Dear Albert,
Thank you for your interesting hypothetical.
The purpose of marriage builders is to find ways for the wife and the husband to function together as partners.
As we grow up, we form opinions of what a wife role should be, and what a husband role should be. Each individual comes to this website with a prepackaged idea of the answer to your question about what the roles should be. As you listen to a sermon, watch a TV show, see your Mom or Dad interact, or seing other couples interact, you will form your own opinion of ideal husband and wife roles.
One of the helpful aspects of Marriage Builders is to examine the traditional, or far-out concpepts, of the roles of the spouses. By working toward treating our spouses as equal partners, we can better come up with compromises in our marriages, that are more workable and more satisfying.
The question you ask has many answers, and many people hld ferverent opinions on the matter. But your question is only of value, if a spouse is struggling with some particular issue, or range of issues.
I try to include some part of my own personal difficulties with any post I make. You might think about how your hypothetical relates to your own struggles.
I have been trying to apply the pricples of Marriage builders, POJA, etc, for about 9 months. I am coming to the stage where I feel my wife has a propensity for Chaos, and I need to take steps to protect my sanity from her Chaos. I have been trying to meet simple requests from my wife with expediency, but lately I have noticed that the requests are really a result from her poor planning, or procrastination. I have been not worrying about, "the man is the boss" princple. But now, I see an application of the dominant male role, where the wife has exercised her rights of procrastination. I am in the process of chanaging from trying to assist my wife with her easy to solve problems, to circumventing the problems created by my wife's procrastination.
I have seen a number of men in marriages, in which they seemed to distance themselves from the problems their wives faced. I thought, IDEALLY, they should share the problems. Now I find myself making the same decision, of distancing, that I was puzzled about, years ago.
Best Wishes,
Quipper
Married 28 years and still struggling
