Jill Dillard's More than Sex Post: Cling to Your Spouse!

When I got married, we heard a portion of Genesis 2 as the reading from the Old Testament.  The story was the section where Adam can't find any animals that provide him with enough company so God makes Eve out of Adam's rib and that's why humans get married. 

Unfortunately Jill Dillard seems to have taken that story to mean that wives should be joined to their husbands as tightly as they can in her blog post titled "More Than Sex: How to Love Your Husband" . 

In all fairness, Jill did not create these ideas in a vacuum.  No, she's been exposed to the spurious 'affair-proofing' marriage techniques propagated by professionals with a interest in saving marriages by convincing people that both partners in a marriage are equally at fault when an affair occurs.   While Jill has not pulled out the most toxic advice about 'rebuilding trust' after an affair by coddling the partner who had an affair while castigating the victim, she's listed a few doozies.

-Make the most of the time you’re both off work and try to keep the calendar free for family time. For example, if he is gone from 6am-6pm, then run your errands during that time &/or hang out with friends, then save most of the time after that for time together (and sometimes that might mean not inviting guests over in the evening!). Talk about it together as a couple and see what you can cut out to allow more family time.

*blinks*

Dear Jill,

OMG, I just cannot figure this out!  My husband works from 6am-6pm daily.  At the end of a 12 hour workday, he's exhausted and isn't really up for running errands or entertaining guests.  My husband is ready to go to bed at 9pm so that means we have to have fun adult sexy times from 8:30-9:00pm and we already talk deeply from 6:00-6:20pm like you told us to do!  How can I do errands and see my friends and still fit in time to be with my husband for three hours a day?

Help!

Totally Confused Young Wife

Dear TCYW,

Shop and hang out with friends during your husband's 12 hour shifts.  Meanwhile, use the twenty minutes of deep talking time to discuss how you really, really wish that your husband could be at home more - but he's just SOL since you're not allowed to work outside the house.  Hang in there!  We're still waiting for Derick to find the right job for him!  Everyone knows that the fourth career in five years is the charm!

Love to my sweet friend!

Jill

The saddest part: I had an entire joke around "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin that I had to cut out because Mrs. Dillard was properly sheltered from modern media and so wouldn't get the joke OR write it.....sigh.

-Let him know you miss him and you can’t wait to see him/can’t wait till he gets home! Send texts for him to read when he can, or if you know he has specific times during the day when he can talk, give him a quick call or FaceTime him for a minute to tell him you love and miss him.

6:01 AM: Hi, husband!  I love you so much!  It's only 11 hours and 59 minutes until you get home!

6:14AM:  Hiya!  Today is laundry day for me!  I've started our laundry so I'm going to go back to sleep until I need to switch loads!  I love you!  You come home in 11 hours and 46 minutes!

6:31AM: I can't sleep without you next to me!  Only 11 hours and 29 minutes until you get home!

7:22AM: I've changed the first load of laundry!  Normally, I'd do towels first, but I decided to be wild and crazy and do whites first today!  Love you!  Can we FaceTime during your break?

7:36AM: I decided to make a creamy omelette for breakfast using an old family recipe!  It's two eggs cooked in 5 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup, three bags of

7:36AM :   tater tots and two pounds of cheddar cheese!  I'll save you some for breakfast tomorrow!  I love you!

7:37AM:  Oops!  That last text split into two texts, lol!  I love you!

8:01AM: You said your break is at 8:00AM, right?  I miss you!  You'll be home in 7 hours and 59 minutes!

8:02AM:  Whoops!  Did the math wrong, lol!  You'll be home in 9 hours and 59 minutes!

8:11AM :  I'm worried that you are so late in calling me on your break!  Remember James 1:13-18! I love you!

8:12AM: When I'm struggling, I often recite Proverbs 7:25-26 and Matthew 5:27-29!  Love you!

8:39 AM: I love you, too.  The line shuts down from 8:30AM until 8:40AM. Can't FaceTime. See ya tonight.

Your mileage may vary, but spending my break at work responding to texts would not be restful or conducive to a peaceful marriage in my house.

-Call him by a fun or sweet name! Save his name/contact in your phone with a sweet name and don’t forget to use emojis! 😉

8:45AM 😲😳 I can't believe I got that messed up, cutie pie!  You are my favorite snookie-wookie!  See you in 9 hours and 15 minutes! 🌘

9:13AM: Going to the store, fluffy bunny butt!  I'm gonna get 🌿🍇🍉🍝🍞🍠🍡🍼 and food for our 🐶🐱🐱.  JK, we don't need dog food!  Do you want me to pick up anything?

Yeah, I'm clearly not the woman to use pet names or emojis in texts.  Thankfully, my marriage seems built to survive that issue since my husband has stated that'd he'd turn his phone off rather than deal with this many messages each day.

-Pray and fast for your husband. Ask him how you can pray for him and let him know when you do (e.g. send him text messages &/or write a little note).

10:53AM: Babe👼, remember we decided I was going to fast and pray📿 for you today?  Did you ever make up your mind on what you wanted me to pray for you for? 😇  Love you💗💙💚!

