Married Life: Our Roles

One of the topics when we attended the Before and After I Do Workshop was "I will 'ROLE' with it" and admittedly, this is the part that we have resonated very well and got me so interested because to me, knowing what our roles are in a relationship means we know what are expected from us.


Okie -- so after we got married, we called ourselves Husband and Wife but do we really know our roles is this thing called marriage?


In hindsight, we know what are expected from us as husbands and wives (well, because of what we see from our environment) but knowing is a totally different thing from doing.


So when I attended the workshop, it made me realize that knowing our roles will mean a lot to have a fruitful and meaningful married life.  That expectation setting is important so that there will be no surprises and that we know how to act.


Let me share with you what I have learned. 
These are not new but a good thing to know about.


Role of the Husband:


LeadHer = Leader = the head of the family, one who will lead his wife
LoveHer = Lover = to show in actions that he loves his family and his wife
ProvideHer = Provider = to be able to provide for the needs of his family and wife


These looked very simple but it is may be that very easy to do.


Look at how each word has "Her" in it -- for me it is very symbolic that our husband should be the one to help / guide / support their wives in their marriage.


Role of the Wife:


Help Mate
Help Meet
  -- we are here to work hand and hand with our husband and give our 100% support.


Before the discussion happened -- the group was asked to respond to one question "What is your expectation from your husband / wife" -- the responses were collated and what struck me is when one expectation from a wife is to be "submissive".


Being submissive, to me, sounds like a negative thing.
From the Urban Dictionary it means --

Kinda negative right -- but Manny was able to expound what it meant and it shed light to me.


Being submissive to your husband doesn't mean that you will obey everything that he says.  That if something or a decision is against your will, you will just obey.  It really doesn't work that way!


We are living in a world where women are equal with men and that both has their own fit minds to decide what's best or not.  When a decision is to be made -- it is the responsibility of the husband to be firm with the decision and be able to provide justification of the decision -- discussions should happen between the husband and wife, pros and cons are to be assessed then both will decide on what's best.  If in the event that the wife still doesn't agree with the decision, being submissive means, after the informed decision making, the wife will wholeheartedly support the  decision of the husband and work with him to achieve a certain goal.   Should the decision fail -- nagging will not work but both should pray to have guidance from God and decide further steps to take. 


What's important is that the the couple stick together in good times and in bad times!


This is enlightening to me and could not agree more!


Now, can the role change?? I would say it can -- but the standard remains and it would be best to take on what's expected to us as husbands and wives.


To me, a successful marriage is anchored from a foundation that both needs to play a role and how the couple is performing their roles -- no one can be perfect in their roles but if both are equally supportive, they will achieve more!


Xoxo