Jill Dillard's "More than Sex" Post On Marriage: Issues Surrounding Family of Origin Issues

Hello, all!

Today is the start of my vacation!  The last vacation I took was a trip to Mackinac when I was 21 weeks pregnant with my son.  (It blows my mind to realize that I gave birth five weeks after that because I was simply not that pregnant at the time....)   My parents are watching my son while my husband and I go to a cousin's wedding out of town for three days, then I cleared my son's schedule for two days so I could enjoy time with my twin sister, her wife and her daughter while they are in town for a week.   

I've gotten so used to either taking the Spawn to therapy appointments or working that the idea of five days without either obligation feels surreal to me - but I'm sure I'll adjust quickly.

In that vein, I decided to cover a theme in Jill Dillard's post "More than Sex" that I summarized as "Issues with Families of Origin, amiright?"   All marriages require communication and compromise about how to combine two different sets of traditions and expectations to create a new nuclear family.  My husband's family introduced me to the joys of county fairs, vegetable gardening, and living within walking distance of extended family.   My family introduced my husband to community theater, ad-libbing new holiday traditions and ice-cream trucks during the summer.  Equally importantly, each partner needs to decide how they want their marriage to be in terms of similarity and differences between what they saw modeled in their family of origin.

While those are both areas that all marriages have to navigate, Jill Dillard mentions three different areas that are worth discussing.   Here's the first example:

-Never allow your husband to think you’re his mother! Whether it’s making demands, delegating, or licking your finger and wiping something off his face…if he says “I feel like you’re my mother when you…”, then pay attention to that and ask him what you can to do change/how to handle the situation the next time!

A basic skill that people work on in their preschool years is to recognize what characteristics join members of a group and explain why one object doesn't belong in that group.  For those of us of a certain age, this was covered by "Which of these things is not like the other?" on Sesame Street. 

I bring this up because Jill's list has discordant members in it. 

For starters, let's all agree that cleaning your spouse's face with saliva is a poor solution to the problem.   My preferred option is to say, "You've got food (dirt, oil etc) on your (fill in body part)" once someone is old enough to clean themselves up.   That option feels more respectful of their bodily autonomy.    Removing smut from someone's face with a finger also makes more sense in a household where the material is probably food; it becomes a much more fraught idea when the smudge could be food....or dirt....or manure....or oil.    Really, the only person I give spit-baths to is my toddler - and only when I have no options available.

On the flip side, delegating chores is a form of emotional/household labor that the wife in a family takes care of.    That option might not work well for Derick - but Jill's habit of delegating work to him is hardly abnormal or unusual in the US.   I'm mostly curious about how Derick offered to change the way delegation happened in their home.  Was Derick willing to take over dividing the work?  That'd be a solution I'd be fine with in my household.  Was this an unconscious way for Derick to wiggle out of doing household chores - i.e., I feel like a teenager when you tell me what chores to do because real men don't do chores?   Does Derick get to choose what chores he wants to do and Jill is responsible for the rest?  Do Derick and Jill discuss who is going to do what chores and make decisions as a team regularly?   In my marriage, I mostly keep track of what chores need to be done weekly, divide them up among the two of us, and my husband lets me know if he wants to adapt who does what.

Finally, he doesn't like it when his wife makes demands?   Darling Derick, that's what happens when you take up being the supreme leader of a household.  You get all the glory and decision-making power - but you also get all of the complaints and grumbling as well.

The next quote adds another dimension to the "don't be his mother" argument:

-Remember, your husband is not your dad. You are teammates and he is your God-given protector. Keep this in mind and let it shape the way you relate.

Honestly, I'm struggling to write about these quotes because I've never confused my husband with my dad - and he doesn't confuse me with his mom - on any major issue. 

And, actually, only on two minor issues.

