Then [Delilah] said to [Samson], "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength." With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. So he told her everything.
Delilah and Samson weren't exactly married, but far too many wives have followed her example. We don't get our way, so we turn to manipulation.
We say "If you really loved me..."
We pout or cry.
We nag.
We compare our husbands to somebody else's.
We withhold (or offer) sex.
We try to win others to our side.
Any of this sound familiar? Basically what it all boils down to is that we don't respect our husband's decisions nor his position as head of the house. I think of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, when his not-so secret admirer Scarlett is trying to convince him to move to Atlanta. He refuses, so Scarlett turns on the tears. Ashley's wife, Melanie, hears Scarlett crying and comes to her defense, not her husband's. Melanie then shames Ashley into agreeing to the move. Defeated and broken, Ashley sighs, "Alright, Melanie. We'll move to Atlanta. I can't fight you both." The women may have won the fight, but was it really worth winning?
Our husbands need our respect. There is room in a healthy marriage for discussion and fair consideration of both sides, and differences of opinion should be dealt with openly and honestly. But cunning manipulation is no way to get what one wants.
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