Supporter Husband Quotes

As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.

Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?' 'The third planet is incapable of supporting life,' stated the husband patiently. 'Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.

Most wives fuck their husbands, just to ensure financial support. Marriage is just a form of legalized prostitution, when you really thought about it.

Here’s the truth: friendships between women are often the deepest and most profound love stories, but they are often discussed as if they are ancillary, “bonus” relationships to the truly important ones. Women’s friendships outlast jobs, parents, husbands, boyfriends, lovers, and sometimes children…it’s possible to transcend the limits of your skin in a friendship…This kind of friendship is not a frivolous connection, a supplementary relationship to the ones we’re taught and told are primary – spouses, children, parents. It is love…Support, salvation, transformation, life: this is what women give to one another when they are true friends, soul friends

A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family. It's a terribly vulnerable survival unit.

The third planet is incapable of supporting life,” stated the husband patiently. “Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.

We start a relationship with someone not only because of how great they are but how great they make us feel. And because they have granted us this extraordinary gift—a chance to experience love, joy, compassion, and security —it is our exclusive privilege to make them feel wonderful about themselves, especially during days when they, themselves, don't feel so wonderful.

Interestingly, I’ve seen the highest success rates with husbands and wives who try fasting together: the mutual support is a big help and makes fasting far easier.

A man worth being with is one… That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another’s life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.

Sophy, strongly practical, could not feel that Mr. Fawnhope would make a satisfactory husband, for he lacked visible means of support, and was apt, when under the influence of his Muse, to forget such mundane considerations as dinner-engagements, or the delivery of important messages.

. . . children should draw [a husband & wife] nearer than ever, not separate you, as if they were all yours, and [your husband] had nothing to do but support them. . . . don't neglect husaband for children, don't shut him out of the nursery, but teach him how to help in it. His place is there as well as yours, and the children need him; let him feel that he has his part to do, and he will do it gladly and faithfully, and it will be better for you all. . . . That is the secret of our home happiness: he does not let business wean him from the little cares and duties that affect us all, and I try not to let domestic worries destroy my interest in his pursuits. Each do our part alone in many things, but at home we work together, always. . . . no time is so beautiful and precious to parents as the first years of the little lives given them to train. Don't let [your husband] be a stranger to the babies, for they will do more to keep him safe and happy in this world of trial and temptation than anything else, and through them you will learn to know and love one another as you should.

What do you do in your spare time?” Arthur asks. What is it with this guy? Hope flinches, feeling less like she’s been interviewed and more like she’s been whiplashed. The spare time question was code for questions, you were, by law, not allowed to ask. Did she read books to sick kids? Find housing for the homeless? Support underprivileged women to build careers? Did she have a demanding husband? Two kids under five? And aging mother? But Hope had never put down stakes, either in the home or the do-good camp. Where she came from, at the end of a workweek, a person deserved a cold beer and some down time. “What spare time?

Philip May is known in politics as a man who has taken a back seat and allowed his wife, Theresa, to shine.” Allowed. Now let us reverse it. Theresa May has allowed her husband to shine. Does it make sense? If Philip May were prime minister, perhaps we might hear that his wife had “supported” him from the background, or that she was “behind” him, or that she’d “stood by his side,” but we would never hear that she had “allowed” him to shine. “Allow” is a troubling word. “Allow” is about power.

The purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle, but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. This, of course, is a huge burden full of great cares and toils. But you have been created by God to be a husband or a wife that you may learn to bear these troubles. Those who have no love for children are... unworthy of being called men or women; for they despise the blessing of God, the creator and author of marriage.

Her support was a constant, one of the few good things I could take as a given. And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows.” Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

There is a predictable theme as to what upsets our matriarchs. Usually, matriarchs are known for their unified support. When it comes to kingdom matters, however, they are willing to drive out Abraham's son. (Ge 21:10) They are willing to reject Isaac's son. (Ge 27:6-13) In other words, they are not afraid to reject royalty ('shepherd-like acquaintances') to further God's kingdom goals. (Re 20:4-6)

Whatever God has called your husband to be or do, He has also called you to support it and be part of it, if in no other way than to pray, encourage, and help in whatever way possible.

Well. I’m not a poet, I’m just a woman. And as a woman I have no way to make money, not enough to earn a living and support my family. Even if I had my own money, which I don’t, it would belong to my husband the minute we were married. If we had children they would belong to him not me. They would be his property. So don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you but it most certainly is for me.

Their chattel status continues in their loss of name, their obligation to adopt the husband’s domicile, and the general legal assumption that marriage involves an exchange of the female’s domestic service and (sexual) consortium in return for financial support.31

I sat down at his tombstone, and I cried out everything within me. I cried until I felt depleted. I did not say a single thing. I did not feel any need. I had talked to Harry in my head and my heart for so long, for so many years, that it felt as if we transcended words. He had been the one to help me, to support me, through everything in my life. And now I needed him more than ever. So I went to him the only way I knew how. I let him heal me as only he could. And then I stood up, dusted off my skirt, and turned around. There, in the trees, were two paparazzi taking my photo. I was neither angry nor flattered. I simply didn’t care. It cost so much, caring. I didn’t have any currency to spend on it.

No husband of mine will say, “I could have been a drummer, but I had to think about the wife and kids. You know how it is.” Nobody supports me at the expense of his own adventure. Then I get bitter: no one supports me.

Public support must be husbanded as a finite national resource. It must be spent wisely, sparingly, and with the greatest return on your investment.

Simply put, she was the one who had to put up with me. That she did so with love and patience and encouragement instead of strangling me, throwing my remains into a wood chipper, and then pretending she had never been married to me at all is a testament to the fact that she is, in fact, the single best person I know.

Is it because Evelyn can’t handle the fact that Celia received the Most Promising Female Personality Award that night? Or is it that Celia’s been nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for their movie Little Women, and Evelyn didn’t get a mention

I was grateful to have him to support and steer me, even though he wasn’t particularly good-looking or with a dashing personality, both attributes I’d imagined for a husband before I was mature enough to accept that it was easier to dream than it was to make the dream come true

Love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens. That makes it holier and better. They respect one another more, and much is built on respect. And if once there has been love, if they have been married for love, why should love pass away? Surely one can keep it! It is rare that one cannot keep it. And if the husband is kind and straightforward, why should not love last? The first phase of married love will pass, it is true, but then there will come a love that is better still. Then there will be the union of souls, they will have everything in common, there will be no secrets between them. And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy, They will love you for it afterwards; so you are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness. So you see this is a great duty.

Submission means that a wife acknowledges her husband’s headship as spiritual leader and guide for the family. It has nothing whatsoever to do with her denying or suppressing her will, her spirit, her intellect, her gifts, or her personality. To submit means to recognize, affirm, and support her husband’s God-given responsibility of overall family leadership. Biblical submission of a wife to her husband is a submission of position, not personhood. It is the free and willing subordination of an equal to an equal for the sake of order, stability, and obedience to God’s design. As a man, a husband will fulfill his destiny and his manhood as he exercises his headship in prayerful and humble submission to Christ and gives himself in sacrificial love to his wife. As a woman, a wife will realize her womanhood as she submits to her husband in honor of the Lord, receiving his love and accepting his leadership. When a proper relationship of mutual submission is present and active, a wife will be released and empowered to become the woman God always intended her to be.

I want to be your husband, Lucy. I want to be the guy who carries your bag, and holds your hand and sits next to you on planes. I want to be the one who supports you in your career and in your life. The man who loves you through thick and thin. And I’m hoping you’ll say yes to being my wife.

[You for] the fragrant-blossomed Muses’ lovely gifts [be zealous,] girls, [and the] clear melodious lyre: [but my once tender] body old age now [has seized;] my hair’s turned [white] instead of dark; my heart’s grown heavy, my knees will not support me, that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns. This state I oft bemoan; but what’s to do? Not to grow old, being human, there’s no way. Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn, love-smitten, carried off to the world’s end, handsome and young then, yet in time grey age o’ertook him, husband of immortal wife.

Support your sisters, regardless of their position in life, and tell them to use their rights—to receive an education, to keep their earnings, to find a husband who treats them as an equal, or to remain single.

Cleopatra moreover came of age in a country that entertained a singular definition of women’s roles. Well before her and centuries before the arrival of the Ptolemies, Egyptian women enjoyed the right to make their own marriages. Over time their liberties had increased, to levels unprecedented in the ancient world. They inherited equally and held property independently. Married women did not submit to their husbands’ control. They enjoyed the right to divorce and to be supported after a divorce. Until the time an ex-wife’s dowry was returned, she was entitled to be lodged in the house of her choice. Her property remained hers; it was not to be squandered by a wastrel husband. The law sided with the wife and children if a husband acted against their interests. Romans marveled that in Egypt female children were not left to die; a Roman was obligated to raise only his first-born daughter. Egyptian women married later than did their neighbors as well, only about half of them by Cleopatra’s age. They loaned money and operated barges. They served as priests in the native temples. They initiated lawsuits and hired flute players. As wives, widows, or divorcées, they owned vineyards, wineries, papyrus marshes, ships, perfume businesses, milling equipment, slaves, homes, camels. As much as one third of Ptolemaic Egypt may have been in female hands.

So, what is family? How is it best defined? Must you be related by blood? If that’s true, then how does marriage make a family of the husband and wife? Could a group of dear friends who are witness to each others’ lives, who grow old together and pledge to support one another in sickness and in health, till death do they part, be anything less?

In totalitarian regimes—communism, fascism, religious fundamentalism—popular support is a given. You can start wars, you can prolong them, you can put anyone in uniform for any length of time without ever having to worry about the slightest political backlash. In a democracy, the polar opposite is true. Public support must be husbanded as a finite national resource. It must be spent wisely, sparingly, and with the greatest return on your investment. America is especially sensitive to war weariness, and nothing brings on a backlash like the perception of defeat. I say “perception” because America is a very all-or-nothing society. We like the big win, the touchdown, the knockout in the first round. We like to know, and for everyone else to know, that our victory wasn’t only uncontested, it was positively devastating.

When we came home, nobody wanted to hear what we nurses had been through. We were expected to carry on from where we left off—get married, have our babies, support our husbands’ careers. That’s what I tried to do, but I had a bad time for a while.

In Floral Heights and the other prosperous sections of Zenith, especially in the “young married set,” there were many women who had nothing to do. Though they had few servants, yet with gas stoves, electric ranges and dish-washers and vacuum cleaners, and tiled kitchen walls, their houses were so convenient that they had little housework, and much of their food came from bakeries and delicatessens. They had but two, one, or no children; and despite the myth that the Great War had made work respectable, their husbands objected to their “wasting time and getting a lot of crank ideas” in unpaid social work, and still more to their causing a rumor, by earning money, that they were not adequately supported. They worked perhaps two hours a day, and the rest of the time they ate chocolates, went to the motion-pictures, went window-shopping, went in gossiping twos and threes to card-parties, read magazines, thought timorously of the lovers who never appeared, and accumulated a splendid restlessness which they got rid of by nagging their husbands. The husbands nagged back.

Most of us have both ways that we are privileged and ways that we are discounted. I am a woman, and women have historically not owned their own lives, having once been the property of fathers and husbands, the acclaim and remuneration for their finest work given to others, and still evolving from that reality. As a white woman/mother/artist from a middle class family in the twentieth century? I have lived a life of such privilege, with so much support provided me. I have lived a life of such deprivation of opportunity and lack of recognition. Sometimes my head spins from the contradictory co-existing reality of it... How have you had privilege in your life? How can you do better for those who have not?

It’s that time of the month again… As we head into those dog days of July, Mike would like to thank those who helped him get the toys he needs to enjoy his summer. Thanks to you, he bought a new bass boat, which we don’t need; a condo in Florida, where we don’t spend any time; and a $2,000 set of golf clubs…which he had been using as an alibi to cover the fact that he has been remorselessly banging his secretary, Beebee, for the last six months. Tragically, I didn’t suspect a thing. Right up until the moment Cherry Glick inadvertently delivered a lovely floral arrangement to our house, apparently intended to celebrate the anniversary of the first time Beebee provided Mike with her special brand of administrative support. Sadly, even after this damning evidence-and seeing Mike ram his tongue down Beebee’s throat-I didn’t quite grasp the depth of his deception. It took reading the contents of his secret e-mail account before I was convinced. I learned that cheap motel rooms have been christened. Office equipment has been sullied. And you should think twice before calling Mike’s work number during his lunch hour, because there’s a good chance that Beebee will be under his desk “assisting” him. I must confess that I was disappointed by Mike’s over-wrought prose, but I now understand why he insisted that I write this newsletter every month. I would say this is a case of those who can write, do; and those who can’t do Taxes. And since seeing is believing, I could have included a Hustler-ready pictorial layout of the photos of Mike’s work wife. However, I believe distributing these photos would be a felony. The camera work isn’t half-bad, though. It’s good to see that Mike has some skill in the bedroom, even if it’s just photography. And what does Beebee have to say for herself? Not Much. In fact, attempts to interview her for this issue were met with spaced-out indifference. I’ve had a hard time not blaming the conniving, store-bought-cleavage-baring Oompa Loompa-skinned adulteress for her part in the destruction of my marriage. But considering what she’s getting, Beebee has my sympathies. I blame Mike. I blame Mike for not honoring the vows he made to me. I blame Mike for not being strong enough to pass up the temptation of readily available extramarital sex. And I blame Mike for not being enough of a man to tell me he was having an affair, instead letting me find out via a misdirected floral delivery. I hope you have enjoyed this new digital version of the Terwilliger and Associates Newsletter. Next month’s newsletter will not be written by me as I will be divorcing Mike’s cheating ass. As soon as I press send on this e-mail, I’m hiring Sammy “the Shark” Shackleton. I don’t know why they call him “the Shark” but I did hear about a case where Sammy got a woman her soon-to-be ex-husband’s house, his car, his boat and his manhood in a mayonnaise jar. And one last thing, believe me when I say I will not be letting Mike off with “irreconcilable differences” in divorce court. Mike Terwilliger will own up to being the faithless, loveless, spineless, useless, dickless wonder he is.

Driven by that extraordinary oppression which falls on every human being when, childhood over, he begins to divine that he is fated to go on in isolation and unaided towards his own death; driven by this extraordinary oppression, which may with justice be called a fear of God, man looks round him for a companion hand in hand with whom he may tread the road to the dark portal, and if he has learned by experience how pleasurable it undoubtedly is to lie with another fellow-creature in bed, then he is ready to believe that this extremely intimate association of two bodies may last until these bodies are coffined: and even if at the same time it has its disgusting aspects, because it takes place under coarse and badly aired sheets, or because he is convinced that all a girl cares for is to get a husband who will support her in later life, yet it must not be forgotten that every fellow-creature, even if she has a sallow complexion, sharp, thin features and an obviously missing tooth in her left upper jaw, yearns, in spite of her missing tooth, for that love which she thinks will for ever shield her from death, from that fear of death which sinks with the falling of every night upon the human being who sleeps alone, a fear that already licks her as with a tongue of flame when she begins to take off her clothes, as Fraulein Erna was doing now; she laid aside her faded red-velvet blouse and took off her dark-green shirt and her petticoat.

We are married -and maybe this is no conventional arrangement, but it is still real. "It isn't," he said. "It is. What is a husband, but the man who offers you support when all the world turns you away?" Was that what he was to her? He couldn't look at her now, or she'd see how much those words affected him. She continued. "What is a wife, but a partner who will see through to your deepest wishes? We have promised each other our deepest wishes.

Why should women have to give up their name upon marriage, as if they are nothing but hood ornaments to their husbands! And why should a child be identified only by their father’s name and not the mother’s, who by the way, is the root of all creation - who is creation! We are never going to have a civilized society with equity as foundation, unless we acknowledge and abolish such filthy habits that we’ve been practicing as tradition. Showing off our skin-deep support for equality few days a year doesn’t eliminate all the discriminations from the world, we have to live each day as the walking proof of equality, ascension and assimilation.

Many years later when I got involved in activism, I noticed a very common thread. A lot of us girls had been psychologically abused by our mothers. A [Muslim] woman who has no control over her life craves control. There are very few outlets where that control is acceptable. In her immediate family, she cannot exert control over her husband or her son, but her daughter is fair game. All of her aggression and frustration are released in that one direction. Since, according to Hadith, Heaven is at the feet of mothers, mothers will get to determine if their children will burn in Hell for eternity or not. That is a lot of power to wield over a child. That power can have tragic results in the hands of an abusive mother. She can abuse the status and use it to control and manipulate. You must be an obedient slave to get her affection, support, approval, and, most importantly, to get into Heaven one day. She can revoke her 'blessing' at any point, keeping you in line for perpetuity.

To me, the simplest gift that a husband or a wife can do for their partner is to remind them of their precious visions, goals and dreams. What a gift that is to have a voice of reason right in your corner when you sometimes need a little nudge to get back on track. To have a team player to cheer you on and to support your efforts is indeed a massive present from the universe. Whomever has such a gift should surely treasure and protect it for all its worth. It's worth is invaluable to the world.

So Isis shows up in Byblos like "Hey queen my husband is embedded in your palace may I please extract him?" And the queen is like "sure, go ahead. It's not like he's a major structural support or anything, right?" and Isis is like "haha, sucker". And she goes and removes the pillar WITHOUT DAMAGING THE PALACE AT ALL Thus inventing Jenga.

The third planet is incapable of supporting life," stated the husband patiently. "Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.

Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can because she is a woman and because I hate her husband.” L

If a woman chooses to support her husband and become First Lady, I believe she must do so with the understanding that the public expects the full-meal deal.

