Submission: What Role Does a Wife Have in the Decision-Making Process?

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Listen and enjoy this installment of Iron Sharpening Iron as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions.

Here's Pastor Tim. In this episode of Bible Bashed, we will be answering a variety of questions related to a wife's role in the decision -making process.

Now because we live in a society right now that's plagued by many passive males, one of the things to realize is that on the ground in most husband -wife relationships today, there's very little to no tangible direction that is being given from a husband to his family at all.

If that husband sees himself as a leader in any way, perhaps that leadership will show up in big moments in terms of being the tie -breaking vote in big decisions.

But on the ground, for the most part, one of the things that's happening is that most men today, most young men today in particular, are the kind of men who basically are asking their wives functionally to make every decision that there is to be made within the home.

And then functionally, when men do this, it is a source of stress for their wives, and it really doesn't reflect good leadership.

Now when you think about the way that leadership actually works in most areas of life, one of the things to realize is that in order to be a leader, you do need to take initiative.

You do need to have some sort of plan for your family. Or for whatever organization that you're in charge of.

And so you can imagine the situation of a coach of a team who is in some sort of position of authority over the team.

One of the things that you can imagine if you played any sports is that when you go to practice, the coach has a certain plan that he has in his mind that he's trying to execute.

And that plan is the kind of plan that he's developed or come up with, but it's not the kind of plan that's up for discussion essentially at every point.

When you go to practice, the coach is going to have a plan that he puts forward, and you're expected to follow that plan.

And that plan is not just the kind of plan that's subject to majority rule at every single point. Now a question we might ask along those lines is the question, well, what role does the wife have in the formation of that kind of plan or in the decision -making process in general?

And one of the things that we mentioned in our last podcast is that if a husband is actually leading, a husband should have a specific kind of plan he has for his family as it relates to what goes on in the home, as it relates to how individuals are going to spend their time, as it relates to day -to -day kind of decisions, the order of operations, those sorts of things.

A husband should be informed in these things. He should have a plan in these things. And when he comes home, he should be trying to carry out some sort of plan that he has in mind about how the day is going to be spent and how the time is going to be spent.

He should have some sort of direction that he's providing, some sort of oversight that he's providing. He shouldn't be the kind of guy who's just sitting on the couch and basically letting all the decisions and the plan fall on the shoulders of the woman.

He should have some sort of direction that he's providing. He should be leading in some kind of way that's more than just essentially abdicating that leadership to everyone else.

Now, one of the things to realize is that there are two types of scenarios that people can find themselves in.

So in a past generation, there was the type of male essentially who took leadership a bit more seriously, and he was the kind of man who essentially didn't like being told what to do by a woman.

And so a man in that kind of framework in a past society would basically just conceive of his job as essentially involving bossing everyone around, telling everyone what to do, and then expecting little to no pushback or opposition to that whatsoever, and in fact be pretty hostile to any kind of input from his wife as it relates to the carrying out of that plan that he had in mind, good plan or bad plan, whatever.

So you can imagine the kind of man in this kind of scenario who basically berates his wife forever, inserting her opinion in the decision -making process at any point.

You can imagine that kind of situation where the couple was driving down the road, and the man missed the exit 30 minutes ago, but the wife is keeping her mouth shut with a slight smirk on her face, waiting for her husband to figure out that they've missed the exit 30 minutes ago because she wouldn't dare to tell him that he has done something wrong or give her opinion or her helpful opinion because it's been so unwelcome in the marriage and so rejected in the marriage and everything else.

And there is a stupid kind of male who is essentially closed off to any helpful or valuable information that a wife might actually provide in a way that is being an extra set of eyes on the ground as far as that's concerned.

And so there is a kind of male who exists in that kind of way, and I think that that kind of male was more predominant in a past kind of society as far as that goes.

And so one of the things that we've realized as a society is that that's kind of a bad arrangement, and so we've overreacted to that, and we've almost gone the exact opposite way to where there's no brakes on what the standard young wife is going to feel like is appropriate to give her opinion on every single kind of scenario that can come up.

And so one of the things you want to realize is that there's two extremes as it relates to this kind of situation.

So there's the extreme on the one hand where the stubborn and stupid male doesn't want any input whatsoever, even the input that might be helpful.

But then there's the other extreme on the other end where the stubborn, unsubmissive wife essentially is defying every act of leadership that the husband has actually given, even in silly, trivial things.

So just to give you examples of things that I've heard about, a husband wants to bring his kids out to the car 15 minutes before it's time to leave, and then a young wife at that point wants to have a 15 -minute discussion about whether or not that is helpful to bring the kids out to the car 15 minutes before and just make them sit in the car.

Is that helpful or is that appropriate? And then basically if a husband wants to stand his ground in that kind of situation and say,

I'm trying to get the kids out to the car. I'm trying to get the kids out to the car. Maybe it's not the time to discuss it.

