Letting Jakob Into My [Metaphorical Relationship] Pants

When Jakob and I were first dating, we quickly realized we were both strong willed individuals. We weren’t afraid to speak our mind, we didn’t back down from a disagreement, and neither of us easily gave into the other one. We were proud of that, and thought that would make a strong marriage.  Somewhere along the way though, the strength of our wills became uneven.

        Throughout our relationship, I stayed strong willed and slowly Jakob gave more and more into that. He would just let me have my way to avoid a fight and because he felt like that’s what the husband should do, sacrifice for his wife. It may have been the fact that I struggled with depression on and off throughout most of our marriage that lead him to feel like he needed to take a backseat to my wants. Stella’s traumatic birth may have factored in as well, since I struggled so much to come to terms with what happened. His grandpa has also become very much acquiescent to his grandma over their 60 years of marriage and that could play a role too. Regardless of what caused it, our relationship became one where I was very much in control and wearing the pants.

        One of the main ways this showed up was in our diet. Since I was the one doing the cooking and grocery shopping, I felt it was my right to make the decisions. I was also the one doing the research on what was healthy so I didn’t feel like it was necessary to consult Jakob, I would just make the decisions I deemed best. If you know me, you know I’m a very much dive right off the deep end kind of person. Jakob prefers a wade in approach, but I didn’t take that into consideration when I completely upended our diet.

        In Texas I had a friend who shared with me research she’d been doing on the blue zones.  The blue zones are the areas in the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives. When she shared this with me, it didn’t take me long to jump on that bandwagon.  We went from eating fast food multiple times a week and eating out almost every day to a completely plant based diet overnight. I told Jakob he was absolutely not allowed to eat out for lunch anymore and I would be packing his lunches and dinner would always be home cooked. I didn’t give him any choice in the menu, although I did try to pick things I thought we would both like. (Another day I’ll have to do a blog

post about what our journey from the unhealthiest diet you could have to where we are now but long story short the blue zone meal plan was an abysmal failure.)

        In the marines and high school Jakob had a very healthy diet of meat, vegetables, and protein shakes. I on the other hand had spent the first 21 years of my life with no interest in eating healthy. Jakob tried to explain to me that he’d done a lot of research on healthy eating and meat was important to everyone’s diet but especially his because of his weight lifting regime. I wrote him off and told him I’d done the research and this is how we were going to be eating. One day in particular he still brings up and now we laugh about, his whole office got pizza but I told him I’d be bringing him lunch and not to eat the pizza. I showed up with a pickled beat sandwich… Needless to say, that did not go over well.

        Even after letting the blue zone plant based diet go, I was still making monumental decisions in the home without asking or taking Jakob opinion into consideration. We were going to co-sleep, we weren’t going to sleep train, Stella would not be getting vaccinated, and I was going to breastfeed until at least 2.5. I stand by all of these decisions,  but I don’t stand by how I went about making them.

        I don’t remember when the first time it got brought up was, sometime after we moved back to Ohio, but Jakob brought to my attention the fact that he no longer felt as happy in our marriage. He didn’t look forward to coming home from work like used to because he felt like as soon as he got there his “balls were checked at the door” and he was completely out of control of his own life. (I HATE that saying but it certainly paints a picture of what our marriage had become.) I didn’t really understand what I was doing to cause that. Now, looking back, it’s very clear to me but at the time I was so tunnel visioned on the fact that I was the one doing the research on these things so it wasn’t even a discussion to be had, of course we would just do what (I thought) was best for our family.

        It didn’t just come down to decisions surrounding health, though. It was everything. What we did on his off days, when he could golf or hang out with friends, how long we stayed at the playground, who did or didn’t babysit Stella, how long we could leave her with a babysitter, who’s family we’d go out with and when…. Everything had become my decision and Jakob was either onboard or it was an ongoing fight until he gave in to what I wanted.

        When Jakob brought how he was feeling to my attention, neither of us could really pinpoint what was wrong or how to fix it. I told him to think about it and let me know because obviously I didn’t want him to be unhappy and dread coming home. Frankly though, I kind of felt like it was his problem and just something he needed to get over. I was too stuck on the idea that I was always “right” and he just didn’t like that.

        This was an ongoing issue for quite a while. Every few months he’d bring up the same thing. I’d tell him he needed to let me know what needed to change to make things better, but he could never give me a straight answer. We’d move on with nothing changing, but then a few months later the same issue would surface again.

