Just doing a quick afternoon drive-by because (a) I haven’t posted a new one in a while, sorry about that; and (b) I have to finish the other half of my workout, because (c) I think I’m going to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark tonight in “IMAX.” I hate IMAX prices, but I haven’t been to the theater since The Dark Knight’s Ridiculous Conclusion and Raiders is the kind of movie you HAVE to see on the big screen if you have a chance.
Anyhow, I was thinking about the Humility that Christian guy bloggers usually spout about how they’re not worthy of their wives and they cry when they think about how their beatific babes deigned to spend the rest of their lives with lowly guy bloggers who suffer from mundane afflictions like lust sin humanity, and being married only serves to remind them of how very sinful and decrepit they are, and somehow female readers are supposed to read this and wish their own husbands would proclaim the same to the world, and oh how romantic and Christianly it is.
Screw that!
If I’m going to be legally chained to some dude who expects daily sex from me for the rest of my life and thinks that at most I should have a job and not a career, and will watch every bite of dessert that enters my mouth with critical eyes lest I destroy his love with the power of cellulite, then I’d very much like to be married to a guy who knows his worth and believes that he is offering me a pretty darn good thing by inviting me along for the ride. Why would I willfully bind myself for life to a man who frets and worries that he’s not good enough? What does that say about ME and my mind, and my values? It’s an attitude that’s insulting to women – that a woman willfully chose to cheerlead for a weakling, and we should praise her for her act of charity.
What women want is (if you will allow me the Hollywood analogy) a man who says, “I’m directing a movie called The Greatness of Me, and I am looking for a producer. I have the vision, but I need someone who is going to help me achieve that vision because I can’t do it all by myself. I think you can be that person. Are you going to come on board?”
I know that it’s en vogue in Christian circles to constantly second-guess yourself and keep knocking yourself down with “I’M NOT WORTHY!” reminders, and blah blah blah pride conceit vanity blah, but women yearn for men who have thrown off timidity and have stepped out of their hobbit holes to venture beyond the Shire. You can be humble and still embrace your God-given talents, gifts, and intellect, and have confidence in those abilities that you can give a woman a happy life. Why did God give you any of these blessings in the first place if He intended you to second-guess Him and His design for your life? It’s kind of like,
GOD: Hey, Bob, I’m going to make you smart – which, let’s be real, I don’t give that to just anybody – and I’m also going to make you good at fixing things. I’m going to give you an even temper, and I’m going to make you good with handling money. Okay, you’re going to be a little short on athletic ability and unfortunately you’re going to end up doing all the group projects for the athletes in your classes, but you’re going to be a good writer and good with kids to make up for that.
BOB: OHHHHH GOD I’M NOT WORTHY OF ASHLEY!!!!!!!!!! SHE’S JUST SO GORGEOUS AND BEAUTIFUL AND HOT!!!!!!!!!! HOW CAN I POSSIBLY MAKE THIS WOMAN HAPPY????? SHE PRAYS TO YOU MORE THAN I DO!!!!!!!!! YESTERDAY I SAID SOMETHING THAT MADE HER FROWN!!!! I CAN NEVER, EVER, EVER LET THAT HAPPEN AGAIN BECAUSE I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!! I AM AN AMOEBA AMONG MEN!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU GIVE ME SUCH A PRECIOUS GIFT??????????? SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF WITH A FOOTBALL PLAYER!
GOD: ……………………………..
Men, stop flagellating yourselves. God gave you talents and abilities. Sure, everyone has moments of self-pity and self-doubt, but give God some credit for His blessings, and give the woman in your life some credit in choosing you. We’re all sinners. This isn’t some sort of “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” scenario.
Haley's Halo 
While I agree, I worry you’re pricing yourself out of the market.
Amen to all of that, but sadly this will continue as long as the scumbag Pastors see a comfortable living in glorifying women (ahem….let’s pass the collection plate around now, please) and denigrating men.
Plus it has the added bonus of making them look like the Alphas of the herd as they pile into the hopelessness of men. Driscoll, in particular, gets to play the high school thug and bully that was always his want. Now he doesn’t even get arrested, but paid, for kicking the crap out of the last few male members of the congregation. Christian manginas are fun! They’re so soft and pliable, he can beat them to a pulp all day whilst the Churchy wimmin drool! I’ll bet he doesn’t even need aerobics.
Pricing herself out of the market simply because she doesn’t want man-girl. Sigh.