You are my husband, I made a vow to support you, and I intend to keep it.

She, like every other woman, was expected to support first her father, then her husband, and finally her sons. Their failures and successes defined her place.

What prevents a woman from walking out of an abusive relationship? Old-school feminists will speak about economic independence. A woman is free if she has the money to support herself. With a job, she will find her feet. If she has a job, it will miraculously solve all her problems. A job will give her community. One day she will walk into the office, and they will ask her about the bruise above her eyebrow and she will say she walked into a wall, but they will know it is her husband hitting her, and they will wrap her up in a protective embrace.

They asked me to tell you what it was like to be twenty and pregnant in 1950 and when you tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant, he tells you about a friend of his in the army whose girl told him she was pregnant, so he got all his buddies to come and say, “We all fucked her, so who knows who the father is?” And he laughs at the good joke…. What was it like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support yourself and do the work you loved—what it was like to be a senior at Radcliffe and pregnant and if you bore this child, this child which the law demanded you bear and would then call “unlawful,” “illegitimate,” this child whose father denied it … What was it like? […] It’s like this: if I had dropped out of college, thrown away my education, depended on my parents … if I had done all that, which is what the anti-abortion people want me to have done, I would have borne a child for them, … the authorities, the theorists, the fundamentalists; I would have born a child for them, their child. But I would not have born my own first child, or second child, or third child. My children. The life of that fetus would have prevented, would have aborted, three other fetuses … the three wanted children, the three I had with my husband—whom, if I had not aborted the unwanted one, I would never have met … I would have been an “unwed mother” of a three-year-old in California, without work, with half an education, living off her parents…. But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear. What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself body and soul into the hands of a professional criminal? – because that is what every doctor who did an abortion was, whether he was an extortionist or an idealist. You know what it was like for her. You know and I know; that is why we are here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always.

The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class- leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,— sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

We, most of us, may be born with an innate desire for friendship, companionship, and love, but being good at any of those things takes work. There is no quick method for learning how to do it right. Floyd ultimately became a very wonderful and supportive husband No marriage is perfect; it’s a question of whether the marriage matters to you enough to be able to make adjustments and repairs—and we did that.

I imagine standing beside you as a partner. I imagine supporting you as a friend. I imagine encouraging you as a confidant. And I imagine loving you in all the ways a devoted husband would adore his wife.

Prospective clients who want to kill their husband, torture a business partner, break the government’s legs, hire Roy Cohn,” Ken Auletta wrote. “He is a legal executioner—the toughest, meanest, loyalest, vilest, and one of the most brilliant lawyers in America. He is not a very nice man.” Trump served as a supporting witness in the piece. “When people know that Roy is involved, they’d rather not get involved in the lawsuits and everything else that’s involved,” Trump said. Cohn “was never two-faced. You could count on him to go to bat for you,” which was exactly what Trump wanted Cohn to do in the racial-bias case. Cohn

Day care was intended from the start to be a weak system, as scholars of the history of childcare tell me, like a punishment for needing care because a woman didn’t have a husband or some other means of support.

So here is what I see when we reclaim the church ladies: a woman loved and free is beautiful. She is laughing with her sisters, and together they are telling their stories, revealing their scars and their wounds, the places where they don't have it figured out. They are nurturers, creating a haven where the young, the broken, the tenderhearted, and the at-risk can flourish. These women are dancing and worshiping, hands high, faces tipped toward heaven, tears streaming. They are celebrating all shapes and sizes, talking frankly and respectfully about sexuality and body image, promising to stop calling themselves fat. They are saving babies tossed in rubbish heaps, rescuing child soldiers, supporting mamas trying to make ends meet halfway around the world, thinking of justice when they buy their daily coffee. They are fighting sex trafficking. They are pastoring and counseling. They are choosing life consistently, building hope, doing the hard work of transformation in themselves. They are shaking off the silence of shame and throwing open the prison doors of physical and sexual abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and suicidal depression. Poverty and despair are being unlocked - these women know there are many hands helping turn that key. There isn't much complaining about husbands and chores, cattiness, or jealousy when a woman knows she is loved for her true self. She is lit up with something bigger than what the world offers, refusing to be intimidated into silence or despair.

There is a small village graveyard in a remote corner of Russia. Like almost all of our graveyards it has a sad look. Sheep wander freely over the graves... But among them is one grave untouched by man, untrodden by beast. Two old people often come to it from a little village nearby - a husband and a wife, now infirm. Supporting each other and with heavy steps. They exchange a few words, they wipe the dust from the stone and adjust a fir branch, and they say another prayer, unable to leave this place. Are their prayers and tears really in vain? Has love, holy, devoted love, really lost its power over all? No, no! The grave may hold a passionate, sinful, rebellious heart, but the flowers growing on it gaze serenely at us with their innocent eyes. They do not only speak to us of everlasting peace. They also speak of eternal reconciliation and of life without end...

From thirty-five to forty-two, a new step, a new door opens. If up to the age of thirty-five you have felt deep harmony, an orgasmic feeling, and you have discovered meditation through it, then from thirty-five to forty-two you will help each other go more and more into that meditation without sex, because at this point sex starts looking childish, juvenile. The age of forty-two is the time when a person should be able to know exactly who he is. From forty-two to forty-nine he goes deeper and deeper into meditation, more and more into himself, and helps the partner in the same way. The partners become friends. There is no more “husband” and no more “wife” that time has passed. It has given its richness to your life; now there is something growing that is even higher than love. That is friendliness, a compassionate relationship to help the other to go deeper into himself or herself, to become more independent, to become more alone, just like two tall trees standing separate but still close to each other, or two pillars in a temple supporting the same roof—standing so close, but also so separate and independent and alone.

In Bangladesh, if a woman, even a rich woman, wants to borrow money from a bank, the manager will ask her, ‘Did you discuss this with your husband?’ And if she answers, ‘Yes,’ the manager will say, ‘Is he supportive of your proposal?’ If the answer is still, ‘Yes,’ he will say, ‘Would you please bring your husband along so that we can discuss it with him?’ But no manager would ever ask a prospective male borrower whether he has discussed the idea of a loan

When a woman had to seek work because her husband lost his job, this threatened the “modern” ideas of masculinity and marriage that most men had come to embrace over the previous two decades. Unemployed men often lost their sense of identity and became demoralized. Many turned to drink. Tempers flared at home. It is not surprising, then, that the experience of the Depression undercut the societal support for working women that had emerged in the early years of the twentieth century.

And let me tell you something else, my friend," she said in the precise enunciation of a trained nurse talking to a worried patient. "It is all very easy for a man to talk about living in the present. Much more so than for a woman, who is liable to get knocked up higher than a kite every time the man enjoys himself in the present. Thats one thing I dont have to worry about, thank God. But there are a lot of others: such as what I am going to do when my husband kicks me out and then my lover throws me over when he has to support me, and me not being trained for anything but to be somebody's wife and having to do all my politicking and achieving and gain what little success I can by getting behind some stupid man and pushing him.

Many people think less of a man if he cries because it supposedly shows a sign of weakness, but I beg to differ. A man that’s in touch with his feelings is absolutely beautiful! I admire, respect, and appreciate their braveness to be vulnerable. Crying is NOT a weakness. We cannot expect our men to be strong all of the time. That’s SO unfair! They have feelings, too. Don’t ever make a man feel less than just because he cries. Comfort, love, and support him. Show him that you genuinely care.

One night at dinner, Mom casually mentioned that a woman in her support group, had been “cheating.” The offense? Noticing the mailman was attractive. In ConneXions’ warped reality, this constituted infidelity. Jodi’s teachings were extreme: a married man talking to a female coworker could be unfaithful, and glimpsing attractive people online might be classified as porn addiction. Only absolute purity of thought was acceptable. In Jodi’s rigid world, innocence was rare. Those deemed “distorted”—usually husbands—were told to abandon their families to work on themselves. Alone. Jodi seemed to specialize in guiding wives to distance themselves from their husbands. Or kicking them out entirely. ConneXions language framed it as “inviting him to leave,” code for “I’m going to make you isolate yourself from everyone you know, except Jodi.” Shockingly, the husbands often went along with it, fully convinced that it was in the best interest of their families. It was like watching lemmings jump off a cliff.

We were a team, husband and wife. There was no part of my partner that I did not see and did not love. Whether the man who called me beautiful when I first woke up or the bloodthirsty gangster. This man was mine and I would support him through anything.

The idea of having a useless husband sounds like a nightmare.” She had friends who put up with that nonsense. Not her. She wanted a partner, not another child in a grown-up body. He’d always been steady. Present. Supportive. Driven. A little too set in his ways, but a loving dad and husband. As a child of divorce, he fought hard for their marriage. They’d hit rough patches and lived through a painful year filled with yelling and disappointment when they both hated their jobs and their expenses didn’t allow for a change.

The best companies aren’t families. They’re supporters of families. Allies of families. They’re there to provide healthy, fulfilling work environments so that when workers shut their laptops at a reasonable hour, they’re the best husbands, wives, parents, siblings, and children they can be.

The human ripples of pain are still heartbreaking when made visible to us now. Our friend Agnolo the Fat wrote: “Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices.” The essence of that account is of an epidemic destroying the very bonds of human society. When was the last time the developed world experienced such a rapid descent into a microbial hell? And if parents abandoning children wasn’t destabilizing enough, other support elements in society were shattered by the justifiable fear of the pestilence. The natural human inclination to seek companionship and support from one’s neighbors was short-circuited. No one wanted to catch whatever was killing everybody. In an era when people congregating together was so much more important than it is in our modern, so-called connected world, people kept their distance from one another, creating one of the silent tragedies of this plague: that they had to suffer virtually alone.

I’ve had to make gray, self-preserving choices too,” she continues. “I think every woman fighting for equality has or will have to at some point to be honest. And we need each other’s support along the way. You have mine, not because of who your husband is, but because even before all of that, you were the best intern and associate we’ve had in years. No one has worked harder than you, and I truly believe you’re going to be one of the best agents in the business. That is why you deserve to be in this office—and that’s why I never want to hear you say anything contrary to it ever again. Understand?

Harriet’s first husband, John Tubman, had been killed in Maryland in 1867. Harriet had never really had the chance to make a home or raise a family with him. Nelson gave her another chance. After he got better, he worked as a bricklayer. The money he earned helped support the people in Harriet’s care.

There are videos of women from Sheryl’s inner circle—all white, beautifully lit and shot—working out in their palatial home gyms, playing with their photogenic children, and relaxing with their mutely supportive husbands. All of these mothering fables are careful to edit out the role played by the phalanx of nannies and other help who usually do the bulk of the actual labor of raising children. Mothering in form, not function. They don’t discuss the real secret behind maintaining their work-life balance, mothering as if they don’t have children: it’s undergirded by their multimillion-dollar paychecks.

The gossip theory might sound like a joke, but numerous studies support it. Even today the vast majority of human communication – whether in the form of emails, phone calls or newspaper columns – is gossip. It comes so naturally to us that it seems as if our language evolved for this very purpose. Do you think that history professors chat about the reasons for the First World War when they meet for lunch, or that nuclear physicists spend their coffee breaks at scientific conferences talking about quarks? Sometimes. But more often, they gossip about the professor who caught her husband cheating, or the quarrel between the head of the department and the dean, or the rumours that a colleague used his research funds to buy a Lexus. Gossip usually focuses on wrongdoings. Rumour-mongers are the original fourth estate, journalists who inform society about and thus protect it from cheats and freeloaders. Most

After the merch booth has closed, I join the melee, but am nudged to the middle of the mob, and then the back, where I stand on my toes to watch person after person embrace my husband. Jeff’s words from our pseudo-poker game rise to the surface of my consciousness and bob there, refusing to be silenced. This is the very definition of being a supporting character. But I don’t really mind that I’m this far away—I can still see the smile on his face as bright as a spotlight, and his joy seems to vibrate across the distance. Surely everyone knows what a big deal this must be to him, but I still look at him and remember the subway musician hunched over his guitar, sitting on a narrow stool, guitar case open at his feet. And now here he is, wearing a suit, standing beside Ramón Martín, and getting the praise and adoration of an entire cast and crew. I’m still on the sidelines, but I helped make that happen.

I won’t try to convince you that this guy isn’t worthy of you. I remember being young and thinking I understood love, too. But I do have to ask questions, in the hopes that you will ask them of yourself. What are his bigger ambitions for himself? When was the last time he asked about yours? Besides your looks, does he value your mind? Does he ask your opinions in public? Does he support your curiosities in a meaningful way? What is his vision for you as a wife and a mother? What is his vision for himself as a husband and a father? Does he ask you if you want to have kids or does he just assume? Does he know that money can purchase things but not joy?

Of the twenty-eight women who have served as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, twenty-six were married, one was divorced, and only one had never married.10 Many of these CEOs said they “could not have succeeded without the support of their husbands, helping with the children, the household chores, and showing a willingness to move.”11

What makes a successful relationship? . . . Research shows that when a partner dominates another through the abuse of power, it is a prime deterrent to a successful relationship (Greenberg and Goldman 2008). When a controlling partner uses coercive tactics to overpower you, it is a setup for the relationship to fail - without exception. Research about marital relationships in general reveals that husbands are likely to receive more support from their spouse and this fair far better, while women tend to receive less support and experience greater stress from giving support. These are among the conditions that contribute to the higher rates of depression in women.

The Biden's have another belief as well:" If you have to ask, it's too late." When someone is in need, when they're hurting, when they're overwhelmed, you don't wait until they tell you they need your help. You give it before they have to ask. So when Neilia died and Joe was left with two young boys, trying to father them and get through his own grief, all while juggling the new hectic life of a senator, Val didn't ask if there was something she could do. She moved in. And for three years, through her own career ambitions, through her courtship and eventual marriage to her husband, Jack, she lived with Joe and the boys and made sure they had the love and support they needed to keep going.

He found it puzzling that so many rural people were hostile to, even terrified of, the place where they lived. It wasn't just that hard-working country folk had no time for the precious concerns of the effete urban environmentalists, what amazed Rice was how you could spend your whole life physically immersed in a particular ecological system and yet remain blinded to it by superstition, tradition, prejudice. Out west, it was ranchers' holy war on predators and their veneration of Indo-European domestic animals they husbanded on land too dry to support them. Here in the Appalachians, you saw rugged country men who refused to walk in the woods all summer because they were scared of snakes.

Her support was a constant, one of the few good things I could take as a given. And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

I am sorry, Ellen; but I have always been plain-spoken, as you know. Living quietly as you do, you should manage very well on your allowance. But when it comes to supporting your husband as well, that is another matter. However, do not let us talk of it again. It is embarrassing to both of us. If you are ever in want, my dear, write privately to me.

Julia’s physiotherapist got promoted to husband and convinced her to hit the talk show circuit. I know what it’s like. You don’t want someone angry at you, especially a man, so you say yes to things you don’t want to do because there’s no road map for where you are, nothing to guide you except a neon sign in your head that says Do not make men angry.

There was a jar of gherkins—because fridges spontaneously generate gherkins even when nobody buys them—except I didn’t think materialising at Oliver’s bedside saying, Hello, darling, I know your father’s died and you’re having a lot of complicated emotions, but I’ve brought you a wally was quite the supportive and/or romantic gesture he needed quite then.

More than economic dependency of the wife and children on the husband and father is needed to preserve the institution of the authoritarian family [and its support of the authoritarian state]. For the suppressed classes, this dependency is endurable only on condition that the consciousness of being a sexual being is suspended as completely as possible in women and in children. The wife must not figure as a sexual being, but solely as a child-bearer. Essentially, the idealization and deification of motherhood, which are so flagrantly at variance with the brutality with which the mothers of the toiling masses are actually treated, serve as means of preventing women from gaining a sexual consciousness, of preventing the imposed sexual repression from breaking through and of preventing sexual anxiety and sexual guilt-feelings from losing their hold. Sexually awakened women, affirmed and recognized as such, would mean the complete collapse of the authoritarian ideology. Conservative sexual reform has always made the mistake of merely making a slogan of "the right of woman to her own body," and not clearly and unmistakably regarding and defending woman as a sexual being, at least as much as it regards and defends her as a mother. Furthermore, conservative sexual reform based its sexual policies predominantly on the function of procreation, instead of undermining the reactionary view that equates sexuality and procreation.

It’s so important for husbands and wives to be united when making parenting decisions. If either parent doesn’t feel good about something, then permission should not be granted. If either feels uncomfortable about a movie, a television show, a video game, a party, a dress, a swimsuit, or an Internet activity, have the courage to support each other and say no.

I stopped noticing the nit-picky things years ago, My late husband was brilliant, but never figured out dirty cups went in the sink. Used to drive me crazy, but one day I compared it to his good qualities. Supportive husband, hands-on dad. Smart, funny, awesome popcorn-maker. All that versus doesn't put cups in the sink. The latter just wasn't worth mentioning.

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

They say to me, “Eskild, if you need to control your woman, one child is not enough. Two is a little better, then she is at home taking care of the family, and three is more or less okay. But when she has four, Eskild, four children mean you have total control of where your woman is. She is too busy with four kids to go outside.” A mother with four children is certainly not going to make it to work. Unless she has an exceptionally successful husband, she will likely remain on welfare most of her life. Eskild says that often he sees mothers who have four children by the time they are 38 or 39 having an extra one at that point because when their older children reach 18 years of age, they will no longer qualify for child support.

