The Attitude of a Queen

I am often asked: what is the ideal attitude for a wife adopt as she takes the lead in her marriage? Behind this question lies an assumption that to lead in marriage the wife has to be a ball buster. If not mean, at least stern. But you don’t need to become a bitch to wear the pants.

It is true that you will be raising standards and expecting more from your husband but it is crucial how you go about doing that.

Many things in life hinge on your attitude and successful leadership of your marriage is no exception. Nothing will work if you have the wrong attitude.

It is said that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and so it is with leading your husband in marriage. Your emphasis must be on making a presentation of yourself and your aspirations for the marriage. Adopting the right attitude may sound like an exercise in platitudes but you will discover that it is a way of being that is not just better but easier and more natural.

As you begin to take the lead in your marriage you will discover a new voice that may at times shock you. It will not be an inauthentic voice. Rather, you will find yourself expressing things that you had previously suppressed. You will be letting go of inhibitions and rediscovering your youthful vigor.

You will find a new voice as you gain confidence in yourself and your erotic power. A virtuous cycle will develop whereby the more you achieve in your marriage, the more you realize you can achieve, and the more courage you have to achieve still more. The more progress you make in your marriage, the stronger your voice will become.

Finding a new voice implies becoming a new person right down to your core. Assuming the lead in your marriage will change how you think about your marriage, your husband, yourself, and life in general. You will see the world with new eyes and think in ways that would never have occurred to you before.

You may be familiar with the Mistress/slave relationship and often wives imagine that this is what I am proposing. But I prefer, instead, the metaphor of Queen/knight. The problem with the Mistress/slave metaphor is that slavery is an involuntary institution. Slaves are taken into labor by force. By contrast, a knight willingly dedicates himself to the service of his Queen.

A slave stands behind his Mistress with a bowed head. A knight stands in front of his Queen with his hand on the hilt of his sword eyes peering for potential threats. A knight is a votary, a person who takes vows to live a life of service. A knight as protector is always acting in the interest of his Queen. For this reason and others, the Queen/knight metaphor is more accurate and romantic.

Self Righteous Resentment

Usually in troubled marriages one, often both, of the spouses are nursing resentment against the other. There is, minimally, the perception by one that the other is shirking in one way or another. Often the marriage descends into a state where each is accusing the other.

A common example is the lack of sex in marriage, usually a complaint by the husband against the wife. The husband resents the wife's lack of interest in sex.

Very often the wife doesn't want to be intimate with the husband because she, herself, is resentful, usually because the husband is not pulling his weight around the house. Add to that the conviction, among many wives, that "times have changed" and so any man who doesn't carry his weight is a male chauvinist pig undeserving of any warmth or compassion.

While the above represent the most common examples, there are many more. What they all have in common is the human tendency to blame the other for our troubles. We are right, they are wrong, and anything we do is justified including having an affair or filing for divorce or just checking out and waiting for the other to take that step.

Once feelings are lost ("I'm not in love with you anymore") we hold on that much tighter to our self righteousness. At least I have my dignity, people will say to themselves as they walk into the divorce attorney's office.

Self righteous resentment will poison any marriage.

The antidote to self righteous resentment is to set aside pride and treat the marriage as a work in progress. Of course, it helps to recognize your own faults and to concentrate on them first. But very often spouses fail to take the initiative preferring, instead, a passive position until things fall to pieces and divorce seems inevitable.

Turn that resentment into a willingness to fix the marriage. No matter what. Wives, especially, can accomplish much simply by channeling that resentment into a determination to take charge and redirect the marriage in a way that suits them. By taking charge of the marriage to direct it where you want it to go ignoring all resistance from the husband.

Why Sexual Passion Fades

Sex therapist Dr. Marianne Brandon was asked in Psychology Today about the problem of married couples losing their interest in sex. Dr. Brandon notes that lack of sexual passion is the most common problem practicing sex therapists see.

What is the cause? She opines that the conventional wisdom, that it is the result of familiarity and boredom in marriage, is correct but incomplete.

But what the science shows is that our animal sexual brains crave an asymmetry of power in the bedroom. Women’s bodies still long to be sexually taken by a man who is capable of over-powering her with his strength, but chooses to love her. And men still crave a responsive, open lover—one who will enthusiastically follow his lead. The exquisite dance of sexual domination and submission remains an intoxicating element of love-making, in spite of our desire for equality in other aspects of life.

Equality is the problem. Asymmetry of power in the bedroom is the solution.

But I think Dr. Brandon, herself, has only a partial answer here.

The problem is not merely what goes on in the bedroom, that is too narrow a view. And the problem is not merely the equalization of power.

The reason that sexual passion fades is that married couples overturn the most important power asymmetry in their relationship. It is not the power of the man to take the woman as he pleases but the power of the woman to refuse him.

We call this asymmetric power dynamic: courtship.

And courtships does not begin in the bedroom, that is where it ends. It begins throughout the daily lives of the married couple. The husband pursues the woman and she, alone, decides when she will accept his sexual advances. The man is excited to pursue the woman and the woman is excited by his attention.

Restore courtship to your marriage and you will restore sexual passion.