I really hope that’s not true, but sadly I think for Christian purposes it is. This girl though seems to have a good head on her shoulders and at least is looking for the right traits, not just the most alpha to will do me.
I don’t really blame some of these women because they were decieved and hurt just as much as men from the sexual revolution and feminisim. The religious girl that didn’t ride the carousel but watched instead have my sympathy. However, they are just as guilty for not somehow tempered their hypergamy as beta men for somehow resisting churchian mangina teachings.
Blue pill beta Christian men = Obese carousel watching religious women. They simply are not attractive that really not one wants to willingly get with.
Danged Pelagians are overrunning the church. Man the turrets!
“What women want is (if you will allow me the Hollywood analogy) a man who says, “I’m directing a movie called The Greatness of Me, and I am looking for a producer. I have the vision, but I need someone who is going to help me achieve that vision because I can’t do it all by myself. I think you can be that person. Are you going to come on board?”
…I can agree with this. Women want to get on board with a man’s vision. That IS our vision. We gain some sense of a specific area of calling or gifts that might make us more suited to one man’s vision than to another – but we want to get on board. Most of our other plans are disposable in light of our greater priority and purpose in marriage and family – and your ‘ministry’ whatever that is for each of our husbands. Even the most feminist women secretly pine for this and will confess it in a safe environment, or even accidentally if questioned deeply enough.
Women’s supposed “plans” apart from how they directly relate to “our” future together could mostly be viewed as a massive shit test, unless of course we’re not interested in you and are pulling on your heart strings. …Then we’ll move halfway around the world and continue our relationship with you via text just to maintain possession of your affections or compete with other women until someone better comes along or shows interest. How horrible. Total Side Note to the gents: if she moves further away from you, it’s probably because she’s moving closer to someone else. If it doesn’t work out, you might get her back – but you’re plan B. What a prize that relationship will be!
@SDF
“Danged Pelagians are overrunning the church. Man the turrets!”
Not so sure Churchians are interested in free will (certainly not for Churchian men) and men are just stuffed to the gills with original sin and eveeel thoughts. Worship of the Goddess has replaced all which, ironically, ends up making women (including Haley) unhappiest of all.
Now could Glenn Stanton read us something from the Churchian Holy Book (endlessly revised):
“Oh Saintly Wimminz, you are without sin and we are so full of it (excepting Pastor Perfect, of course). I must donate all of my worldly goods and chattels to you in the vain hope of making you Haaapy. You are, of course, entirely within your rights to boot me out at a moments notice as I am so unworthy of your divine nature. So sayeth Oprah; Amen.”
Meanwhile, young guys have opted for Dionysus. Who can blame them?
I need more nymphs.
“Screw that!”
As ridiculous, obnoxious and stupid all of that whiny stuff is, even in a godly Christian discussion that is the best way to put it.
“women yearn for men who have thrown off timidity and have stepped out of their hobbit holes to venture beyond the Shire.”
Asfor pricing yourself out of the market, if you can`t find someone you really tingle for, find someone you tingle for at least some, get married and then introduce him to Athol. Experience tells us the guys still stay in their relationships after developing game.There is also a big difference between developing good married game and developing teh type of game you get when you are single for a long time and can date a lot. Guys who learn married game will get improved chances for sure but they will lack the initial smoothnes and other stuff you get when you actually have time to date for a few years. So a guy that learns married game after he is married will be more attractive to other women than he was before but he will first and foremost be more attractive to his wife.
I meant to write the hobbit comment was great but it disapeared when editing.
Wow wudang, way to serve the gynocentric imperative(man i love those two words).
A few thoughts, if I may:
Humility is essential, but not to the point of emasculation. I have no problem apologizing if I’m wrong or compromising, but I refuse to be in a relationship that involves any kind of power struggle. Winning means very little to me and if I’m to “compete” for a woman’s affection or love, then I’ll happily and willingly bow out of the competition that I never wanted to be a part of and continue on my way by myself. That doesn’t scare me, in fact, I think more people should philosophically ponder going solo.
The entire “not worthy” attitude is pure nonsense and it just leads to emotional unbalance. If a man is not confident enough in himself to know that marriage is not about “worth” but rather about companionship then that sad soul should have stayed single.
I refuse to be friends with or even consider getting to know someone who would even think about telling me I’m not worthy for them or that I should consider it a privilege to enjoy their company. The truth of the matter is that I have to do anything nor do I need to someone to complete me. I’ve done that myself.