Like, in the first year we were married, I made stuffed peppers for the first time.   When my husband came home, he asked me if I was upset about anything.  I wasn't.   My husband kept hanging out in the kitchen and asking if there was something he could do to make my day better.  There wasn't - because my day had been going fine until he started annoying me by asking me weird questions.  After around 30 minutes of this, I remembered that his mom only made stuffed peppers when she was mad at his dad because his dad hated stuffed peppers.   I let him know that I had only made stuffed peppers because they sounded good - not because I was mad in a passive-aggressive way.    My husband startled, thought about it for a minute, then relaxed.  Similarly, my dad often took waaay longer to complete do-it-yourself home improvement projects than he thinks he will so when my husband tells me that he'll have the new dishwasher installed in one afternoon, I'm always surprised when he gets it done in the right time frame rather than taking a weekend or week.

Those are the only two examples I can think of in a relationship that is nearly ten years old.

I can't imagine rebelling against my husband's dictates like a teenage girl would do to her father because my husband doesn't give me dictates - or I him.   We are both integral members of our family economy - not a boss and employee or dictator and subject.

Sadly, Jill can't explain any reasons for why women shouldn't rebel against their husbands other than parroting the old Basic Life Principles hogwash taught by molester-in-chief Bill Gothard.  What exactly has Derick protected Jill from?  Derick allowed her parents to parade her on national TV to defend her parents' unconscionable behavior in failing to restrain Josh's molestation of his sisters. Derick accepted money from Josh Duggar to fund their missionary/extended vacation in El Salvador.   Derick's attempted accounting, reality TV star, foreign missionary, domestic college campus minister, substitute teaching, and is 1/3 of the way through law school in the last 5 years so presumably the Dillards are living on money from Jill's appearances on "Counting On".  Derick's unhinged rantings towards Jazz Jennings lost his place as a recurring character on "Counting On".  They have two sons together - but they've been saddled with medical debt from their first son Israel's unplanned C-section and their second son Samuel's unplanned C-section and NICU stay.    Derick might have 'saved' Jill from being an old maid living in her parents' house - but marrying him is like going from the frying pan into the fire.

This last quote is simply sad:

Don’t let habits become problems. For example, if you start and then get used to always asking your husband permission to do something (different than getting his take on something or discussing something together)…more like the dad role, then he could start to expect it just because he is used to it. It might be easy to make a habit of this, especially if you don’t want to take responsibility for the possible consequences of a choices you make, and would rather have someone else make them for you so they bear the weight of the decisions if it doesn’t work out, but we are also responsible to God for our lives. It’s good for your husband to know you have a good head and can make your own decisions. (And I do believe you should be open with each other and try to be on the same page with decisions and work together as a team! Our husbands should know us best and their counsel should be valued above everyone else’s, as long as it’s consistent with the Bible!)

What the hell did Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar do to their daughter? 

Yes, asking permission to do things is completely appropriate for an elementary school kid.   When a kid is a teenager, parents trust their teen's judgement on "Can I eat cake right now?" or "Can I do my homework after this TV show?" so parental permission is only needed for big things like "Can I use your car?" or "Can I borrow $20.00?".   Jill is not a teenager - so why is she asking her husband's permission for anything besides an unusual invasion of his personal property or space? 

I'm racking my brain to think of the last time I asked permission of my husband...and am drawing a blank.   I often bounce plans off of him like "I'd like to go swimming tomorrow morning" - but that's in the spirit of talking out how we will balance work schedules with caring for our toddler son.  Similarly, we often ask if the other person wants a certain food before we take the last slice of pizza or finish a half-gallon of ice cream - but that's just basic courtesy.   Once or twice a year, I'll borrow his truck to transport a purchase that won't fit in my car...but that's not really asking permission either because we both own the truck and car. 

 About the only thing I can think of is when I'm thirsty and I ask if I can drink some of my husband's pop.   He always says yes - but I'd be ok if he said no because it's his pop.  That's it....

Really, the bit I find the most disconcerting about these family of origin issues is the fact that Jill Dillard brings up avoiding treating your spouse like your literal parent in the middle of a blog post riddled with reminders that wives must be ready to have sex all the time.   For me, having sex with someone is a pretty solid reminder that they are not my parent.

In the next post in this series, we'll look at Jill's not-subtle reminders that wives need to be ready to have sex 24/7.