10:54AM:Drat honey bunny🐇!  My snuggle muffin🍮 won't see this until lunch🥫 time⏰!  Tell you what: I'll pray📿and fast for you and keep the topic TBD. I love you!💋

Writing fake text messages is killing me.  Give me a 10 page report on themes in cultic religions or a 5 page write-up of a 60 minute observation of a classroom over texts any day!

-Make time with your family a priority. Look for ways to spend time together with your kids and husband. You may have to cut out some activities that are taking away from family time.

Starting with your husband's 60+ hour work week? 

Or are we talking about the time spent sending 30,000 text messages to stave off loneliness and the fear of him cheating on you?

I know CP/QF is extremely anti-women working outside the home - but the fact that I work outside the home makes it easier for the three of us in our little family to spend time together.  When my husband is working, Spawn and I have time together which includes trips to the park and playing with Legos.  When I am working, Spawn has Daddy time which includes "Toddler WWE" and "When Stuffed Animals Attack!"  And since we have a full-time and a part-time income, we also have times where all three of us are together - and we have a blast.

-Show affection in the home and in public! Your kids need to see you happy and having fun together as a couple! It provides a little extra security for everyone!

Wait, what?  You need to be affectionate all over the place for the good of your kids' psychological needs for security? 

Actually, no.

 Kids certainly need security - but "Are my parents' expressing physical affection in public?" didn't make Maslow's hierarchy of needs for a reason.  Kids need adequate food, water, shelter, rest, protection from abuse, medical care for treatable conditions and love.  Kids are often amazingly blind to the quality of their parents' relationship as long as the parents are functional in terms of caring for the kid's needs and are polite to each other.

Now, couples in long-term relationships need signs that their partner enjoys their company, is happy in the relationship and wants to spend time together.  The exact way that "I like being married to you!" is expressed varies - a lot - from couple to couple and from culture to culture.    One of the families we met in the NICU was a young married couple from an Old Order Amish district in Ohio whose son had been born very prematurely.  The Amish frown on effusive displays of affection in public even between married couples - but the fact that the husband's eyes lit up every time he saw his wife and vice versa made it clear to everyone that they were very much in love.  Similarly, the husband didn't talk much about his son - but the fact he was more than willing to do skin-to-skin (which some dads won't do) was absolutely heartwarming.    Now, my husband and I are both rather shy about public displays of affection; we are pretty much the type who will exchange a quick peck when we arrive and leave and might hold hands if we are near each other.

For me, this - along with several other references to wives' needs for security - drives how how vulnerable women in CP/QF marriages are.   That's the natural outcome of teaching women to be dependent on men; wives are in a precarious position if their marriage fails.  I have no idea how any of the Duggar women would support their small families if they got divorced; most of their husbands have such low earning potential that the amount of child support/alimony the women could get is not nearly enough to live independently. 

More specifically, I think Jill experienced more deprivation during her childhood than the sanitized Duggar narrative admits.  Derick recounted a story Jill told him about how Jill would hide in the bathroom to eat her meals so she could have all of her portion without younger kids taking her food.  That sounds like a family that was struggling to provide enough food for all of their kids.  We know that the Duggars failed miserably to protect their daughters from being molested by their son  since three separate molestations occurred AFTER Josh told his parents.   Add in the fact that IBLP's techniques for childrearing alternate between physical abuse for misbehavior and rewarding the aggressors in hopes of shaming the aggressor into change and the Duggar kids grew up in a household that was chaotic and dangerous. 

With that background, I imagine she badly needs lots of support from her husband to feel safe from hunger and abandonment - but that's a huge amount of responsiblity to place on the shoulders of your spouse.

-Be open about everything: past, present and future! You need to be able to trust each other with the easy and the hard! Secrets are seeds for destruction! (1 Corinthians 10:13) Sometimes there may be seasons of difficulty or you may have to rebuild broken trust. Ask God to help you and get outside help if needed. We aren’t meant to live life in isolation! We need support and community! (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; Galatians 6:2)

Yeah - I mean, the Duggars were totes honest with Anna (Keller) Duggar about the extent of Josh's sexual abuse of siblings and unrelated young women before she married him?   Or at least with her parents if they wanted to protect Anna's emotional purity from knowing that her suitor groped sleeping girls close in age to him and molested kids who were too young to report while they were awake?   The Duggars totally 'fessed up that like six of their kids were interviewed by the police  - but not Josh - because the Duggars pulled the plug on that after the victims went through police interviews?

Yeah, I thought not.

Just like Josh was totally honest with Anna when he was trolling Ashley Madison looking to get sex on the side. 

For most women, having to call their OB/GYN to request an STI panel after finding that a spouse cheated is humiliating.   The exam that goes with an STI panel is not particularly hard; it's about the same as an annual exam or the first exam after a pregnancy is confirmed.  The agonizing part is having to tell a medical profession that your spouse cheated on you.     That absolutely sucks - but that's gotta suck even more for someone in a super-sheltered CP/QF culture where no one talks directly about sexual health or even the idea that the person responsible for an affair is the person who cheated - not their spouse.

Honesty is a good thing - but it only works if both people are honest and trustworthy.

And we are done with this series!  Woot-Woot!