else, and someone else cares.

I wish that I had understood this earlier in life, and also that I had had people in my world at certain points with whom I could be completely honest all the time. I'm still really bad at lying, but I'm ashamed to say that there have been times when I've found myself telling selective truths to different people. For a while at one point, I was basically living two separate lives, one all happy and Christian-y and the other pretty much a mess, but neither really knew much about the other. Oh, and by the way, this person to whom I would have liked to have been able to honest would have had to have been a Christian, or at least someone whose values aligned with mine (because I have plenty of non-Christian friends whose morals rock way harder than those of a lot of Christians out there). There were some people who knew when I wasn't always acting the way I should, but they didn't care because they were doing it too. That's just self-justification.

My thesis is in the subject line. If your first commitment is to truth-telling, everything else has to fall in line with that. If anything else is more important--your looks, your relationship, your popularity, your job--you will find yourself sacrificing truth to that, and though I have neither the time nor the emotional energy to go into what happens when that goes down, we've all been there. Let's hold each other to a higher standard of integrity. Let's be people who tell the truth and are willing to hear the truth from others--without being offended, without judging or condemning. Only in this way can we seek the Truth of the One who made us all.

 

Designed by Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates, Modified by Sarah Howell