Embracing Your Feminine Side

Embracing Your Feminine Side

I read a book recently with a controversial title: Created to Be His Helpmeet by Debbie Pearl.  I can just see women bristling at this title, but hear me out.  It was a life-changing book for me.  I’ve read it many times now and recently I gave it to a friend to read.  It was a book that you wanted to throw against the wall but then it compelled you to pick it up again and finish it.  (then throw it again!)

The premise of the book was basically this: women have lost their femininity, their soft side, their respect and admiration for their husbands, their enjoyment of their children, their love for compassion and good deeds.  Women have become experts at nagging, being bitter, picking people and situations apart, withholding affection from their husbands, jealousy and being dissatisfied with the simple things in life such as cooking and decorating their home to make it cozy.

The author paints a word picture that a woman practicing negativity is like a person practicing the piano.  Even if the piano player has little to no musical skill, if she practices it enough, she will be able to eventually play that piano with ease.  So it is with women practicing negativity and criticism in their marriages.  If we practice this for years and years in our marriages and with our children, we will become so good at it that we won’t even realize that we are hitting the notes of discord in our lives. 

She compares our attitude in our families to “emotional adultery”.  What our husbands need the most from us is respect, correct?  How many times have you angered your husband b/c of your sharp words of disrespect towards him?  Which is worse….the husband having a one night affair or the wife spending year upon year upon year nagging him, cutting him down, mocking him in front of others, emasculating him?   

She encourages the reader to rethink her words and actions in the marriage.  Do you really want to cut this man down…the man you promised at the altar to love and HONOR on your wedding day?  Why shouldn’t you put his interests first?  Why shouldn’t you show him respect and love in front of your children?  Why shouldn’t you speak highly of him in front of others?  What are you accomplishing by treating him like an idiot like the women in commercials and on sitcoms do?  He is not an idiot.  He loves his children, often works long hours, comes home tired and finds time to do things around the house.  So what if his style of parenting is different than yours.  Your kids need both styles!  Let him parent!  So what if you think he’s too hard on the kids!  They need to learn discipline…..so what if he wants sex when you don’t.  How many nights has he been exhausted and yet has stayed up late to hear you talk non stop about some trivial family issue or held you while you cried b/c you were PMS.  Treat him as you would like to be treated.   Don’t use your many excuses to rebuff him….I’m too fat, I’m too old, I’m tired, I’m not in the mood, I’m having a bad hair day….etc, etc, etc.  He doesn’t care if you’re a few pounds overweight. He loves you!  He doesn’t want a Victoria’s Secret model, he wants to show his wife that he loves her through being intimate with her.

Just last night, I was sitting on the couch, relaxing and my husband was taking apart the drain in the bathroom and cleaning out the stinky mold so that it would drain more properly.  I don’t think that we wives fully appreciate the sacrifices and devotion that our husbands give to us and we have become experts at negativity and criticism.

Love, honor and respect your husband and he will treat you like a queen.  If not, even the most faithful of men will look for it elsewhere later on in life and you will be the one dealing with the dirty jobs around the house.

You know you’ve seen it. Bitter older women in their fifties, raising children through the difficult teen years alone, working the night shift somewhere…..Don’t be that woman. 

Be the wife that your husband needs and embrace being loving, soft, tender and content.   You won't regret it!  :)