You may be asking yourself at this very moment, Why isn’t Stormie’s husband writing this book? The answer is simple. He’s just like you. He is a busy man, with places to go, people to see, work to do, a family to support, food to eat, a life to live, golf to play, ball games to watch, channels to flip, and a chronic lack of patience when it comes to writing. It’s not that he doesn’t pray.

Over the past several months, Amelía’s Google history had become a reference of her despair: “can’t have children, reasons for infertility in women, reasons for infertility in men, discussing infertility with husband, price of surrogate mothers, signs of depression, adoption agencies, infertility support groups…” The endless searches only provided two categories of results: medical sites that took pride in listing every worst-case scenario, and blogs written by white women with phrases like “silent suffering” and “living with uncertainty,” mixing in Bible verses about God’s Grace, none of which filled the void or helped Aimee ignore the fact that Mother’s Day was a month away and she would have to watch her family celebrate the one thing she wanted most and might never have.

I concluded that first of all I had to understand better what I was. Investigate my nature as a woman. I had been excessive, I had striven to give myself male capacities. I thought I had to know everything, be concerned with everything. What did I care about politics, about struggles. I wanted to make a good impression on men, be at their level. I had been conditioned by my education, which had shaped my mind, my voice. To what secret pacts with myself had I consented, just to excel. And now, after the hard work of learning, what must I unlearn. Also, I had been forced by the powerful presence of Lila to imagine myself as I was not. I was added to her, and I felt mutilated as soon as I removed myself. Not an idea, without Lila. Not a thought I trusted, without the support of her thoughts. Not an image. I had to accept myself outside of her. The gist was that. Accept that I was an average person. What should I do. Try again to write. Maybe I didn’t have the passion. I merely limited myself to carrying out a task. So don’t write anymore. Find some job. Or act the lady, as my mother said. Shut myself up in the family. Or turn everything upside down. Home. Children. Husband.

I’m a good husband and I’ve done my best to support you, Yara, but you know I have to work. I have bills to pay, this entire family to worry about. Between the mortgage, our cars, and providing for the girls, it’s too much. And it’s not like your job pays anything significant.” He wiped his fingers with a napkin and looked at her. “What do you want me to do, quit my job so you can travel the world and take pretty pictures?

She was intelligent, well read, and a shrewd judge of character. During the coup, she had shown determination and courage; once on the throne, she displayed an open mind, willingness to forgive, and a political morality founded on rationality and practical efficiency. She softened imperial presence with a sense of humor and a quick tongue; indeed, with Catherine more than any other monarch of her day, there was always a wide latitude for humor. There was also a line not be crossed, even by close friends. She had come to the throne with the support of the army, the church, most of the nobility, and the people of St. Petersburg, all of whom assisted her because her personality and character offered stark contrasts to the domineering ineptitude of her husband. The coup itself created few enemies, and in the first weeks of her reign, she faced no opposition.

What was I going to do? The choices seemed basic and slim: Die. Exist. Live. I wanted to die, but with two young children to care for and a husband, that wasn't an option. Exist. I could do that. I was doing that now. but how flat and lifeless. How dreary and endless the long march would be until I met Charlotte again. The only option that resonated with me was to live. But how? I wanted to want to live. That was the best I could do in that moment.

As we spoke more, he told me about a physician-assisted suicide support group he and his sister had joined, for those at the end of their lives and their loved ones. So many in the group were fighting for the right to die with dignity. Healthy eating wasn’t going to save his sister’s life, and neither of them wanted her to suffer any longer than she had to. I knew then that I wanted, very deeply, to give a voice to the people of that support group.

But what weighed on his father the most—what weighed on them both—was the realization that when Emmett’s mother had gripped her husband’s hand as the fireworks began, it hadn’t been in gratitude for his persistence, for his fealty and support, it had been in gratitude that by gently coaxing her from her malaise in order to witness this magical display, he had reminded her of what joy could be, if only she were willing to leave her daily life behind.

It wasn't until the 1920s that a bare majority of children grew up in families where the father's labor purchased the family's provisions, while their mother did unpaid child care, elder care, and housework. The Great Depression and World War II disrupted this family form, but it roared back in the 1950s, when the percentage of wives and mothers who were supported entirely by their husbands' wages reached a high that has never been equaled, before or since.

The worst part of it is that I was right. I’ve always known that my need to control things to a minute level of detail is unhelpful, bordering on unhealthy. I try to keep it in check as much as I can. But then if I don’t stay vigilant, my husband uses our money to grow a new wife, and my lab assistant uses my grant to support his side hustle, and I wonder why I bother trying. There’s no winning. Either I’m a bitch who needs to control everything, or I’m an easy mark.

Let me reason with the supporters of this opinion, who have any knowledge of human nature, do they imagine that marriage can eradicate the habitude of life? The woman who has only been taught to please, will soon find that her charms are oblique sun-beams, and that they cannot have much effect on her husband's heart when they are seen every day, when the summer is past and gone. Will she then have sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties? or, is it not more rational to expect, that she will try to please other men; and, in the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavour to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When the husband ceases to be a lover—and the time will inevitably come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.

A godly man who treats his wife like an angel and a queen is a rare gem, a treasure to behold. He cherishes her with kindness, honors her with respect, and loves her with a passion that only grows stronger with each passing day. He recognizes her worth, celebrates her strengths, and supports her dreams. He is her rock, her safe haven, and her forever home. Together, they build a love that is a beautiful reflection of God's love for us - unconditional, unwavering, and eternal.

1)    The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3)    He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4)    He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7)    He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14)   He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17)   He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20)   He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21)   He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22)   He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23)   He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24)   He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25)   He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26)   He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27)   Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28)   He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29)   He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30)   His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children).

Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way. The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, "This is our man." "What the devil do you do in that galley there?" said Monsieur Defarge to himself; "I don't know you." But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter. "How goes it, Jacques?" said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. "Is all the spilt wine swallowed?" "Every drop, Jacques," answered Monsieur Defarge. When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. "It is not often," said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, "that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?" "It is so, Jacques," Monsieur Defarge returned. At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips. "Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?" "You are right, Jacques," was the response of Monsieur Defarge. This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat. "Hold then! True!" muttered her husband. "Gentlemen--my wife!" The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. "Gentlemen," said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her, "good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor- fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here," pointing with his hand, "near to the window of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!" They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word. "Willingly, sir," said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to the door. Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing.

Of all evils, indeed, famine is the worst, and it destroys nothing so effectively as shame. For that which under other circumstances is worthy of respect, in the midst of famine is despised. Thus women snatched the food from the very mouths of their husbands and children, from their fathers, and what was most pitiable of all, mothers from their babes. And while their dearest ones were wasting away in their arms, they were not ashamed to take away from them the last drops that supported life.

Spoken like a true Nipponese,” Enoch says bitterly. “You never change.” “Please make me understand what you are saying.” “What of the man who cannot get out of bed and work, because he has no legs? What of the widow who has no husband to work, no children to support her? What of children who cannot improve their minds because they lack books and schoolhouses?” “You can shower gold on them,” Goto Dengo says. “Soon enough, it will all be gone.” “Yes. But some of it will be gone into books and bandages.

Readers acquainted with the recent literature on human sexuality will be familiar with what we call the standard narrative of human sexual evolution, hereafter shortened to the standard narrative. It goes something like this: 1. Boy Meets girl, 2. Boy and girl assess one and others mate value, from perspectives based upon their differing reproductive agendas/capacities. He looks for signs of youth, fertility, health, absence of previous sexual experience and likelihood of future sexual fidelity. In other words, his assessment is skewed toward finding a fertile, healthy young mate with many childbearing years ahead and no current children to drain his resources. She looks for signs of wealth (or at least prospects of future wealth), social status, physical health and likelihood that he will stick around to protect and provide for their children. Her guy must be willing and able to provide materially for her (especially during pregnancy and breastfeeding) and their children, known as "male parental investment". 3. Boy gets girl. Assuming they meet one and others criteria, they mate, forming a long term pair bond, "the fundamental condition of the human species" as famed author Desmond Morris put it. Once the pair bond is formed, she will be sensitive to indications that he is considering leaving, vigilant towards signs of infidelity involving intimacy with other women that would threaten her access to his resources and protection while keeping an eye out (around ovulation especially) for a quick fling with a man genetically superior to her husband. He will be sensitive to signs of her sexual infidelities which would reduce his all important paternity certainty while taking advantage of short term sexual opportunities with other women as his sperm are easily produced and plentiful. Researchers claim to have confirmed these basic patterns in studies conducted around the world over several decades. Their results seem to support the standard narrative of human sexual evolution, which appears to make a lot of sense, but they don't, and it doesn't.

My mission is to live with integrity and to make a difference in the lives of others. To fulfill this mission: I have charity: I seek out and love the one—each one—regardless of his situation. I sacrifice: I devote my time, talents, and resources to my mission. I inspire: I teach by example that we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father and that every Goliath can be overcome. I am impactful: What I do makes a difference in the lives of others. These roles take priority in achieving my mission: Husband—my partner is the most important person in my life. Together we contribute the fruits of harmony, industry, charity, and thrift. Father—I help my children experience progressively greater joy in their lives. Son/Brother—I am frequently “there” for support and love. Christian—God can count on me to keep my covenants and to serve his other children. Neighbor—The love of Christ is visible through my actions toward others. Change Agent—I am a catalyst for developing high performance in large organizations. Scholar—I learn important new things every day.

What the wife doesn’t know is that her husband’s need for men was always greater than his need for her, and that his sexual desire for his wife was much more emotional than physical. Ironically, if there is a common personality trait among wives of gay men, it is the fact that they are usually more supportive and understanding while being less demanding than other women. This is what attracts gay men to them—their belief that their wives’ accepting personalities will extend to their hidden homosexuality if the truth does get out.

... woman’s highest purpose in life is to support the warriors in her life: her father, brother, husband, and sons. If they should be called to war, she must be happy that they have the opportunity to fulfill a heroic destiny. Instead of praying for their safe return, she must pray that they die with glory on the battlefield... I promised myself I’d never pray for their deaths. I’d teach them, instead, to be survivors. And why was a battle necessary at all? Surely there were other ways to glory, even for men? I’d teach them to search for those.

Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned. I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.” “But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then. I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.” The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.” “You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too. “Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—” “You weren’t thinking.” She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—” “The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.” She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.” “Do I… want to know where you’re itching?” “Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.” I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever. “He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.” “You know you can come stay with us if you want.” She made a noise. “I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.” She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.” And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too. “Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—” Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?” “I don’t know why.” “Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving. “Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?” Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.” “Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—” “Goddammit, Diana—” I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!” “Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.

We don’t want to think about being a witness to our husband’s stabbing. Or supporting our wife through her rapist’s trial. Or receiving the phone call reporting that our straight-A son’s exam celebrations got a bit lairy and ended in him taking his mate’s dad’s Jag out for a spin, wrapping it round a lamp post and killing his three passengers. Or our grandfather being accused of sexually abusing young boys as a Scout leader in the 1950s. Such things don’t happen to people like us. The criminal courts are not the place for people like us. Legal aid isn’t something that is ever going to affect people like us.

All their men—brothers, uncles, fathers, husbands, sons—had been picked off one by one by one. They had a single piece of paper directing them to a preacher on DeVore Street. The War had been over four or five years then, but nobody white or black seemed to know it. Odd clusters and strays of Negroes wandered the back roads and cowpaths from Schenectady to Jackson. Dazed but insistent, they searched each other out for word of a cousin, an aunt, a friend who once said, “Call on me. Anytime you get near Chicago, just call on me.” Some of them were running from family that could not support them, some to family; some were running from dead crops, dead kin, life threats, and took-over land. Boys younger than Buglar and Howard; configurations and blends of families of women and children, while elsewhere, solitary, hunted and hunting for, were men, men, men. Forbidden public transportation, chased by debt and filthy “talking sheets,” they followed secondary routes, scanned the horizon for signs and counted heavily on each other. Silent, except for social courtesies, when they met one another they neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to another. The whites didn’t bear speaking on. Everybody knew.

Forgetting herself entirely, Pandora let her head loll back against Gabriel's shoulder. "What kind of glue does Ivo use?" she asked languidly. "Glue?" he echoed after a moment, his mouth close to her temple, grazing softly. "For his kites." "Ah." He paused while a wave retreated. "Joiner's glue, I believe." "That's not strong enough," Pandora said, relaxed and pensive. "He should use chrome glue." "Where would he find that?" One of his hands caressed her side gently. "A druggist can make it. One part acid chromate of lime to five parts gelatin." Amusement filtered through his voice. "Does your mind ever slow down, sweetheart?" "Not even for sleeping," she said. Gabriel steadied her against another wave. "How do you know so much about glue?" The agreeable trance began to fade as Pandora considered how to answer him. After her long hesitation, Gabriel tilted his head and gave her a questioning sideways glance. "The subject of glue is complicated, I gather." I'm going to have to tell him at some point, Pandora thought. It might as well be now. After taking a deep breath, she blurted out, "I design and construct board games. I've researched every possible kind of glue required for manufacturing them. Not just for the construction of the boxes, but the best kind to adhere lithographs to the boards and lids. I've registered a patent for the first game, and soon I intend to apply for two more." Gabriel absorbed the information in remarkably short order. "Have you considered selling the patents to a publisher?" "No, I want to make the games at my own factory. I have a production schedule. The first one will be out by Christmas. My brother-in-law, Mr. Winterborne, helped me to write a business plan. The market in board games is quite new, and he thinks my company will be successful." "I'm sure it will be. But a young woman in your position has no need of a livelihood." "I do if I want to be self-supporting." "Surely the safety of marriage is preferable to the burdens of being a business proprietor." Pandora turned to face him fully. "Not if 'safety' means being owned. As things stand now, I have the freedom to work and keep my earnings. But if I marry you, everything I have, including my company, would immediately become yours. You would have complete authority over me. Every shilling I made would go directly to you- it wouldn't even pass through my hands. I'd never be able to sign a contract, or hire employees, or buy property. In the eyes of the law, a husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband. I can't bear the thought of it. It's why I never want to marry.

Having a dream is like a pregnant woman waiting to have her baby delivered; everyone can see clearly that's got a baby inside of her womb;sometimes her close relations might wish to help out in carrying the pregnancy but no avail;even her husband feels to help her deliver the baby when he see's her honnie in pain the day of delivery. But after delivery everyone carries the baby for her Yeah;that's what it is peeps; someone out there is wailing to help carry out that your precious dream;but you need to deliver to them so they can see and help support. And I tell you;the world will carry what you deliver to them; cuz its called talent and its a gift from God.

She merely wiped the floor with paper towels and said nothing, brushing her free hand against my shoulder blade—my shoulder blade!—as she carried the soaked paper to the trash can, never holding me fast, refraining not out of lack of humanity but out of fear of being drawn into a request for further tenderness, a request that could only bring her face-to-face with some central revulsion, a revulsion of her husband or herself or both, a revulsion that had come from nowhere, or from her, or perhaps from something I’d done or failed to do, who knew, she didn’t want to know, it was too great a disappointment, far better to get on with the chores, with the baby, with the work, far better to leave me to my own devices, as they say, to leave me to resign myself to certain motifs, to leave me to disappear guiltily into a hole of my own digging. When the time came to stop her from leaving, I did not know what to think or wish for, her husband who was now an abandoner, a hole-dweller, a leaver who had left her to fend for herself, as she said, who’d failed to provide her with the support and intimacy she needed, she complained, who was lacking some fundamental wherewithal, who no longer wanted her, who beneath his scrupulous marital motions was angry, whose sentiments had decayed into a mere sense of responsibility, a husband who, when she shouted, “I don’t need to be provided for! I’m a lawyer! I make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year! I need to be loved!” had silently picked up the baby and smelled the baby’s sweet hair, and had taken the baby for a crawl in the hotel corridor, and afterward washed the baby’s filthy hands and soft filthy knees, and thought about what his wife had said, and saw the truth in her words and an opening, and decided to make another attempt at kindness, and at nine o’clock, with the baby finally drowsy in his cot, came with a full heart back to his wife to find her asleep, as usual, and beyond waking. In short, I fought off the impulse to tell Rachel to go fuck herself.

it is Love that make us to be submissive Ephesians 5:22King James Version (KJV) 22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. The key of all homes is the ability of anyone to keep his or her position. The Word submission doesn't mean to be a slave, to be maltreated. It simply means to be humble, to be caring and kind, to Love and so on. A woman that really love her husband will always respect him, obey Him, cherish him, and support him in everything. Then you will understand that it is the Love you have for Jesus-Christ that's making you to obey and live by His word. You obey because you respect Him, you adore Him, you've put your all in all in Him. God bless you.

Even if your husband is full of himself, he should be allowed to dream. Let him. Don’t burst his bubble. Why would any man want to come home to a wife who rolled her eyes and said, “Right!,” every time he had an idea or made a resolution? Maybe your husband wants to run for local political office. You know he doesn’t have a prayer. He’s running anyway. You want to say, “You’ve got to be kidding!” But in this case he doesn’t want to hear the truth. He wants your support. So give it to him. Call all your friends and tell them to vote for him, stand by his side when he gives speeches, buy buttons and balloons and throw him a campaign party. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, what matters is that you believe in him.

