When a man takes on the role of number one, his wife gains room to choose. And why I don't believe in a 50/50 partnership.
When is a woman happy in her relationship?
In the previous two posts I wrote about what can be done when the man in the family doesn’t show up as a leader and the wife takes on the number one role. Skim part one and part two if you want the context.
It’s only logical to look at the other side of this question.
When a man leads the family, he will strive to take care of everyone he’s responsible for. That means the physical and spiritual protection of the people he loves, providing for the family materially, solving the problems that come up, being able to make decisions and carry responsibility.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the man runs everything all the time. A normal, sane husband will always consult his wife on important matters and listen to her opinion.
When you respect yourself as a man, you’ll respect your beloved wife too. Her opinion will matter to you.
From my point of view, male leadership in the family matters because it creates a space of possibility for the woman:
- She can build her career or business if she wants to — or she can be at home with the children, or do charity work.
- She can devote herself to making the home warm and comfortable, or she can travel, or develop a hobby of her own.
- She can choose.
When a woman has her husband as a rock to stand behind, she gets the chance (if she wants it) to stop fighting for resources and ask herself: “What do I actually want? Who am I? What do I see my future life looking like?”
Male leadership in the family gives a woman freedom, because the word “must” moves into the background and the word “want” comes to the front. And in my view, a woman’s happiness lies in not having to carry the responsibility.
When Nastya and I started dating and were preparing for the wedding, I told her she didn’t need to worry about money and could quit the job she disliked at the time. And she did. For the first four years of our married life she looked for herself in different directions. She had no stable job and no stable income.
If I had applied the principle of “fairness” and “equality” back then and told her to get a job so she could earn money too, she would most likely be doing something she disliked for not much money right now.
Those four years were exactly what she needed to feel and understand her calling. Today she’s training as a Gestalt therapist and helps people in her sessions. For her it isn’t a job, it’s work she loves.
But I wouldn’t state all this so confidently if I only had my own family’s experience to go on.
There are happy couples in my circle. In not one of them do the men push their wives out to a nine-to-five because “we’re partners, aren’t we” and everything has to be equal and 50/50.
On the contrary — these men, like me, try to shield the women they love from external stress and problems, and take on the main tasks of providing for the family.
Incidentally, this principle is described in the Bible, in 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 7 to 9.
I’m not claiming male leadership is only about finances and providing. It’s a far broader topic, but money is simply the easiest example to illustrate it with.
If you as a couple live by a different model, with the woman running everything and everyone happy, then I’m sincerely glad for you. You have the free will to build your family however you want.
Personally, I don’t believe in the idea of a 50/50 partnership. Partnership rests on the principle of fairness, and when fairness is broken, one of the two — the one who was treated “unfairly” — puts on the robe of a judge and starts subconsciously taking revenge and settling scores.
I’ve had hundreds of couples in my consultations who tried to build partnership relationships. Not one of them succeeded.
So I stand for the idea that the man is the leader of the family. In the relationship he shows up as protector, as friend, as provider and as lover for the wife he loves.
So far I have never seen an unhappy wife standing next to a man like that.
And my life motto stays the same: “A successful man is a happy wife.”
Would you want a man who leads beside you — or do you, as a woman, enjoy being the number one in the family?