        What really made us identify the issue was when we were in couples counseling after Elliot’s birth. I had made the decision Elliot’s birth would be a VBAC, while Jakob felt strongly he’d rather do a repeat c-section. I told him I’d done the research showing a VBAC was better and it was my body so we’d be doing what I wanted. When my uterus ruptured, almost costing Elliot and I both our lives, that was the final straw for Jakob. The resentment that had been building for years came to a head. It wasn’t until at least a month after Elliot was born that it finally came out how angry Jakob was with me and how much he blamed me for putting us through a second traumatic birth.

        In counseling, we realized that it wasn’t just me deciding we’d do a VBAC that was causing this resentment, but years of my emasculating Jakob. I did this by not allowing him to make any decisions not just about the family, but even about his own life. Even with us identifying this problem though, I still wasn’t really sure how to fix it. I felt like my only option was to sacrifice our families health to make Jakob happy and feel more in control, and I wasn’t willing to do that.

        I had heard of the Christian idea of “submitting to your husband” before but had always written it off as some patriarchy BS. It certainly wasn’t something talked about in Catholicism so I wrote it off as in the same category as Baptist’s view on drinking and modest clothing, just an overreaction. It was in my moms group I was in at a local baptist church listening to a talk on it that it dawned on me, it might just be the answer to our marriage issues.

        That evening I told Jakob I was going to try to work on submitting to him more in our marriage and he kinda laughed at me and rolled his eyes, I’m sure thinking “yeah, right.” He also told me he didn’t expect me to submit to him like some 50’s housewife, but I told him let’s just try it out and see how it goes. For the next few weeks every time my gut said to fight Jakob on something, I asked myself how big of a deal was it. Was it a level 5 of “this is a bad decision that’s detrimental to our lives in some way” or was it more of a level 1 of “I wouldn’t do it that way but whatever.” Almost immediately, I noticed a difference in Jakob, and in our marriage.

        We were just over all happier. I didn’t feel like I was constantly pushing a rock up hill and he didn’t feel like he was being constantly bulldozed. There were still things I put my foot down on, like a higher grocery bill in order to buy organic food. However, in other areas, like easing up a bit on what the kids ate at other peoples houses and going out to eat with the family even if we already had eaten out that week, I let Jakob take the lead.  It took a lot of weight off my shoulders, and I was able to relax and enjoy life more.

        Jakob was also more willing to take my feelings into consideration when he made his decisions because he no longer felt like he had to fight for everything. He started scheduling golf during nap time so he wasn’t missing out on family time and leaving me along with the kids for hours at a time on his off days. He was more willing to try out my natural remedies since I wasn’t forcing them on him, and more open to hearing the research I’d done on things.

        It’s still hard for me to sit back and let Jakob make decisions I don’t always agree with for the family. Like when he wants to take the kids to go get ice cream and my head is screaming “NO, WE DONT NEED IT! THEY DONT NEED IT! DONT DO IT,” but then we end up having a great time and the pros of that quality time and good memories outweigh the cons of the toxins in the ice cream. Every time I watch him brush his teeth with his fluoride tooth paste I have to bite my tongue not to throw it out and tell him, “not in our house.”  He respects that we don’t use that with the kids and I respect he gets to make his own decisions with his body.

        Writing this, a lot of this just feels like common sense and mutual respect, but it wasn’t common sense to me and I lacked that mutual respect for a long time. When it’s just the kids and I, I make the decision, but when Jakob’s home from work or has an off day he’s the one making the majority of the decisions and it’s really benefited our marriage. It’s helped me to trust Jakob more, because usually when he makes a decision and its not the one I would make it ends up being the best decision for everyone in the family. It’s also forced me to be better about explaining my position on things and dive deeper into things to make sure that whatever I want really is what’s best.

        I still have a lot of mixed feelings on the whole “submit to your husband” thing and confusion about what exactly that means. This post was originally supposed to be about that, but after writing it I realize this was more about myself finding mutual respect in our family, becoming better at compromise, and more considerate of Jakob’s feelings.

        In the future, after more reading and reflection I would like to do a post fully centered on the idea of submitting to your husband. If you want to make sure you don’t miss it, scroll to the bottom of the home screen and subscribe!