It should come as no surprise that women need to work doubly hard to prove their right to power. They have to look to their menfolk around them who can support their claim, rather than detract from it--to their fathers and patriarchs, not to their husbands and lovers. They must clarify to a suspicious public that they are not greedy and conniving, power-hungry for their own sakes, but concerned for the success of a broad swath of society. How does one do that except by somehow downplaying their own ambition, or subsuming her power to that of a male associate, or allowing herself to be interrupted in important meetings, or apologizing more than her male counterparts, or appearing more tentative in her decision-making, or not applying for positions and promotions she might think she isn't qualified for? A woman is rarely congratulated for grasping for more, for reaching higher. Women know exactly how their ambition is perceived by the public, and they must veil their power grabs in a warm and cuddly swath of nonaggression and nonthreatening verbiage, dazzling smiles, colored hair, and a calm and steady gaze, maternal even, without holding their head too high, but not too low either. Is it any surprise that today's women don't even apply for political position of authority if they have to walk through a gauntlet of abuse dissecting their appearance, demeanor, age, weight, and sexual past white simultaneously walking a tightrope of unspoken demands for masculinization?

They are totally different kinds of hard. As a mom, I can get help, share responsibility with my husband, enlist the help of grandmas and friends. That’s not to say it isn’t hard—because, holy moly, it’s hard!—but it can be shared. To truly be your best in running, you can’t outsource much, if anything. It’s all on you. Even if you have a coach, nobody else can do your training. Nobody else can sleep for you. Nobody else can refuel. Nobody else can set your goals. Nobody else can run the race. This realization hit me just the other day as I was planning for the upcoming year and strategizing my support crew to help with the various parts of my life: motherhood, running, and Picky Bars. Running was the one where I went, ‘Oh shit, that’s all me.

There are enough women prepared to boast of having got a man in a million to persuade other women that their failure to find a man rich enough, handsome enough, skilled enough as a lover, considerate enough, is a reflection of their inferior deserts or powers of attraction. More than half the housewives in this country work outside the home as well as inside it because their husbands do not earn enough money to support them and their children at a decent living standard. Still more know that their husbands are paunchy, short, unathletic, and snore or smell or leave their clothes lying around. A very high proportion do not find bliss in the conjugal embrace and most complain that their husbands forget the little things that count. And yet the myth is not invalidated as a myth

to thank my beta readers, Jessica, Dee, Andrea, Carrie, Jill, Kolleen and Rebecca. You made this story so much better!! I want to thank every blogger and reader who took a chance with me as a new author and helped me spread the word. You have my most heartfelt gratitude. To my street team. . .you rock !!! Last but not least, I would like to thank my family. I would never be here if not for their love and support. Mom, you taught me that books are important, and for that I will always be grateful. Dad, thank you for always being convinced that I should reach for the stars. To my sister, whose numerous ahem. . .legendary replies will serve as an inspiration for many books to come, I say thank you for your support and I love you, kid. To my husband, who always, no matter what, believed in me and supported me through all this whether by happily taking on every chore I overlooked

My dad, shattered by Mom’s exit, began to work hard at becoming the husband who could be kind and caring toward his wife. Through many months of counseling with Rick, our family friend, my dad began the process of self-examination and rethinking what it means to love someone. He began to put his time, energy and resources into his relationship with Mom—planning special trips alone together, listening to her as she shared her thoughts and feelings, and learning to support and encourage my mom instead of demeaning and criticizing her. When Growing Pains filmed in Hawaii for a second time, Dad gave Mom a new wedding ring set, asking her to rejoin him. All of us were astonished by the change in Dad. He grew to be much more loving and tender with Mom. He bought her gifts and spoke to her in a sweet voice. He became a different husband—and we all reaped the benefits of his maturity.

We've given them more than we've taken away, said the Commander. Think of the trouble they had before. Don't you remember the singles' bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market. Don't you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn't? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery. He waved a hand at his stacks of old magazines. They were always complaining. Problems this, problems that. Remember the ads in the Personal columns, Bright attractive woman, thirty-five… This way they all get a man, nobody's left out. And then if they did marry, they could be left with a kid, two kids, the husband might just get fed up and take off, disappear, they'd have to go on welfare. Or else he'd stay around and beat them up. Or if they had A job, the children in daycare or left with some brutal ignorant woman, and they'd have to pay for that themselves, out of their wretched little paychecks. Money was the only measure of worth, lor everyone, they got no respect as mothers. No wonder they were giving up on the whole business. This way they're protected, they can fulfill their biological destinies in peace. With full support and encouragement. Now, tell me. You're an intelligent person, I like to hear what you think. What did we overlook? Love, I said. Love? said the Commander. What kind of love? Falling in love, I said. The Commander looked at me with his candid boy's eyes. Oh yes, he said. I've read the magazines, that's what they were pushing, wasn't it? But look at the stats, my dear. Was it really worth it, falling in love? Arranged marriages have always worked out just as well, if not better.

• Can I give a smile at almost everyone I see even if I have a bad day! .. Yes I can • Can I tell a new co-worker a shortcut way to come to work instead of the long one he told us to save him/her sometime every day! .. Yes, I can. • Can I buy a flower or a bouquet and visit a sick person that I do not know at the hospital maybe once a week or once a month! .. Yes, I can. • Can I say Happy Birthday to someone you don’t know but you heard like today years ago he/she was born! .. Yes, I can. • Can I congratulate my neighbor for their newborn child by sending a greeting card or even verbally! .. Yes, I can. • Can I buy a hot meal or give away a coat to a homeless person when it is too cold or the same meal and an ice-cream when it is too hot! .. Yes I can • Can ask someone about another one who is important to the first to inquire about his health, condition, how he/she is doing so far! .. Yes I can • Can I give a little bit of time to my child (or children) every day as a personal time where we could talk, play, discuss, solve, think, enjoy, argue, hang out, play sports, watch, listen, eat, and/or entertain together! .. Yes I can. • Can I allow some time to listen to my wife without judgment but encouragement almost every day! … Yes I can. • Can I respectfully talk to my husband at least once a day to show respect and appreciation to the head of our house and family! .. Yes, I can. • Can I buy a flower and give it to someone I care about and say "I love you" and when the person asks you "what this for" you reply "because I love you". Yes, I can. • Can I listen to anyone who I feel needs someone else to listen to him/her! .. Yes, I can. • Can I give away the things that I do not use anyone to others who might need them! .. Yes, I can. • Can I buy myself something that I do adore and then enjoy it! .. Yes, I can. • Can I (fill in the blanks)! .. Yes I can.

You could read Hillary Clinton’s shocking loss to Donald Trump as a perfect storm that included a bungled campaign, serial misjudgments about email servers, Russian hacking, FBI meddling, sexism, and more. Even her ability to call out Donald Trump’s grotesque treatment of women was compromised by memories of Bill Clinton’s womanizing and the sick sexting of Anthony Weiner, husband of the candidate’s closest aide. All of that was true—but a far deeper erosion was at work. The statistics of political disaffection of working people from the party of Roosevelt are astonishing. Working-class white voters, defined as those without college degrees, supported Trump by a margin 67 to 28, a gap of 39 percent. Among working-class white men, the margin was an even larger: 72 to 23, or a chasm of 49 percent. Clinton, counting on the feminist symbolism of a shattered glass ceiling to make up the loss, even lost a majority of white women, by 10 points. As

Yet he followed her, stalked her, his eyes never straying from her face. “I don’t care about the books.” “What?” Marietta knocked into a chair and stumbled slightly. “I don’t care that you like to read those infernal Dead-Eye Dan novels,” he said, his voice hard, insistent. “Shoot, I’ll even buy you a new set to replace the ones you burned.” He continued his advance. She continued her retreat. “You don’t have to do that. I . . . I don’t need them anymore.” She backed past the table into an area free of furniture. Nothing to hold on to for support. Nothing to hide behind. “Yes, you do!” He shouted that comment. Marietta flinched. “The books are important.” He scowled at her. “You can’t go around saying you love them one minute and then toss them away the next. It ain’t right.” Marietta stopped. Peered up at the man bearing down on her. Then tilted her head to assess him. Her heart gave a hopeful little leap. “We’re not talking about books, are we?

Without help or a supportive husband, Lenore was as alone as she had been after her first husband died, as she had been before marrying Salem. It was too late to curry friendship with neighboring women, who she had made sure knew their level and hers. Pleading with Jackie’s mother was humiliating as well as fruitless since the answer was “Sorry.” Now she had to be content with the company of the person she prized most of all—herself. Perhaps it was that partnership between Lenore and Lenore that caused the minor stroke she suffered on a sweltering night in July. Salem found her kneeling beside the bed and ran to Mr. Haywood’s house. He drove her to the hospital in Mount Haven. There, after a long, perilous wait in the corridor, she finally received treatment that curtailed further damage. Her speech was slurred but she was ambulatory—if carefully so. Salem saw to her basic needs, but was relieved to learn he could not understand a word she spoke. Or so he said.

Within the institution of patriarchal marriage, the following is true: A woman may be challenged with "unfitness" as a mother if she works outside the home and is thereby able to support her children (a threat to the economic basis of father-right). A woman who wishes to divorce her husband to marry another man is tolerated more readily than a woman who leaves a marriage in order to be separate and self-sufficient, or because she finds marriage itself an oppresive institution. (...) Motherhood is identified with nurture, fatherhood with the moment of conception and with economic power. (...) "Father -right" is seen as one specific form of the rights men are presumed to enjoy simply because of their gender: the "right to the priority of male over female needs, to sexual and emotional services from women (...) The husband's "rights" over his wife are, in social terms, all inclusive; they can be whatever the man defines them to be at any given moment: all inclusive "rights" of men to the bodies, emotions, and services of women.

Sometimes a spouse, in trying to relieve a partner’s distress, accomplishes just the opposite. Judy is an artist. One evening she was quite upset by her problems in getting ready for a show, and she started to tell her husband, Cliff, about them. She wanted his support, encouragement, and sympathy. But Cliff instead fired off a barrage of instructions: “One, you’ve got to get all the people together in the group. Two, you have to call anyone else who is involved. Three, you want to get your accountant in on it—check with the bank to see how much money you still have. Four, you could contact the PR people. Five, call the gallery and see about the time.” Judy felt rejected by Cliff and thought, “He doesn’t care about how I feel. He just wants to get me off his back.” But in his eyes, Cliff thought that he was filling the bill. He had given her his best advice—he thought that he was being supportive. To Judy, however, Cliff was being controlling, not supportive. She was seeking sympathy and emotional rapport, while he was tuned in to problem solving. How can you find the appropriate channel? One point

You get surprised by looking back and wondering when you started not allowing anyone to approach you, to decide that deep down you did not care about anything. And surprise: all you manage to remember is a chain of small troubles. No earthquake, no gigantic traumatic event, as in the movies, where a significant event explains a whole personality. No dad or mom who left home, no surprised ex-husband in bed with your best friend. Rather: trifles of children, if anything. Minutiae, something that is almost laughable. Very small movements of indifference, of continental drift, that did not really move the floor at all, but that, millimeter after millimeter, they recorded inside you the certainty that it is better not to completely support yourself, because the floor is not stable, and You must always be ready to jump before a crack in the ground opens. And only now that, for a single night, you granted yourself a truce, you let yourself go and relaxed, only now that you finally let someone come to you and - How incredible! - not only did you not die, but you liked it more than what you could imagine, only now that you realize that until this moment everything was terribly exhausting.

as in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where large numbers of women turned out during the June 2009 post-election demonstrations. Clearly, these women’s grievances went far beyond a single rigged election. One explained, “I see lots of girls and women in these demonstrations. They are all angry, ready to explode, scream out and let the world hear their voice. I want the world to know that as a woman in this country, I have no freedom.” This was not surprising, since Iranian law was formulated in scrupulous adherence to the Koran and Islamic tradition and law. Even the Ayatollah Khomeini’s granddaughter, Zahra Eshraghi, declared that under Islamic law, “a woman is there to fill her husband’s stomach and raise children.” And just weeks after President Barack Obama defended the right of women in non-Muslim countries to cover their heads, brave Iranian women were throwing off their head coverings as a sign of protest against the Islamic regime—with no peep of support from Obama. Journalist Azadeh Moaveni, author of the feminist book Lipstick Jihad, noted that “while it’s not at the top of women’s grievances, the hijab is symbolic. Taking it off is like waving a red flag. Women are saying they are a force to be reckoned with.”10

You know, manacles and chains have functions in modern life which their fevered inventors must never have considered in an earlier and simpler age. If I were a suburban developer, I would attach at least one set to the walls of every new yellow brick ranch style and Cape Cod split level. When the suburbanites grew tired of television and Ping-Pong or whatever they do in their little homes, they could chain one another up for a while. Everyone would love it. Wives would say, ‘My husband put me in chains last night. It was wonderful. Has your husband done that to you lately? And children would hurry eagerly home from school to their mothers who would be waiting to chain them. It would help the children to cultivate the imagination denied them by television and would appreciably cut down on the incidence of juvenile delinquency. When father came in from work, the whole family could grab him and chain him for being stupid enough to be working all day long to support them. Troublesome old relatives would be chained in the carport. Their hands would be released only once a month so they could sign over their Social Security checks. Manacles and chains could build a better life for all. I must give this some space in my notes and jottings.

The traditional community of property in a marriage, i.e., the wife’s claim to support from her husband, should again be made conditional on her being a wife to him. She may run off with the milkman if she wishes—leaving her children behind, of course (a woman willing to do this is perhaps na unfit mother in any case); but she may not evict her husband from his own house and replace him with the milkman, nor continue to extract resources from the husband she has abandoned. Until sensible reforms are instituted, men must refuse to leave themselves prey to a criminal regime which forces them to subsidize their own cuckolding and the abduction of their children. The date rape issue can be solved overnight by restoring shotgun marriage—but with the shotgun at the woman’s back. The “victim” should be told to get into the kitchen and fix supper for her new lord and master. Not exactly a match made in heaven, but at least the baby will have both a father and a mother. Furthermore, after the birth of her child, the woman will have more important things to worry about than whether the act by which she conceived it accorded with some Women’s Studies professor’s newfangled notion of “true consent.” Motherhood has always been the best remedy for female narcissism.

hope that somehow the partnership that eluded her would come within reach. Though she felt pessimistic, it was hope that made her try one more time. It was also hope that had her marry Mathew. The hope that after their wedding, he’d resume being the affectionate and engaging companion he was during their courtship. When Mathew remained as distant as he had become during their engagement, despite the ring on his finger, she blamed it on her flaws. She set out to make Mathew love her more and want her more by perfecting herself. She lost weight, she learned to cook the same meals as his mother, she even climbed mountains in the dead of winter. But nothing worked. After four years of trying, she concluded she lacked “the Grace Kelly gene.” This was the only way Kimberlee could justify why her husband never pursued her with gifts. Especially the ones she craved most: gifts of words and time and touch. Again, it was hope that had her leave Mathew. She’d rather risk being alone for the rest of her life to have a chance at the union she believed was possible. Yes, she wanted children and a family. But she needed support and attention, and laughter and passion. She wanted love and affection, and couldn’t live without interest and respect. It wasn’t hope that led her to Brett. That was pure chemistry and charisma. And for a while, it worked. He was attentive,

Michelle Obama, spoke to supporters in rural Iowa about why she agreed to let her husband run. “Barack and I talked long and hard about this decision. This wasn’t an easy decision for us,” she explained, “because we’ve got two beautiful little girls and we have a wonderful life and everything was going fine, and there would have been nothing that would have been more disruptive than a decision to run for president of the United States. “And as more people talked to us about it, the question came up again and again, what people were most concerned about. They were afraid. It was fear. Fear again, raising its ugly head in one of the most important decisions that we would make. Fear of everything. Fear that we might lose. Fear that he might get hurt. Fear that this might get ugly. Fear that it would hurt our family. Fear. “You know the reason why I said ‘Yes’? Because I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of living in a country where every decision that we have made over the last ten years wasn’t for something, but it was because people told us we had to fear something. We had to fear people who looked different from us, fear people who believed in things that were different from us, fear one another right here in our own backyards. I am so tired of fear, and I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.” May her words reverberate well into the future.

28 When I Must Rethink My Expectations My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. PSALM 62:5 WE WIVES TOO OFTEN come into our marriage with great expectations of what our mate is going to be like and who he will become. We see things we want to see, and we don’t always see the things we should. Because our expectations are so high, when our husband doesn’t live up to them we can’t hide our disappointment. It comes out in moodiness, discontent, disrespect, disdain, critical words, and the ever-popular silent treatment. A wife can become the victim of her own misplaced expectations, and her husband pays for it. King David had it right when he told his soul to wait quietly for the Lord and put his expectations in Him. We must do the same. Your husband can only be who he is. You cannot put expectations on him to fulfill you in ways that only God can do. Your husband simply can’t be everything to you—nor is he supposed to be—but God can be. And He wants to be. Has your husband fulfilled every expectation you have had of him? If not, tell God about it and ask Him to fulfill those needs instead. Of course, there are certain expectations you should have of your husband, such as fidelity, love, kindness, financial support, protection, and decency. If he cannot, or won’t, provide those things for you, he is not living up to what God expects of him either. But beyond that, if you are constantly disappointed in your husband, ask God to show you whether you should be looking to your Lord and Savior, instead of your husband, for everything you need. My Prayer to God LORD, show me any expectations I have of my husband that are unfair, and for which I should be looking to You to provide instead. I know he cannot meet my every emotional need—and I should not expect him to—but You can. I look to You for my comfort, fulfillment, and peace. I thank You for all the good things my husband provides for me, and I ask You to keep me from being critical of him for not being perfect. Lord, help me to wait quietly for You to provide what I need, for I put all my expectations in You. For everything I have expected from my husband and have been disappointed because he couldn’t provide, I now look to You. If I have damaged my husband’s self-respect in any way because I have made him feel that I am disappointed in him, I confess that to You as sin. Help me to apologize and make that up to him. Bring restoration, and heal any and all wounds. Where there are certain things I should expect of him as a husband and he has failed to provide, help me to forgive him. I release him into Your hands to become who You made him to be and not what I want him to be. Help me to keep my expectations focused on You so I can live free of expectations I have no right to put on him. In Jesus’ name I pray.