So what do we do with all of this?
Some people just want to continue living in a fantasy world where nothing really hurts and nothing ever really goes wrong, just not in the right direction.
I would much rather be single and solo and troubled by the truth than safe in a fantasy that could, at any minute, collapse.
It’s sad that Aunt Haley and I even have to write about these things.
The word “hubby” can go strangle itself and die.
Even worse: “dh”. As in, my dh is sooooo wunnerful, he wuvs me and buys me fwowers and bunnies every day
Frank Wunder–
I think you’ve misunderstood my post. I don’t think these men ACTUALLY, on a subconscious level, think they’re unworthy; it’s more that they’ve been conditioned to think they’re unworthy, and then on top of that, they go online or print articles or give sermons on how unworthy they are. It’s just unattractive.
I actually wrote a blog post responding to a similar post from you. http://natalielorinblogs.blogspot.com/2012/08/you-can-be-too-humble.html
Ornamental Womanhood, you have hit in on the head with both hands and a sledgehammer. Once upon a time my parents had told me I really had to get a master’s degree, and at the time getting a masters or Ph.D (in English) sounded fun. But I was dating this guy. Then one Christmas he said he couldn’t keep dating me for the indeterminate future. We’d already dated for three years while I went to college (he graduated early), and he couldn’t see dating for another 3-4 minimum. Then he said we should take a break for a while. So I went home, cried a lot, and looked facts in the face. Long story short, we got engaged my senior year and married that summer. It hasn’t all gone according to plan – apparently 22 year old virgins don’t always pop out kids according to schedule, and I’m not sure my mom will ever forgive me for dropping the grad school dream. But, I’ve never regretted it for a second.
For many women, those plans are always the back-up. The might not realize they’re the back up until the right man asks them to be part of a bigger plan, but it’s not entirely an unpleasant realization.
Aunt Haley,
My thanks for clarifying, I hadn’t thought that it was just classical conditioning.
I’d also like to add that I think a lot of Christians, both male and female, struggle with fear and doubt when they shouldn’t. Not that fear and doubt are bad things in moderation, but the whole trend to fit a certain image to the point of ridiculousness is silly, a waste of time, and leaves a lot of Christians in their 20’s confused and hurt and prone to doing stupid things.
Haley, I love this post. I’m keying up a look at the unintended negative consequences of evangelical teaching on relationships on my blog. A few responses to the commenters:
Evangelical America preaches the moral superiority of women almost more than the gospel.
Choosing not compete is emasculating. At a minimum, men should wake up and immediately start competing with themselves everyday, if not competing externally. Lift more weight, add more value to someone else’s day, hit a higher percentage of jumpers, close more deals, discover a new thing about yourself your mate and your kids, etc. Life is a performance sport. Faith is not. Religion gets that confused.
Competing is by definition a masculine trait. St Paul uses racing and other competitive analogies in his writing. God wrote it into our male physiology. Academic studies (littering the so-called manosphere) point out that competitive activities, both against others and against ourselves with steady increases in resistance training, provide a very strong boost to Testosterone. T fuels a higher energy level, sex drive, faster healing of injuries, clarity of mind, and so on. Lower T levels are bad for life. Women are hard-wired in their hind-brain to be attracted to competitive males. If you are a Christian, then to deny these physiological and neural realites is, ummm, inconsistent.
Stagnant water and a stagnant man are neither healthy.
Besides, chasing girls is fun! Bring it on, ladies!
Relationships require work. It’s a mistake to believe otherwise. The key is that a healthy relationship in balance will return more energy to you than you invest. But it takes a lot of work to get the relationship to that point. And it’s tempting to back off the energy input once you achieve the right balance.
Lastly, humility is a relevant only in the presence of strength. For a weak person to show humility is meaningless. They have no choice but to be meek and mild (not that these states are bad – they get to inherit the earth tho i’m not sure why they would want it). Throughout the OT, especially the Psalms, God or the King or whoever is praised in the same chapter for his strength and humility. To praise a weak person for exercising the only option they have is ridiculous. Only a strong person can truly choose to excercise humility.
I’m re-reading the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (if you’re not familiar with the book, Screwtape is an older demon advising his nephew on how to lead his “patient” astray). Chapter 14 is on humility, and quite appropriate to this discussion. Here’s an excerpt:
“You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he really has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt they are in fact less valuable than he believes, but that is not the point. The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools…. To anticipate the Enemy’s strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had done by another….. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.”