23 When He Carries a Heavy Burden Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. GALATIANS 6:2 SOCIETY PUTS A LOT OF WEIGHT on a man’s shoulders. It is his burden to earn the finances to support his family. He is expected to do well at his work and on his job. There are so many expectations of him in that regard that he feels the pressure of it constantly. That’s why you read about so many men committing suicide when they are in serious financial trouble. The burden is too great. Few women commit suicide for financial failure. If you or I fell into financial ruin, we would just sell everything, pay off all the debts we could, get a job, and start over. Men can feel the burden of failure in life-threatening ways. That’s why your husband needs your prayers to keep his burdens lifted. One of the best ways to bear your husband’s burden is to pray for him about whatever heavy load he is carrying. Every time you do, pray especially for what burdens him the most. One of the most effective things you can do is let him know you are praying for him and ask him to tell you what his burdens are. He may reveal something you didn’t even know was bothering him. God’s Word says that sometimes our burden comes from the oppressor. The children of Israel had an oppressor, and they were overtaken by this oppressor because of their own disobedience. But God promised that the burden the oppressor put on them would eventually be broken by the power of His Spirit. “It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil” (Isaiah 10:27). The anointing oil refers to a work of the Holy Spirit. Your prayers can invite the Holy Spirit to break any burden of the oppressor off of your husband’s shoulders. You will be fulfilling the “law of Christ” every time you pray like that, not to mention how it will secure your husband’s devotion. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray my husband will be able to fully release his burdens to You. I know that when we cast our burdens on You, You will sustain us and not allow us to be shaken (Psalm 55:22 NASB). Help me to bear his burdens in prayer and in any other way You reveal to me. Show me what his greatest burden is and what I can do to lighten it. I ask that You would relieve him of his heavy load by Your presence in his life. Enable him to understand that when he yokes up with You, You will carry the burden for him. I pray that when he is oppressed by the enemy, whatever prayer or supplication is made by him—when he acknowledges his own burdens before You and turns to You for help—that You will hear him (2 Chronicles 6:29-30). I also pray that as You take his burden from him, he will know it’s You doing the heavy lifting. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Divorce is distressing. One does need moral support. Divorce lawyers are professionally adept at persuasively taking your side. A good divorce lawyer will have no trouble agreeing that an errant husband’s adultery killed the marriage and that he is, consequently, tyrannical for holding against his wife her own tiny indiscretion, which was a mere meaningless one-time fling with a friend. Divorce lawyers are the professional adepts at proxying for the kind of emotional support often given by best friends. Attorneys are ready and able to provide you with emotional alliance. But let me ask you: are you ready to pay a divorce lawyer’s hourly rate for emotional support? Why not use lawyers for legal work and reach for emotional support elsewhere? Many people are much better suited to comfort you. Most of them work cheaper or even free: therapists, clergy, primary care physicians. Your mother is often a good choice, and always free. Your best friend may be a good choice—unless your spouse is sleeping with your best friend. Facebook is full of “supporting each other in divorce” groups. Talk to your mother. Talk to your friends. Talk to the fellow-sufferers on Facebook (but do be careful not to give out too many personal details). These resources might not heal all of your emotional scars, but unlike your divorce layers, they are cheap or even free. They will cost less even if you become quite a successful practitioner in the art of stiffing an attorney for his fees.

While these tactics were aggressive and crude, they confirmed that our legislation had touched a nerve. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this. Many other victims of human rights abuses in Russia saw the same thing. After the bill was introduced they came to Washington or wrote letters to the Magnitsky Act’s cosponsors with the same basic message: “You have found the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.” Then, one by one, they would ask, “Can you add the people who killed my brother to the Magnitsky Act?” “Can you add the people who tortured my mother?” “How about the people who kidnapped my husband?” And on and on. The senators quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger than one horrific case. They had inadvertently discovered a new method for fighting human rights abuses in authoritarian regimes in the twenty-first century: targeted visa sanctions and asset freezes. After a dozen or so of these visits and letters, Senator Cardin and his cosponsors conferred and decided to expand the law, adding sixty-five words to the Magnitsky Act. Those new words said that in addition to sanctioning Sergei’s tormentors, the Magnitsky Act would sanction all other gross human rights abusers in Russia. With those extra sixty-five words, my personal fight for justice had become everyone’s fight. The revised bill was officially introduced on May 19, 2011, less than a month after we posted the Olga Stepanova YouTube video. Following its introduction, a small army of Russian activists descended on Capitol Hill, pushing for the bill’s passage. They pressed every senator who would talk to them to sign on. There was Garry Kasparov, the famous chess grand master and human rights activist; there was Alexei Navalny, the most popular Russian opposition leader; and there was Evgenia Chirikova, a well-known Russian environmental activist. I didn’t have to recruit any of these people. They just showed up by themselves. This uncoordinated initiative worked beautifully. The number of Senate cosponsors grew quickly, with three or four new senators signing on every month. It was an easy sell. There wasn’t a pro-Russian-torture-and-murder lobby in Washington to oppose it. No senator, whether the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican, would lose a single vote for banning Russian torturers and murderers from coming to America. The Magnitsky Act was gathering so much momentum that it appeared it might be unstoppable. From the day that Kyle Scott at the State Department stonewalled me, I knew that the administration was dead set against this, but now they were in a tough spot. If they openly opposed the law, it would look as if they were siding with the Russians. However, if they publicly supported it, it would threaten Obama’s “reset” with Russia. They needed to come up with some other solution. On July 20, 2011, the State Department showed its cards. They sent a memo to the Senate entitled “Administration Comments on S.1039 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law.” Though not meant to be made public, within a day it was leaked.

Haydée became pale, and lifting her transparent hands to heaven, exclaimed in a voice stifled with tears, “Then you leave me, my lord?” “Haydée, Haydée, you are young and beautiful; forget even my name, and be happy.” “It is well,” said Haydée; “your order shall be executed, my lord; I will forget even your name, and be happy.” And she stepped back to retire. “Oh, heavens,” exclaimed Valentine, who was supporting the head of Morrel on her shoulder, “do you not see how pale she is? Do you not see how she suffers?” Haydée answered with a heartrending expression, “Why should he understand this, my sister? He is my master, and I am his slave; he has the right to notice nothing.” The count shuddered at the tones of a voice which penetrated the inmost recesses of his heart; his eyes met those of the young girl and he could not bear their brilliancy. “Oh, heavens,” exclaimed Monte Cristo, “can my suspicions be correct? Haydée, would it please you not to leave me?” “I am young,” gently replied Haydée; “I love the life you have made so sweet to me, and I should be sorry to die.” “You mean, then, that if I leave you, Haydée——” “I should die; yes, my lord.” “Do you then love me?” “Oh, Valentine, he asks if I love him. Valentine, tell him if you love Maximilian.” The count felt his heart dilate and throb; he opened his arms, and Haydée, uttering a cry, sprang into them. “Oh, yes,” she cried, “I do love you! I love you as one loves a father, brother, husband! I love you as my life, for you are the best, the noblest of created beings!

If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of war, and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, — but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.

And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy. They will love you for it afterward; so you are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness. So you see this is a great duty. How can it fail to draw the father and mother nearer? People say it’s a trial to have children. Who says that? It is heavenly happiness! Are you fond of little children, Liza? I am awfully fond of them. You know—a little rosy baby boy at your bosom, and what husband’s heart is not touched, seeing his wife nursing his child! A plump little rosy baby, sprawling and snuggling, chubby little hands and feet, clean tiny little nails, so tiny that it makes one laugh to look at them; eyes that look as if they understand everything. And while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its little hand, plays. When its father comes up, the child tears itself away from the bosom, flings itself back, looks at its father, laughs, as though it were fearfully funny, and falls to sucking again. Or it will bite its mother’s breast when its little teeth are coming, while it looks sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, ‘Look, I am biting!’ Is not all that happiness when they are the three together, husband, wife and child? One can forgive a great deal for the sake of such moments. Yes, Liza, one must first learn to live oneself before one blames others!

Ben’s dead,” he says not moving or breaking his stare. “And?” “Just thought you should know,” he says, looking at me in the eyes like he’s waiting for me to confess. “Thanks for waking me up to share the information,” I tell him. “Where’s Venessa?” “At home,” he says. “Needed to see you first, alone.” “Quit looking at me like that, partner,” I tell him. “I ain’t left this floor all night.” Which isn’t a lie. Ben’s room is on this floor, but he doesn’t know I know that. “Even if you did, you know I wouldn’t —” “Partner,” I tell him straight, letting him figure it out. “I didn’t shut off his life support.” After he blinks several times he gives me that smirk. He looks around me to my sleeping wife and then back at me and tells me straight, too. “Go back to sleep partner. You look like shit.” With that he gets up and walks out. Staring at the door he walks out of, I smile. He gets it. Turns out the staff at that front desk got it, too. They didn’t stop my wife from doing what she needed to do; seems like they had other shit going at that time. Heard through the grapevine one of the women taken and held by Ben happened to work on this very floor. It also turns out the coffee pot wasn’t working and it was an all hands on deck kinda thing to get it fixed. I get it, the women need their coffee. They also didn’t run to his aid until I had my wife safe back in her bed. Those women have husbands and children of their own; I owe them a debt for letting my wife give Ben what he deserved. Those same women respect my wife and the women taken, and they ain’t got no respect for a man, any man, shooting another woman, a pregnant woman, one of theirs, in the stomach. You just don’t fuck with the female species. Brawler-K.S. Adkins

Michael Lewis, the author of The Blind Side, wrote about professional basketball player Shane Battier, who plays for the Houston Rockets, in an article titled “The No-Stats All-Star.” He describes Battier as follows: “Shane Battier is widely regarded inside the NBA as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win. [Because] Battier . . . seems to help the team in all sorts of subtle, hard-to-measure ways that appear to violate his personal interests.” Subtle, hard-to-measure ways. Lewis continues: Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse—often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots . . . On defense, although he routinely guards the NBA’s most prolific scorers, he significantly reduces shooting percentages. [We] call him Lego. When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. Husbands, children, and coworkers may not understand what it is exactly that we do. Yet because of who we are and what we do, whether in our home, community, or workplace, things magically work. Like Shane Battier, our very presence seems to just make everything and everyone work better together. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but in my experience this “magic” of bringing people together and enhancing their strengths is a talent that many women seem to have. It’s one reason we are so good at being a safe haven and playing a supporting role, but it’s a talent that we can use for great good when we dust off our dreams and put on our Batman suit.

It wasn't only my friends who suffered from female rivalry. I remember when I was just sixteen years old, during spring vacation, being whisked off to an early lunch by my best friend's brother, only to discover, to my astonishment and hurt, that she was expecting some college boys to drop by and didn't want me there to compete with her. When I started college at Sarah Lawrence, I soon noticed that while some of my classmates were indeed true friends, others seemed to resent that I had a boyfriend. It didn't help that Sarah Lawrence, a former girls' school, included very few straight men among its student body--an early lesson in how competing for items in short supply often brings out the worst in women. In graduate school, the stakes got higher, and the competition got stiffer, a trend that continued when I went on to vie for a limited number of academic jobs. I always had friends and colleagues with whom I could have trusted my life--but I also found women who seemed to view not only me but all other female academics as their rivals. This sense of rivalry became more painful when I divorced my first husband. Many of my friends I depended on for comfort and support suddenly began to view me as a threat. Some took me out to lunch to get the dirt, then dropped me soon after. I think they found it disturbing that I left my unhappy marriage while they were still committed to theirs. For other women, the threat seemed more immediate--twice I was told in no uncertain terms that I had better stay away from someone's husband, despite my protests that I would no more go after a friend's husband than I would stay friends with a woman who went after mine. Thankfully, I also had some true friends who remained loyal and supportive during one of the most difficult times of my life. To this day I trust them implicitly, with the kind of faith you reserve for people who have proved themselves under fire. But I've also never forgotten the shock and disappointment of discovering how quickly those other friendships turned to rivalries.

1) The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3) He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4) He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7) He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14) He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17) He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship.

If you aren't in love, Willow Vaughn, then my name isn't Miriam Brigham." Willow started out of her daydreaming and glanced up from the laundry tub. Miriam stood before her with her fists planted on her hips. "Now, Miriam, I-" "No sense denying it, young lady. You've got that dreamy dazed glow about you. Rider Sinclair isn't much better, the way he hangs around you,like a bee drawn to honey. He's always holding your hand or throwing his arm around you when he thinks I'm not looking." "Well,even if I were in love, it wouldn't change anything. I still don't want another man to look after, and I don't need one looking out for me either. I can take care of myself!" "Course, you can!" Miriam agreed, picking the last sheet out of the rinse water and wringing it out. "Most women can. Look at me, I run a boarding house and support myself just fine. But let me tell you something. That lonely bed of mine is mighty cold on winter nights, even here in the territory." Willow blushed and concentrated on her hands where they rested on the edge of the tub. "Willow," Miriam continued, "you've been managing your pa just fine since he got home. A husband isn't any more difficult to manage than a father, unless, of course, you're married to a no-good lout." Willow dried her hands on the wide white apron around her middle. "But, Miriam, if I don't marry, then I don't have to bother finagling a man to my way of doing things. Staying single makes a hell of a lot more sense!" "Watch the cursing, young lady." Miriam slung the sheet over the line and returned to help Willow with the wash tub. They each grapped a handle and carried it a few feet before setting it down to rest their arms a moment. "Willow, use your noggin, will you? Part of the fun of being a woman is wrapping some big, handsome hunk of a man around your little finger. You do have to use your good sense, though, and realize when you're wrong and he's right. Of course"-Miriam chuckled-"that won't be too often. "And you have to be careful not to hurt a man's feelings overly much. Men are funny creatures. They seldom let their emotions show because they think it isn't manly. But you can tell when they're upset.They start pouting like a little boy.I've always thought that was rather curious.

Paul was an educated Roman citizen. He would have been familiar with contemporary rhetorical practices that corrected faulty understanding by quoting the faulty understanding and then refuting it. Paul does this in 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 with his quotations “all things are lawful for me,” “food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and “it is well for a man not to touch a woman.”47 In these instances, Paul is quoting the faulty views of the Gentile world, such as “all things are lawful for me.” Paul then “strongly modifies” them.48 Paul would have been familiar with the contemporary views about women, including Livy’s, that women should be silent in public and gain information from their husbands at home. Isn’t it possible, as Peppiatt has argued, that Paul is doing the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 that he does in 1 Corinthians 6 and 7?49 Refuting bad practices by quoting those bad practices and then correcting them? As Peppiatt writes, “The prohibitions placed on women in the letter to the Corinthians are examples of how the Corinthians were treating women, in line with their own cultural expectations and values, against Paul’s teachings.”50 What if Paul was so concerned that Christians in Corinth were imposing their own cultural restrictions on women that he called them on it? He quoted the bad practice, which Corinthian men were trying to drag from the Roman world into their Christian world, and then he countered it. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) lends support to the idea that this is what Paul was doing. Paul first lays out the cultural restrictions: “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 Corinthians 14:33–35). And then Paul intervenes: “What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues; but all things should be done decently and in order” (vv. 36–40).

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was admired by all, but no one dared to ask for her hand in marriage. In despair, the king consulted the god Apollo. He told him that Psyche should be dressed in mourning and left alone on top of a mountain. Before daybreak, a serpent would come to meet and marry her. The king obeyed, and all night the princess waited for her husband to appear, deathly afraid and freezing cold. Finally, she slept. When she awoke, she found herself crowned a queen in a beautiful palace. Every night her husband came to her and they made love, but he had imposed one condition: Psyche could have all she desired, but she had to trust him completely and could never see his face.” How awful, I think, but I don’t dare interrupt him. “The young woman lived happily for a long time. She had comfort, affection, joy, and she was in love with the man who visited her every night. However, occasionally she was afraid that she was married to a hideous serpent. Early one morning, while her husband slept, she lit a lantern and saw Eros, a man of incredible beauty, lying by her side. The light woke him, and seeing that the woman he loved was unable to fulfill his one request, Eros vanished. Desperate to get her lover back, Psyche submitted to a series of tasks given to her by Aphrodite, Eros’s mother. Needless to say, her mother-in-law was incredibly jealous of Psyche’s beauty and she did everything she could to thwart the couple’s reconciliation. In one of the tasks, Psyche opened a box that makes her fall into a deep sleep.” I grow anxious to find out how the story will end. “Eros was also in love and regretted not having been more lenient toward his wife. He managed to enter the castle and wake her with the tip of his arrow. ‘You nearly died because of your curiosity,’ he told her. ‘You sought security in knowledge and destroyed our relationship.’ But in love, nothing is destroyed forever. Imbued with this conviction, they go to Zeus, the god of gods, and beg that their union never be undone. Zeus passionately pleaded the cause of the lovers with strong arguments and threats until he gained Aphrodite’s support. From that day on, Psyche (our unconscious, but logical, side) and Eros (love) were together forever.” I pour another glass of wine. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Those who cannot accept this, and who always try to find an explanation for magical and mysterious human relationships, will miss the best part of life.

Does your husband dictate where you can and cannot go?” The woman looked as though she expected to be proven right. “My husband would never do that.” Rose informed her coolly. “Although there will always be unsavory characters at any social gathering, my husband trusts me to decide the ones I wish to attend.” The woman flushed, and Rose felt a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing that her barb had struck a nerve. “If that’s true, he must have changed immensely since the days when we were acquainted.” Ahh. Now the claws came out. No wonder the woman had made such vile aspirations earlier. She was jealous. “He has.” Rose held the other woman’s gaze, not caring a whit for how she said the word “acquainted.” This woman had slept with her husband, and oddly enough she wasn’t the least bit jealous. She did, however, feel sorry for the woman because Grey had been a different man back then. “My husband is very attentive and courteous to my wishes. I couldn’t be more satisfied with my situation.” Oh God, had she actually said that? The innuendo practically stood up on its own and waved to everyone in the room. What was it about Grey-no, about this woman-that made her feel as though she had to defend her marriage, and brag about her sex life? It was just so pretty. “You were once a friend of the duke’s, were you not, Lady Devane?” The woman-whose name Rose could not remember-slanted a devious glance in the blonde woman’s direction. Everyone looked at Lady Devane, because everyone knew the rumors and everyone wanted to see not only Rose’s reaction, but Lady Devane’s as well. Vultures. Eve pressed her knee against Rose’s, giving her some well-needed support. “I was, Lady Gosling,” Lady Devane replied smoothly. “But that was a long time ago, back when he was a man who never thought to marry.” She smiled at Rose. “And then he met the one woman who could tempt him. I believe you must be an extraordinary woman, Your Grace.” Rose could have kissed her, for in that one moment, the woman who could have easily become her enemy proved herself a friend. And not only a friend, but she let every woman in that room know what she thought of their vicious tongues. “Thank you, Lady Devane.” Rose flashed a genuine smile. “But I feel that I am the fortunate one.” Lady Gosling-what a ridiculous title!-said nothing. Tight-lipped, she turned away and went off in search of other prey. Yes, Rose thought, as Eve discreetly squeezed her hand and whispered, “Old hag,” she was fortunate. But Grey was obviously the smarter of the two of them, because he had enough sense to stay the hell at home.

When He Needs Direction A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. PROVERBS 16:9 WE ALL NEED DIRECTION from the Lord. In our culture today we encounter so much deception, and without the Holy Spirit leading us we will have a hard time distinguishing the truth from a lie. And how can we make sound decisions without His wisdom? The Holy Spirit is our guide in all things, and it is He who gives wisdom, knowledge, and revelation. “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (John 16:13). We can make all the plans we want, and we do need to do that, but ultimately it will still be the direction of the Holy Spirit that will direct us on the right path. He will usher us into all that is right and true for our lives. Your husband needs knowledge and guidance from the Lord every day, and you can pray that he will have it. Pray he will clearly hear the voice of God speaking to him above all voices—even those of well-meaning people, or those who want to influence him for their own gain, or the voice of the enemy trying to take him off the path God has for him. Pray the same for yourself every time you ask God for direction on behalf of your husband. The Holy Spirit is the only true guide into all that is right for his life, your life, and your lives together. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would guide my husband through this day and in every decision he must make. Enable him to always discern the truth from a lie. Keep him from becoming blinded by deception and led down the wrong path. Teach him to search Your Word so that the truth is in his heart. Give him a fresh flow of Your wisdom. Put in him a holy barometer that has a deception meter ringing loudly in his mind and heart whenever he is about to be swayed away from Your best for his life. Lead him far from all that is not Your will. Enable him to hear Your voice instructing him in the way he should go. Keep him from being influenced by wrong voices who don’t have his best interests at heart. Enable him to hear Your voice above all, telling him the right thing to do. I pray You would guide me as well. Help me to hear Your voice in every decision either of us must make so that I can be a help and support to him. Give him the desire to pray with me about decisions that must be made. Only You, Lord, know what is best for him, and for me, and for us together. And only Your Holy Spirit can guide us in all truth. Enable both of us to know Your truth in our hearts at all times. In Jesus’ name I pray.

In a Harvard Business Review article titled “Do Women Lack Ambition?” Anna Fels, a psychiatrist at Cornell University, observes that when the dozens of successful women she interviewed told their own stories, “they refused to claim a central, purposeful place.” Were Dr. Fels to interview you, how would you tell your story? Are you using language that suggests you’re the supporting actress in your own life? For instance, when someone offers words of appreciation about a dinner you’ve prepared, a class you’ve taught, or an event you organized and brilliantly executed, do you gracefully reply “Thank you” or do you say, “It was nothing”? As Fels tried to understand why women refuse to be the heroes of their own stories, she encountered the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, which confirms that society considers a woman to be feminine only within the context of a relationship and when she is giving something to someone. It’s no wonder that a “feminine” woman finds it difficult to get in the game and demand support to pursue her goals. It also explains why she feels selfish when she doesn’t subordinate her needs to others. A successful female CEO recently needed my help. It was mostly business-related but also partly for her. As she started to ask for my assistance, I sensed how difficult it was for her. Advocate on her organization’s behalf? Piece of cake. That’s one of the reasons her business has been successful. But advocate on her own behalf? I’ll confess that even among my closest friends I find it painful to say, “Look what I did,” and so I don’t do it very often. If you want to see just how masterful most women have become at deflecting, the next time you’re with a group of girlfriends, ask them about something they (not their husband or children) have done well in the past year. Chances are good that each woman will quickly and deftly redirect the conversation far, far away from herself. “A key type of discrimination that women face is the expectation that feminine women will forfeit opportunities for recognition,” says Fels. “When women do speak as much as men in a work situation or compete for high-visibility positions, their femininity is assailed.” My point here isn’t to say that relatedness and nurturing and picking up our pom-poms to cheer others on is unimportant. Those qualities are often innate to women. If we set these “feminine” qualities aside or neglect them, we will have lost an irreplaceable piece of ourselves. But to truly grow up, we must learn to throw down our pom-poms, believing we can act and that what we have to offer is a valuable part of who we are. When we recognize this, we give ourselves permission to dream and to encourage the girls and women

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary ... You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

Montreal October 1704 Temperature 55 degrees Eben was looking at Sarah in the way every girl prays some boy will one day look at her. “I will marry you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I will be a good husband. A Puritan husband. Who will one day take us both back home.” Wind shifted the lace of Sarah’s gown and the auburn of one loose curl. “I love you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I’ve always loved you.” Tears came to Sarah’s eyes: she who had not wept over her own family. She stood as if it had not occurred to her that she could be loved; that an English boy could adore her. “Oh, Eben!” she whispered. “Oh, yes, oh, thank you, I will marry you. But will they let us, Eben? We will need permission.” “I’ll ask my father,” said Eben. “I’ll ask Father Meriel.” They were not touching. They were yearning to touch, they were leaning forward, but they were holding back. Because it is wrong? wondered Mercy. Or because they know they will never get permission? “My French family will put up a terrible fuss,” said Sarah anxiously. “Pierre might even summon his fellow officers and do something violent.” Eben grinned. “Not if I have Huron warriors behind me.” The Indians rather enjoyed being French allies one day and difficult neighbors the next. Lorette Indians might find this a fine way to stab a French soldier in the back without drawing blood. They would need Father Meriel. He could arrange anything if he chose; he had power among all the peoples. But he might say no, and so might Eben’s Indian family. Mercy translated what was going on for Nistenha and Snow Walker. “They want to get married,” she told them. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She couldn’t help laughing from the joy and the terror of it. Ransom would no longer be the first word in Sarah’s heart. Eben would be. Mercy said, “Eben asked her right here in the street, Snow Walker. He wants to save her from marriage to a French soldier she doesn’t want. He’s loved Sarah since the march.” The two Indians had no reaction. For a moment Mercy thought she must have spoken to them in English. Nistenha turned to walk away and Snow Walker turned with her. If Nistenha was not interested in Sarah and Eben’s plight, no Indian would be. Mercy called on her memory of every speech in every ceremony, every dignified phrase and powerful word. “Honored mother,” she said softly. “Honored sister. We are in need and we beg you to hear our petition.” Nistenha stopped walking, turned back and stared at her in amazement. Sarah and Eben and Snow Walker stared at her in amazement. Sam can build canoes, thought Mercy. I can make a speech. “This woman my sister and this man my brother wish to spend their lives together. My brother will need the generous permission of his Indian father. Already we know that my sister will be refused the permission of her French owners. We will need an ally to support us in our request. We will need your strength and your wisdom. We beseech you, Mother, that you stand by us and help us.” The city of Montreal swirled around them. Eben, property of an Indian father in Lorette; Sarah, property of a French family in Montreal; and Mercy, property of Tannhahorens, awaited her answer. “Your words fill me with pride, Munnunock,” said Nistenha softly. She reached into her shopping bundle. Slowly she drew out a fine French china cup, undoubtedly meant for the feast of Flying Legs. She held it for a moment, and then her stern face softened and she gave it to Eben. Indians sealed a promise with a gift. She would help them. From her bundle, Snow Walker took dangling silver earrings she must have bought for Mercy and handed them to Sarah. Because she knew that Sarah’s Mohawk was not good enough and that Eben was too stirred to speak, Mercy gave the flowery thanks required after such gifts. “God bless us,” she said to Sarah and Eben, and Eben said, “He has.

Question : BELOVED MASTER, IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY FOR ENLIGHTENMENT FOR A NONSERIOUS MEDITATOR? Osho : There is only possibility of enlightenment if you are a nonserious meditator..seriousness is not health. Seriousness is a tense state of mind, it is sadness; it is not overflowing joy.  Yes, the old traditions will tell you, "Be serious." I cannot say that to you. Why be serious? The birds singing in the morning are not serious. The stars in the night are not serious. The flowers in their different colors and fragrances are not serious. Except man, have you anything else in existence which is serious? The oceans, the rivers, the mountains... nothing is serious, except man. Who has made man serious? It is your old traditions which have created the idea that life is not a rejoicing, that life is not playfulness; that life has to be serious, only then can you enter into paradise, only then can you meet God. But I want to tell you, even God will not give you an audience if you reach there with a serious, long face. You have to go there like an innocent child, playful, joyous. You have to learn something of the sense of humor.  My approach is to create a world where laughter is good, is healthy, is supported not condemned.  I would like all our religious places to be playful. "Leela" means playfulness.  If the whole of existence is divine play, then our lives should also be a part of it, a divine play. So don't be worried about meditating nonseriously; in fact, that is the right way to meditate. Meditate playfully, nonseriously..Meditation needs relaxation. Meditation needs a joyful heart. It is not work, it is play. So you can meditate anywhere - taking a shower you can meditate, sleeping in your bed you can meditate, making love to your wife or your husband you can meditate - because meditation has no barriers, no conditions. Meditation simply means a silent state of mind. You can do anything with the silent state of mind. And whatever you do will become more graceful, will become more creative, will bring better flowers, better fruits. Your life will become in every dimension richer. I am all for richness, in all the dimensions of life. Money alone is not richness. If you can meditate in the different areas of your activities you will be making different dimensions richer, deeper. But don't be serious.  I remember, my grandfather was a very serious meditator.... I was always watching. Whenever he meditated I would disturb him. Anything was enough. Just pulling the lobe of his ear - and he is meditating - or closing his nose... And he would be furious. I would say, "A meditator is not supposed to be so angry and so furious. And I know perfectly that when there is a customer in the shop, even meditating, you tell him to wait. This is strange. You don't get angry about that. Then you forget all your seriousness. A dog enters in the house, and you are meditating and you start pointing to the dog saying, 'Throw him out.' What kind of meditation is this? "The best will be: don't pretend to be serious, be human, and there is no problem. You can continue to be silent and take care of the customer. You can remain silent and take care of the dog. You can remain silent and take care of me." But all the so-called religious people are very angry people.This is because of their seriousness. "Otherwise," I told my grandfather, "if you are really in meditation, and I come to you, you can hold my hand, you can dance with me. You can play with me and still your inner world remains silent, watchful." Meditation is totally an undercurrent activity, so nothing touches it. There is no need to be serious. Please don't think of meditation as seriousness. It is a very playful activity. Make it as light as possible. It should not be a burden on your heart. It should give you wings to fly in the sky.

I knew the stereotype I was meant to inhabit, the immaculately groomed doll-wife with the painted-on smile, gazing bright-eyed at her husband, as if hanging on every word. This was not me and never would be. I could be supportive, but I couldn’t be a robot.

he asked them. “Too long. Don’t be such a stranger. Stop by if you’re in our neighborhood. We would love to sit and chat. We can talk about the good old days and we got lots of pictures and stories from Tuscany.” “Will do. Enjoy the evening.” Jack turned and was face to face with their daughter, Patti. “Hi, Jack,” she whispered. “Great to see you again,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. “It was so good to talk with you the other day. It meant a lot to see you.” He watched her as she started to walk away and turned to him and say, “I wanted to let you know that after we talked I gave my husband a phone call. Eric and I decided to get back together. We’ve shared a lot of history, and we’re at least going to give it one last try to see if we can make it work. Thanks for everything, Jack. Bye.” She kissed him on the cheek. Jack saw Hope walking across the floor. “She’s pretty. Who was that?” glancing at Patti walk away. “An old and dear friend. Both Charley and I had a crush on her when we were younger. I’ll introduce you to her and her mom and dad later. You’ll like her.” More people filed inside to an already full hall. Soon it was standing room only. Jack turned to Hope and whispered, “I can’t believe this. We’ve had over twenty businesses make donations to the veterans’ fund to help support job training and for overseas servicemen’s wives and families. We also got money from the Yankee Bookshop, the Woodstock Inn, the Billings Farm Museum, the bank, and Bentleys Restaurant. They all donated money.” “That’s great,” she said excitedly. “And we’ve received over thirty new membership requests for the Veterans Post and that’s just yesterday. This is better than I ever expected. And four companies have committed to hiring more vets locally, including King Arthur Flour Company. They’re planning to build a new distribution center just west of town. I can’t believe all of this is happening.” “You should,” Hope said. “I remember you sat down right over there at that table and laid out what you wanted to see happen and you kept working on it until it did. I’m so proud of you.” He hugged her close and kissed her. He never wanted to let her go. The distinct fragrance of fresh balsam, pine, and holly filled

Women - Equality in Islam “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women)…” Quran 4:34 ~ Men are superior to women because Allah ordained it so. ~ Women’s limitations are caused by their weak mental abilities. ~ Women cannot understand religion in the same way men do because they are ungrateful by nature. ~ Every Muslim woman must always have a male guardian at all stages of life: father, brother, husband, or son.

I was still stunned by how wrong I had been about her and Powerball! Carrie explained that Brit was never that into ball, she had simply supported her superstar husband and felt unsupported in turn. Once again, I had mistaken my feelings as other people’s feelings. It was a lesson I needed to learn, about which master empathy served, who empathy rewarded.

There is only one way for women to reach full human potential—by participating in the mainstream of society, by exercising their own voice in all the decisions shaping that society. For women to have full identity and freedom, they must have economic independence. Breaking through the barriers that had kept them from the jobs and professions rewarded by society was the first step, but it wasn’t sufficient. It would be necessary to change the rules of the game to restructure professions, marriage, the family, the home. The manner in which offices and hospitals are structured, along the rigid, separate, unequal, unbridgeable lines of secretary/executive, nurse/doctor, embodies and perpetuates the feminine mystique. But the economic part would never be complete unless a dollar value was somehow put on the work done by women in the home, at least in terms of social security, pensions, retirement pay. And housework and child rearing would have to be more equally shared by husband, wife, and society. Equality and human dignity are not possible for women if they are not able to earn. When the young radical kids came into the movement, they said it was “boring” or “reformist” or “capitalist co-option” to place so much emphasis on jobs and education. But very few women can afford to ignore the elementary economic facts of life. Only economic independence can free a woman to marry for love, not for status or financial support, or to leave a loveless, intolerable, humiliating marriage, or to eat, dress, rest, and move if she plans not to marry. But the importance of work for women goes beyond economics. How else can women participate in the action and decisions of an advanced industrial society unless they have the training and opportunity and skills that come from participating in it?

There were two types of military wives, in Miriam’s opinion—those who supported their husbands and those who thought they, too, were Marines.

Yet already there was tension at his court. During the wars against Mecca, Aisha, looking for a lost necklace, became separated from her husband in the desert until rescued by a young man who returned her to the Prophet. She was accused of adultery. The loudest accuser was Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali. Aisha was supported by her rival Zaynab and Muhammad ultimately believed Aisha, but this was just the beginning of the feud that still divides the Islamic world.

Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Study 1. This chapter identifies three necessary conditions you must accept if you want to say no to temptation and mean it. They include the belief that God is good, the understanding that you must accept full responsibility for your behavior, and the belief that deliverance is possible. Where are you right now with these conditions? What, if anything, is holding you back from fully believing these truths? Read the following verses and meditate on their application to your life: Luke 1:37; John 8:32; and Hebrews 3:12. Seek prayer from others for your perseverance against sin. 2. No doubt David spent time finding excuses for his sin with Bathsheba. For example, unexpected circumstances led him to notice her just when her husband was out of town. Couldn’t God have controlled those circumstances? But eventually, David came to realize the fault was entirely his own. He couldn’t blame anyone else. Read David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 with these questions in mind: What evidence is there that David finally took full responsibility for what he had done? What evidence is there that David realized that his sin was first against God and only secondarily a sin against others? Now read Romans 1:18-32. Trace the downward spiral of sin by asking, Why is this man responsible for his behavior? 3. What do you think is the most difficult behavioral problem to overcome? Why do you think we so often fail to tap God’s resources for help? 4. Which people in the Bible successfully resisted your particular temptation? Why do you think they were successful? Are there any people in your life right now who have successfully resisted this same temptation? If so, how can you gain their support and encouragement in your struggles? 5. Take a few moments now and thank God for the areas of your life in which you are already experiencing victory. Ask Him to help you remember those victories in times when you struggle with other areas of sin.

I have seen a husband adapt honestly and courageously while his wife descended into terminal dementia. He made the necessary adjustments, step by step. He accepted help when he needed it. He refused to deny her sad deterioration and in that manner adapted gracefully to it. I saw the family of that same woman come together in a supporting and sustaining manner as she lay dying, and gain newfound connections with each other—brother, sisters, grandchildren and father—as partial but genuine compensation for their loss. I have seen my teenage daughter live through the destruction of her hip and her ankle and survive two years of continual, intense pain and emerge with her spirit intact. I watched her younger brother voluntarily and without resentment sacrifice many opportunities for friendship and social engagement to stand by her and us while she suffered. With love, encouragement, and character intact, a human being can be resilient beyond imagining. What cannot be borne, however, is the absolute ruin produced by tragedy and deception.

Moments like these remind me why it’s so hard for men like my husband to helm the ship of emotional labor in a family. It’s not the norm. It’s not the expectation. The societal pressures he grew up with were the polar opposite of mine in terms of emotional labor. Caring was not an expectation for him; in fact, it was tacitly frowned upon as not masculine. The men in his life did not take the time to write letters to their grandmothers, or prepare meals for the family, or take charge as equal parents and partners. Men’s main societal pressure is to be breadwinners. They are expected to put this priority above family, above caring, above emotional labor—always. There is no open space for him to learn, no support system that will help him achieve the full equality he may desire at home. As Tiffany Dufu writes in Drop the Ball, “Until the contributions that women make at work are seen as just as valuable as the contributions women make at home, the contributions that men make at home will never be considered as valuable as the contributions men make at work. Just as women need affirmation on both fronts, so do men.” 5 Yet so often, that affirmation never comes. Their efforts, though praised, are undercut by the overplayed manner in which we give that praise. The pat on the back men get for parenting is akin to the exaltation we give children for messily making their bed or dressing themselves with two different socks and sparkly sandals. We praise the effort and turn a blind eye to the incompetence.

The problem is that while they can see the danger in voting in support of building walls, discriminating against Muslims, and candidates accused of sexual assault, as long as they don’t feel directly threatened, they are less likely to confront or bring about any social consequences for the family members who do. They don’t realize how much their decisions will harm others, because generally even the worst policies will not hurt them the way it will hurt others, on account of the insulation that white privilege affords them. When you look at it that way, of course their primary focus is on protecting the patriarchal people in their lives. Those same fathers, brothers, and husbands certainly can’t be subjected to consequences for their racist or sexist behavior. After all, if they can’t access the heights of power to maintain the system of white supremacy, then white women are at risk of actually having to exist outside the bubble white supremacy creates.

Gandhi wrote: ‘I seem to have detected a flaw in me which is unworthy of a votary of truth and ahimsa. I am going through a process of self-introspection, the results of which I cannot foresee. I find myself for the first time during the past 50 years in a Slough of Despond.’ One wonders what readers of the press statement made of this decidedly odd interpolation. To them, the cause, manifestation and the precise nature of this flaw was left unelaborated. Gandhi’s close disciples knew the details; and the labours of the editors of his Collected Works have since made them public for us to examine it. Here is what happened. On 14 April 1938, Gandhi awoke with an erection; and despite efforts to contain his excitement, had a masturbatory experience. He was sleeping alone, and it was decades since he had been aroused in such a way. The details of the incident were kept from his ‘political’ followers such as Jawaharlal Nehru, but discussed with the spiritual followers who had stayed with him in Sabarmati and Segaon. To one Gujarati ashramite he wrote that ‘I was in such a wretched and pitiable condition that in spite of my utmost efforts I could not stop the discharge though I was fully awake.... After the event, restlessness has become acute beyond words. Where am I, where is my place, and how can a person subject to passion represent non-violence and truth?’ To Mira, Gandhi wrote in a language even more vivid in its self-abasement: ‘That dirty, degrading, torturing experience of 14th April shook me to bits and made me feel as if I was hurled by God from an imaginary paradise where I had no right to be in my uncleanliness.’ To his other close woman disciple, Amrit Kaur, Gandhi spoke of ‘an unaccountable dissatisfaction with myself’. But he had not lost faith, and was resolved to overcome the memory of his failure. ‘The sexual sense is the hardest to overcome in my case,’ he remarked. ‘It has been an incessant struggle. It is for me a miracle how I have survived it. The one I am engaged in may be, ought to be, the final struggle.’ Gandhi had taken a vow of brahmacharya, as far back as 1906. He thought sex was necessary only for procreation, and rejected the idea that sex might be pleasurable in and of itself. In his writings and speeches, he had often spoken of the importance of the preservation and husbanding of sperm, which he termed ‘the vital fluid’. After this (to him) shocking experience, how could Gandhi best control his passions, best preserve and husband that vital fluid? Several ashramites (Amrit Kaur among them) thought he should avoid close physical contact with women, especially younger women. He should abandon ashram girls as supports while walking (he rested his hands on their shoulders to propel his frail frame along), and discontinue the practice of having his nails cut or his body massaged by women disciples. Gandhi was not convinced of the sagacity of this advice. He had, he reminded one disciple, not ‘advocated total avoidance of innocent contact between the two sexes and I have had a certain measure of success in this’. To Amrit Kaur, he insisted that ‘it is not the woman who is to blame. I am the culprit. I must attain the required purity.’ Gandhi had wanted to write about the experience of 14 April in Harijan, baring to the world his failure and lack of self-control. He discussed this with Rajagopalachari, who was then in Segaon. Rajaji dissuaded him from making his experience public. Afterwards, Rajaji wrote to his son-in-law Devadas, who was also Gandhi’s son. The Mahatma, he said, was deeply worried ‘that he was still unable to overcome the reflex action of his flesh. He discovered, it seems, one day and he was so shocked and felt so unworthy that he was deceiving people and he wrote an article about it for publication in Harijan, which, thank God, I have stopped, after a very quarrelsome hour'.

Sometimes applicants were given a second chance. This worked, for example, for a Hungarian German family whose application had been rejected in April 1959. When they were reexamined by the embassy in Belgrade in June 1961, it was determined that “the German Volkstum of [the mother] by now prevails in the family. The husband, who is of Hungarian descent and spoke little German in early 1959, has apparently made an effort to assimilate to German Volkstum (im deutschen Volkstum aufzugehen) and now speaks German. The daughter also speaks German—apparently she is raised the German way (offenbar wird sie deutsch erzogen).”41 This dynamic approach to Volkstum was taken even further in a case in 1962, when Anton P. and his family were granted an immigration permit based on the embassy’s judgment that “German Volkstum will soon prevail in the family.”42 One local office took this approach to its logical consequence when it supported the application of Johann and Katharina M., arguing that the husband’s German Volkstum could prevail over that of his Hungarian wife only if they came to live with his relatives in Germany.

By buying into the question of what the husbands think, I’m doing something that comes so naturally to me, it feels essential: I am holding myself to account. Something makes me happy, or brings me pleasure, and I ask, how does this make me look? Nice? Thin? Modest? Domestic? Caring? Invested in my relationship? Sexually faithful? Like a good wife? I put everything through a pressure test, to see if it will hold up under public scrutiny, to see if it’s okay. And if the pleasure doesn’t consider the needs of other people, and if it doesn’t attend to what other people require of me—if it’s just for me—then it will fail. No wonder so many women prefer to confine their pleasures to the privacy of their inner life, or to their supportive online communities. It’s the only way to escape the question of what your husband thinks about all this.

When I used to bring the topic of kids up, he shut it down quickly. Saying he wanted to grow his business his first. He forced me to get two abortions saying the time wasn’t right. Yet he planted a seed deep inside the womb of some stripper that was bleeding his ass dry in child support. That’s what his thirsty ass got.

Running would end Edeyn’s schemes of marriage. If he avoided her long enough, she would find another husband for Iselle. Running would end Edeyn’s dream of reclaiming Malkier; her support would fade like mist under a noon sun once people learned he was gone. Running would end many dreams. The man who had carried an infant tied to his back had a right to dreams, though. Duty was a mountain, but it had to be carried.

Core values define the principles, beliefs, and standards by which we live. As a couple, understanding one another's values provides additional support to discovering and defining God's purpose for your marriage, as well as growing in a deeper appreciation for one another.

Focus on the wife as her husband's helper has led to the belief that God gave primary roles and responsibilities to men, and secondary, supporting roles to women. It has led to practices that communicate that women are second class citizens at home and in the church. None of this is true. There is nothing second class about God's vision for his daughters, and the ezer holds the clues.

Part 1 A Woman is a Fate? Or a Bless? When a baby is girl is born, to some is a blessing. She will grow as wonderful woman, beautiful, with nice features and showers love as a daughter, a sister, as a wife, as a friend and as a mother. It is also luck, or a Mahalakshmi to the house. Some centuries back, and to some people when she is born, she is a fate. An ill fated to some in orthodox families and believe that she brings bad luck. So, there is this ritual in some places or villages where, when a new born baby girl will be poisoned to death upon her arrival on earth. It is brutal and devastating. Yes it is still happening till today. Where did this ritual came from? Who started it? Where was it written that the baby must be killed if it is a girl. And WHY? Has anyone thought, that it was a woman who carried her for 9 months, loved her from the day she is created in her womb, and the moment when she is born, the tear of a joy and her happiness the moment she sees her little tiny human girl arrived, and her dreams as mother and to love her all her life… will be no longer alive in the next few minutes? I have always respected woman, for uncountable reasons. As much as I am happy to see them successful, but it also worries me most of the time. 99.9% of it I am worried for them! The one who gave birth to us, is a woman. We also worship to a female God and beg her to show mercy on us. It is also a woman, who becomes a wife and satisfies a husband’s needs. But still, there are no respect shown to them despite knowing these basics. In some houses while her parents off to work, or being abandoned, or lets just say the parents passed. It is her responsibility to take care the rest of her family as the family head. When it comes to education, she is not safe to study among the boys, neither in higher education. Same goes to a woman at work. As she will have those wild eyes on her, she has to take care of her virginity, her womb, and her dignity. Beyond these, there are also some beasts, who is talented in sweet talking and flirtatious towards her. When she is too naïve and fall for the trap, it happens to be a one night stand. Once a woman marriage is fixed, she gets married and goes off to her in laws. Her life changes in the moment the knots tied by the man. In todays millennia, womens are still carrying the burden of the responsibility of her maternal side, together with her new in-laws. Every morning she wakes up, she serves the husband, deal the day with by preparing him for his day, every day. As well taking care of her new in-laws all of her life. Then, comes the pregnancy moment, again, she carries her child her womb, making sure he is safe in there, and taking care of her world on the outside. She loses all her beauty, her happiness, her wishes, her ambitions, and it is all sacrificed for the sake of her marriage. And then the cycle never stops. She raises her children, become beautiful, and then one day they too get married. But as mother, she never stopped caring and provide them all the love, the needs, etc. It never stops. There are some man and in laws who support their daughter in law and I have a big salute to them. They are an example for today’s woman millennia, don’t stop her for what she is capable of, and don’t clip her wings..

As far as Vero and I could tell, the forum was a virtual cesspool thinly disguised as a mom’s support group—an anonymous gathering space for hundreds of disgruntled middle-aged women to bitch about things that bothered them, namely their husbands, bosses, and boyfriends. Apparently, for those with means, it was also a way of getting rid of them. Vero looked aghast as she

The world is nothing but a school of love. Our relationships with our husband or wife, with our children and parents, with our friends and relatives are the university in which we are meant to learn what love and devotion truly are. —Swami Muktananda

Where Are the Ads of Old? The granddaddy of them all was the Yuban coffee commercial, parodied so well in Airplane!, in which a couple is leaving a dinner party when the host appears and offers them a second cup of coffee. The husband, Jim, takes it. The wife, dejected and shamed, hangs her head like a dog that just got caught shitting on the carpet as we hear her internal monologue: “Jim never has a second cup of my coffee.” Her credentials as an adequate wife were just torched. This is the female equivalent of being cuckolded. She was cuckolded by coffee.

Checketts picked up on just how deeply Riley believed in being on the same page within months of working with him. During the team’s first training camp in Charleston, in 1991, Checketts and Riley were having lunch when Checketts’s cell phone rang, interrupting the talk. It was his wife, Deborah, who was about to buy a Chevy Suburban sport-utility vehicle, and wanted her husband’s input on color. Deborah had all but decided on the color green, and asked her husband if he was okay with that option. He was, and told her that would be a perfectly fine choice. But then Riley, who was sitting next to Checketts and had listened in enough to know the couple was choosing a color for a new vehicle, butted in. “What are you talking about? She can’t buy a green car, Dave. Green is the Celtics,” Riley said, referring to the team that had served as the archrival of his Showtime Lakers during the 1980s. Checketts laughed, before realizing Riley’s facial expression hadn’t changed. “I’m dead serious,” Riley said. So Checketts, still on the phone with his wife, told her she couldn’t get a green Suburban. When Deborah asked what other colors were available, the car salesman suggested red. So she asked Checketts how he felt about red. Again, Checketts was fine with that option. Again, Riley wasn’t. “What? Red is the Bulls,” said Riley, almost annoyed Checketts would even ask his take on the color. Checketts relented. “Don’t come home with anything but a blue one,” he told his wife, before hanging up. This was how Riley was wired. You were either all the way in on supporting his vision—down to the color of your car—or you weren’t.

Even before her official separation from Prince Charles in December 1992, the Establishment, and her husband’s supporters, swung into action.

You are responsible to get certain things you need for your own personal development and emotional and spiritual health outside the marriage. If you’ve blown off your support system—your female friends, your hobbies, your recreation, your spiritual friendships—hoping your husband could replace all of these while also meeting all your relational needs, then you’re setting up yourself (and your marriage) for disappointment and failure. No husband, by himself, is enough; you still need others, and it’s your responsibility to cultivate those other relationships. Could

A householder has his duties to discharge, his debts to pay: his debt to the gods, his debt to his ancestors, his debt to the rishis, and his debt to his wife and children. If a wife is chaste, then her husband should support her; he should also bring up their children until they are of age.

We can set up sun parasols over the chairs to shield us while we have our drinks.” “That sounds very nice.” Perveen would have preferred to speak to Cora away from the villa. She hadn’t felt safe when she’d met the nawab. “Shall we go up to the veranda and tell Oshadi?” “Just a sec.” Cora went back into the cabana through the open door and came out with the cowbell. Swiftly, she loped a hundred feet or so toward the house and rang the bell vigorously. After a moment, a young man in blue began running down the lawn toward them. Using her hands, Cora instructed him to drag the chairs close to where water lapped the sand and raise the umbrellas. The only words she spoke were about choices of drinks. To Perveen, she said, “I like my orange juice with a splash of champagne. How about you?” “I’m a dreadful bore,” Perveen apologized. “Because of this heat, I’m craving plain water.” “Any ice?” Cora asked. “A luxury indeed!” Perveen said with a nod, repeating the same to the young man. They settled in their chairs as the manservant went off. There was an awkward silence, so Perveen began. “Let me just say that I’m sorry about the last time we were together. I felt wretched after I spoke with you at my office.” “Have you changed your mind about representing me, then?” Perveen hesitated, because she couldn’t lie outright. “I would like to know more about the hospital committee from you. In the brief time I spoke with your husband, he mentioned that there wasn’t enough support from the women’s husbands. I want to know who is involved at this point.” And who might have attended the party where Sunanda was attacked. The begum bit her lip, smearing a bit of red onto the bottom of a front tooth. “You’ll have to ask them yourself, because they won’t answer my calls.” “Do you mean—the ladies on the committee?” “Of course!” Cora’s voice was impatient. “My title might be Princess, but the white ladies in this town have made it clear I’m from the wrong place.” “Australia is respected enough by Britain to have had dominion status since 1901!” Perveen didn’t add that she thought the privilege had been given to Australia, rather than India, because of racism. “I keep my mouth shut around them about my own family, just as I do about my dancing and singing career,” Cora said glumly. “So it must be that they are thinking about Australia being founded as a penal colony. Australia is where men are supposed to go for horses—but not wives.” “Look, there’s the bearer coming!” Perveen said. After the bearer had handed off their drinks, she told Cora, “I also felt like an outsider at the tea party. I heard

A husband who bullies his wife and kids is like a storm that never passes, leaving a trail of hurt and fear in its wake. His love is conditional, his words are venomous, and his actions are suffocating. But remember, you are not alone, and you don't deserve to live in a constant state of anxiety and dread. You are worthy of love, respect, and kindness. Don't let his behavior define your worth; seek help, seek support, and know that you deserve a sunshine-filled life, free from the darkness of his bullying." This quote aims to acknowledge the pain and struggle of those who face bullying in their own homes, and to offer hope and encouragement to seek help and support. Remember, no one deserves to be bullied or mistreated, and there is always a way out.

Paying bills is not only responsibility of a husband . His responsibility is to maintain healthy partnership , contribute, support, love, care ,understanding the needs of emotional, financial, spiritual etc needs of family , treating them with respect , caring for wellbeing and nurturing each other's growth, giving them secured life beyond just financial obligations.

For those who lack the classical education of New York’s early butchers and bakers, Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife, and has gone down in history as an atrocious nag. Socrates’ equanimity in enduring (ignoring) her is regularly held out as a proof of his nobility of character. Graves begins by pointing out: why is it that for two thousand years, no one seems to have asked what it might have actually been like to be married to Socrates? Imagine you were saddled with a husband who did next to nothing to support a family, spent all his time trying to prove everyone he met was wrong about everything, and felt true love was only possible between men and underage boys? You wouldn’t express some opinions about this? Socrates has been held out ever since as the paragon of a certain unrelenting notions of pure consistency, an unflinching determination to follow arguments to their logical conclusions, which is surely useful in its way--but he was not a very reasonable person, and those who celebrate him have ended up producing a "mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality" that has done the world enormous harm. Graves writes that as a poet, he feels no choice but to identify himself more with those frozen out of the "rational" space of Greek city, starting with women like Xanthippe, for whom reasonableness doesn’t exclude logic (no one is actually *against* logic) but combines it with a sense of humor, practicality, and simple human decency. With that in mind, it only makes sense that so much of the initiative for creating new forms of democratic process--like consensus--has emerged from the tradition of feminism, which means (among other things) the intellectual tradition of those who have, historically, tended not to be vested with the power of command. Consensus is an attempt to create a politics founded on the principle of reasonableness--one that, as feminist philosopher Deborah Heikes has pointed out, requires not only logical consistency, but "a measure of good judgment, self-criticism, a capacity for social interaction, and a willingness to give and consider reasons." Genuine deliberation, in short. As a facilitation trainer would likely put it, it requires the ability to listen well enough to understand perspectives that are fundamentally different from one’s own, and then try to find pragmatic common ground without attempting to convert one’s interlocutors completely to one’s won perspective. It means viewing democracy as common problem solving among those who respect the fact they will always have, like all humans, somewhat incommensurable points of view. (p. 201-203)

It’s a wife’s job to support her husband,” said the captain sharply. “I remember when Lizzie told me she’d got a job as a secretary in Norwich. I soon put a stop to that.” Agatha sighed and relapsed into silence, wondering if there might not be another murder soon.

I was trying very, very hard not to catch feelings. Unfortunately, the physical desire train had left the station long ago. Tonight he was my support. But also my temptation, because as “husband and wife”, this was the first time Jared was really playing his part since the wedding. And apparently it involved keep a possessive palm pressed to my back or taking my hand in his whenever he could. Touching! It involved touching. I was already nervous for the show but with Jared’s hands on my body, I was overstimulated.

What a novel idea: a husband supportive of his wife’s work. A wife that did not fit in a box.

A godly wife is a precious gift from above, a helpmate and a haven, a second mother to your soul. She wraps her love around your heart, a warm embrace that chases away the cold. With a care that's unwavering and a heart that's always there, she nurtures and supports, through every joy and every care. Like a mother's love, her devotion is unconditional, a reflection of God's own love, a treasure to behold, a blessing to cherish.

He famously—and condescendingly—told the class that they should aspire to be superlative mothers and housewives and that their main role was to support their husbands.

It must be hard for Chloe as a single mom," Garcia said. "Lots of bills to pay and no one to help. Sometimes people get desperate." My spider senses tingled. This was not where I had expected the conversation to go. "Olivia is safe, healthy, and happy," I said. "Chloe works three jobs to support her. They're renting the first floor of a nice house that has three other lovely tenants, and although money is tight, the only real issue she has is an ex who has consistently refused to pay child support or alimony. He's someone you should investigate, not Chloe. He's a nasty piece of work. His parents disinherited him after they found out he'd abused her. He barely scraped through college, and now he's involved with a bad crowd." "No one is trying to take Olivia away," he said, understanding. "Then I don't appreciate your attempt to insinuate that my friend would resort to theft to make ends meet. It's beneath you and the dignity of your profession.

Sometimes I thought she genuinely was part praying mantis. “Well, thank you for this little talk. I hope you consider yourself to be emotionally supported.” In a funny way, I did. Yes, I was pretty sure that Dr. Fairclough believed that human feelings were an evolutionary dead end caused by a misguided lack of exoskeleton, but she was trying, and I could give her points for that.

Especially because you have the most important quality of a sultana, at least in my mind." "And what is that?" Jasmine asked, mentally running through the key words from her coronation vows. Noble descent, innate worth, wisdom, justice. "Your kindness," Nadia answered. "The fact that you don't look down on anyone. I know of no other princess or noble lady who would treat a handmaiden as a close friend, or choose a man of Aladdin's background as a future husband. You see beyond rank, and I know that will make you a beloved sultana." She smiled. "Sultana of the people's hearts.

Speaking of Andrew Finn—Wait But Why’s co-founder and my 15-year work husband—he has managed to remain patient and supportive during the eon I took to finish this project. Andrew and I like to refer to our partnership as “two monkeys trying to figure out how to drive a spaceship,” and for the past six years (and 20 before that), Andrew has helped me navigate the unpredictable and stay sane in the process. His friendship, and his continued willingness to show up, are an invaluable anchor.

Shallow. Harmless. A little bit stupid. Crazy in love with you. Needs access to every part of the house. Let’s see . . . Who am I? Well, Roman’s trophy wife, of course. I am pretty, elegant, and extremely snobbish. I love wearing expensive clothes, just the best labels. I’m not really into dresses unless the occasion requires it. I much more prefer designer jeans, paired with silky blouses. The heels are a must.” She pauses, opens her eyes, and turns toward me. “Are heels a must, do you think?” She scrunches her tiny nose. “Of course they are. Damn it. I hate wearing heels.” She closes her eyes again and continues. “The heels are a must, and I have dozens of them. Roman loves when I wear them, he says they make my butt look amazing. I’m also very self-conscious about my height, and wearing heels all the time makes me forget how short I am. My favorite pastime is shopping, and I buy a ton of clothes. My husband has to allocate one driver specifically for me and my shopping sprees.” Another pause and she turns toward me again. “Roman, I’ll need funds to support her addiction with clothes. She is an impulse buyer.” “You’ll get anything you need,” I laugh. She’s completely nuts. “My husband is crazy about me, and he allows me to do whatever I want with the house, like rearrange furniture, so the vibe of the house works better with the earth vibrations. The house feels terribly cold, so I buy a bunch of indoor plants and spread them everywhere. I also tour every single room because I want to make sure the unobstructed energy flows, so I rearrange paintings and mirrors. I also hate the dining room table, it’s so overstated, and I decide to swap it with a sleek glass one I found in an interior design magazine.” Another pause. “This woman is expensive, Roman. I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.” “I’ll manage.” “Your funeral.” She shrugs and continues. “My husband doesn’t like it when he’s interrupted, but of course, that doesn’t apply to me. I often come into his office just to check up on him and exchange a few kisses. It annoys his men so much. They wonder what he sees in me and why he allows me so much freedom, and then decide he’s thinking with his dick. I’m always around, and they hate it.

Who are you? Go back with the others until you are judged.” He met Hest’s stare eye to eye. Hest responded with wide-eyed shock. “But… but I’m Hest Finbok! I’ve come all this way to find my wife, Alise! I hired passage on the newest and swiftest ships I could find to come in search of her. When treachery by the captain let it fall to Chalcedean pirates, I thought all was lost. But here I am! Sweet Sa, your miracles never cease! I am here, and alive, and so is my darling wife! Alise, don’t you know me? Has your mind been turned by this harsh place? I am here now, and you need no other protector than your loving husband.” His words, she thought, danced all through the truth, never touching it. Reyn, startled, stayed as he was as Hest stepped around him. “No.” It was the only word she could manage. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding. She could not find breath to say more than that, but she clung to Leftrin’s arm as if it were her only lifeline in a wild sea storm. And he did not let go of her. He stood firm at her side. Leftrin spoke in a low growl. “The lady says no.” “Take your hands off my wife!” Hest ignored Reyn’s challenge of him as he stepped around the Elderling to glare menacingly at Leftrin. “She is obviously not right in her mind! Look how she stares! She does not recognize me, poor thing! And you, you scoundrel, have taken advantage of her! Oh, my Alise, my darling, what has he done to you? How can you not recognize your own loving husband?” She felt a low rumbling from Leftrin as if he snarled like a beast. His arm in her clutch had become hard as iron. He would protect her, he would save her. All she had to do was let him. “No,” she said again, this time to Leftrin. She squeezed his arm reassuringly and then stepped out of his shelter. She stood free of him, and the wind off the river blew past her. Her unbound hair lifted in wild red snakes, and she knew a moment of dismay as she wondered how ridiculous she looked, her skin weathered, her woman’s body garbed in the bright colors of an Elderling as if she did not know her age or place in the world. Her place in the world. She squared her shoulders. As she walked forward, Reyn stepped toward her as if to offer his arm and support. She waved him off without meeting his eyes. She advanced on Hest, hoping to see some flicker of doubt in his eyes. Instead his smile only widened as if he were truly welcoming her. He actually believed that she would resume that role, would pretend to be his loving, dutiful wife. That thought touched fire in her soul. She halted before him and looked up at him. “Oh, my dear! How harshly the world has treated you!” he exclaimed. He tried to put his arms around her. She set both hands to his chest and pushed him firmly away. As he staggered backward, it pleased her that he had not expected her to be so strong. “You are not my husband,” she said in a low voice. He teetered a moment, then caught his balance. He tried to recover his aplomb. But she had seen the sparks of anger flare in his dark eyes. He tipped his head, solicitous, his voice striken. “My dear, you are so confused!” he began. She lifted her voice, pitched it for all to hear. “I am NOT confused. You are NOT my husband. You broke the terms of our marriage contract, rendering it void. From the earliest days of our marriage, you were unfaithful to me. You entered into the contract with no intent of keeping yourself to me. You have deceived me and made me an object of mockery. You are not my husband, and by the terms of our marriage contract, all that is mine comes back to me. You are not my husband, and I am not your wife. You are nothing to me.

Other people had kind, supportive mothers who helped them when their lives shattered into pieces. I had the sort of mother who turned to me at my husband’s funeral and said, “You have no idea how hard all of this has been on your father and me. Ed was like a son to us.

The myth that marriage offers an equally supportive structure for the development of men and women is dealt a blow, however, when husbands and wives are compared…The mental health hazards suffered by married women are far greater than those of married men.

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently. People come to their decisions in their own way. People who believe the decision is up to the woman are typically called “pro-choice.” “Choice” echoes what is called “moral agency,” “conscience,” “informed will,” or “personal autonomy”—spiritually or religiously. I favor the term “informed will” because it captures the idea that we learn and decide: First, inform the will. Then exercise conscience. In Reform Judaism, for instance, an individual demonstrates “informed will” in approaching and deciding about traditional dietary rules—in a fluid process of study of traditional teaching, consideration of the personal significance of that teaching, arriving at a conclusion, and taking action. Unitarian Universalists tell me that the search for truth and meaning leads to the exercise of conscience. We witness moral agency when a member of a faith community interprets faith teachings in light of historical religious understandings and personal conscience. I know that some religious people don’t do

On Friday, 3 December1993, at a charity luncheon in aid of the Headway National Head Injuries Association, the Princess announced her withdrawal from public life. In a sometimes quavering, yet defiant, voice she appealed for ‘time and space’ after more than a decade in the spotlight. During her five-minute speech she made a particular point of the unrelenting media exposure: ‘When I started my public life 12 years ago, I understood that the media might be interested in what I did. I realized then that their attention would inevitably focus on both our private and public lives. But I was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become; nor the extent to which it would affect both my public duties and my personal life, in a manner that has been hard to bear.’ As she later said: ‘The pressure was intolerable then, and my job, my work was being affected. I wanted to give 110 per cent to my work, and I could only give 50…I owed it to the public to say “Thank you, I’m disappearing for a bit, but I’ll come back.”’ Indicating that she would continue to support a small number of charities while she set about rebuilding her private life, the Princess emphasized: ‘My first priority will continue to be our children, William and Harry, who deserve as much love, care and attention as I am able to give, as well as an appreciation of the tradition into which they were born.’ While she singled out the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh for their ‘kindness and support’, Diana never once mentioned her estranged husband. In private, she was unequivocal about where the blame lay for her departure from the stage. ‘My husband’s side have made my life hell for the last year,’ she told a friend. When she reached the relative sanctuary of Kensington Palace that afternoon, Diana was relieved, saddened but quietly elated. Her retirement would give her a much-needed chance to reflect and refocus. If the separation had brought her the hope of a new life, her withdrawal from royal duties would give her the opportunity to translate that hope into a vibrant new career, one that would employ to the full her undoubted gifts of compassion and caring on a wider, international stage. A few months later, at a reception at the Serpentine Gallery, of which she was patron, the Princess was in fine form. She was relaxed, witty and happy among friends. The events of 1993 seemed a dim and dismal memory. As she chatted to the movie star Jeremy Irons he told her: ‘I’ve taken a year off acting.’ Diana smiled and replied: ‘So have I.

Consider, for instance, Jill Hubbard Bowman, an intellectual property (IP) attorney in Austin, Texas, who publishes a legal blog, IP Law for Startups, iplawforstartups.com, and an inspiring career website for young women, lookilulu.com. Jill Hubbard Bowman: Unexpected Twists and Turns I had a dream to be a trial attorney who would fight big legal battles and win. And then my dream was derailed by a twin pregnancy that almost killed me. Literally. It was a shock and awe pregnancy. It caused the death, destruction, and rebirth of my identity and legal career. I was working as an intellectual property litigation attorney for a large law firm in Chicago when a pregnancy with twins caused my heart to fail. After fifteen years of infertility, the twin pregnancy was an unexpected surprise. Heart failure because of the pregnancy was an even bigger shock. The toll on my legal career was even more unexpected. Although I was fortunate to survive without a heart transplant, I eventually realized that I needed a career transplant. As my heart function recovered, I valiantly tried to cling to my career dream and do the hard work I loved. But the long hours and travel necessary for trial work were too much for my physical self. I was exhausted with chronic chest pain, two clinging toddlers, and a disgruntled husband. I was tired of being tired. My law firm was exceptionally supportive but I didn’t have the stamina to keep all of the pieces of my life together. Overwhelmed, I let go of my original dream. I backed down, retrenched, and regrouped. I took a year off from legal work to rest, recover, spend time with my toddlers, and open myself to new possibilities.

President Vladimir Putin has evolved a “hybrid foreign policy, a strategy that mixes normal diplomacy, military force, economic corruption and a high-tech information war.” Indeed, on any given day, the United States has found itself dealing with everything from cyberattacks by Russian intelligence hackers on the computer systems of the U.S. Democratic Party, to disinformation about what Russian troops, dressed in civilian clothes, are doing in Eastern Ukraine, to Russian attempts to take down the Facebook pages of widows of its soldiers killed in Ukraine when they mourn their husbands’ deaths, to hot money flows into Western politics or media from Russian oligarchs connected to the Kremlin. In short, Russia is taking full advantage of the age of accelerating flows to confront the United States along a much wider attack surface. While it lives in the World of Order, the Russian government under Putin doesn’t mind fomenting a little disorder—indeed, when you are a petro-state, a little disorder is welcome because it keeps the world on edge and therefore oil prices high. China is a much more status quo power. It needs a healthy U.S. economy to trade with and a stable global environment to export into. That is why the Chinese are more focused on simply dominating their immediate neighborhood. But while America has to deter these two other superpowers with one hand, it also needs to enlist their support with the other hand to help contain both the spreading World of Disorder and the super-empowered breakers. This is where things start to get tricky: on any given day Russia is a direct adversary in one part of the world, a partner in another, and a mischief-maker in another.

In a Harvard Business Review article titled “Do Women Lack Ambition?” Anna Fels, a psychiatrist at Cornell University, observes that when the dozens of successful women she interviewed told their own stories, “they refused to claim a central, purposeful place.” Were Dr. Fels to interview you, how would you tell your story? Are you using language that suggests you’re the supporting actress in your own life? For instance, when someone offers words of appreciation about a dinner you’ve prepared, a class you’ve taught, or an event you organized and brilliantly executed, do you gracefully reply “Thank you” or do you say, “It was nothing”? As Fels tried to understand why women refuse to be the heroes of their own stories, she encountered the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, which confirms that society considers a woman to be feminine only within the context of a relationship and when she is giving something to someone. It’s no wonder that a “feminine” woman finds it difficult to get in the game and demand support to pursue her goals. It also explains why she feels selfish when she doesn’t subordinate her needs to others. A successful female CEO recently needed my help. It was mostly business-related but also partly for her. As she started to ask for my assistance, I sensed how difficult it was for her. Advocate on her organization’s behalf? Piece of cake. That’s one of the reasons her business has been successful. But advocate on her own behalf? I’ll confess that even among my closest friends I find it painful to say, “Look what I did,” and so I don’t do it very often. If you want to see just how masterful most women have become at deflecting, the next time you’re with a group of girlfriends, ask them about something they (not their husband or children) have done well in the past year. Chances are good that each woman will quickly and deftly redirect the conversation far, far away from herself. “A key type of discrimination that women face is the expectation that feminine women will forfeit opportunities for recognition,” says Fels. “When women do speak as much as men in a work situation or compete for high-visibility positions, their femininity is assailed.” My point here isn’t to say that relatedness and nurturing and picking up our pom-poms to cheer others on is unimportant. Those qualities are often innate to women. If we set these “feminine” qualities aside or neglect them, we will have lost an irreplaceable piece of ourselves. But to truly grow up, we must learn to throw down our pom-poms, believing we can act and that what we have to offer is a valuable part of who we are. When we recognize this, we give ourselves permission to dream and to encourage the girls and women around us to do the same.