Then that kind of situation turns into you don't love me, you don't cherish me, you don't value me, you don't want my opinion, that kind of thing.

And then it just snowballs into a big argument to where that isn't really the kind of situation where the wife's input is needed.

And I gave other examples that I've heard that are very common. Basically, a husband picking a parking space at a store and a wife basically continuing to ask him over and over again, well, don't you want to park closer?

Wouldn't it be better to park in a different way and everything else? Having those discussions on the ground is entirely...

A woman in that kind of situation who is doing that sort of thing where every act of leadership that a husband makes is being challenged at every single point.

Honey, hey everyone, let's all go to the park. I've decided we're going to go to the park. And then you're having a big in -depth discussion about whether or not it's helpful to go to the park because it was a little bit wet today and everything else.

And then you're going to have to... Everyone's going to get messy in baths. There's a kind of just...

There's an overreaction to the first kind of scenario where essentially a wife will functionally be challenging every act of leadership that a husband actually makes to the point where she functionally is showing that she's hostile to the idea of leadership.

And so there has to be some sort of... So what I was trying to say in the last podcast is that a wife should conceive of herself as being in a follower role, not the leader role.

And so one of the things she wants to do is come alongside the husband when he's leading and then actually encourage him in his leading and not turn every single one of these minor day -to -day silly little decisions into a big discussion that is fraught with all the emotional baggage that comes with wanting to be included in this decision -making process.

I would say in 95 % of those sorts of scenarios, they really...

You don't have to have a discussion about where you park. You really don't have to have a discussion about how many minutes before it's time to go.

Is it appropriate to get the kids out to the car or that kind of stuff? These aren't moral issues and they're not even really wisdom issues.

I mean, as far as that goes, they're largely just preference issues. Now, if the husband forgot that you were having company over that night, he comes home, wants to take the kids to the park,

I think only a stubborn and pig -headed male would be totally offended and closed off to his wife saying, oh, honey, did you remember that we had people over today?

And that would be something that would be perfectly fine and it would be reasonable and a lot of men have difficulty maintaining, keeping track of all the things, the obligations that are planned and that may be some really valuable information and it might be the kind of thing where the husband says, yes,

I do remember that and I'm only wanting to go over there for a few minutes and we'll have plenty of time and no problem.

But then if it turns into this hour -long debate and discussion and everything else, then something wrong is happening.

And so all I was trying to argue at that point is just to say that there are two extremes. There's the kind of extreme where the husband wants no input and then there's the kind of extreme on the other end where essentially the husband, his leadership is being challenged in every single way, almost every time it manifests itself.

And so just adopting a basic, a wife should adopt a basic posture that says

I'm a follower and really try to ask questions as it relates to those kind of dynamics, essentially saying, am

I being helpful here to help him be a better leader or am

I being disruptive and I'm basically trying to enforce my plan upon him and demand that he follows my plan upon threat of me being upset and not being valued and not being appreciated and everything else.

And so I think it's very natural for a husband to just have a plan that he comes up with.

And I would think that it would be wise for him to carry out that kind of leadership plan.

So after dinner we're gonna have Bible study and we're gonna do all that. And if those things aren't always communicated in the moment,

I think a sign of a healthy marriage is a wife is gonna go with those kind of things. And if there's some massive detail that really needs to be considered that's important, then obviously she needs to communicate that.

But then her primary role is that of a follower and she should be encouraging her husband when he's exercising leadership because she doesn't want the passive male as far as that goes.

Now, what I said along those lines though is that a good husband is going to have some sort of avenue where all the day -to -day minor decisions like that are on the table.

So there should be some kind of weekly, hey, let's discuss the routine, let's discuss how things are going.

What are your observations about how I'm leading? What are some things you think

I could do better? Are there things that are frustrating? Are there things that are disruptive to you in performing your role?

And I think a good kind of husband is going to be regularly having those kind of discussions.

And so what I have in mind and what I think would be helpful to have on the ground is that there's this posture that's primarily a follower posture, but then there are times where everything's on the table and you can refine it and then you go back to executing a plan again.

And you discuss, well, how did the plan go? And that would be how you would do any...

That would be how the basketball coach kind of analogy would work. You have a coach and you have an assistant coach. And if every single time the coach is calling a play, the assistant coach is wanting to have a discussion, all the players are going to look at the coach and then look at the assistant coach and they're going to be really confused as to what's happening.

They're going to wonder, what's going on here? Who's the coach here? What's happening? And then everyone's just going to be standing there staring at the coaches, basically have a discussion.

And I just think that that's totally an undesirable state of affairs. And not only is it undesirable, it just feels like very destructive to the exercise of authority if that kind of thing is going on.

Now, if the coach says to the assistant coach, let's have a weekly coach meeting and then a good leader, a good coach is going to look at the assistant coach and say, hey, what do you think we can do better?

How do you think practices can go smoother? What do you think about our current routine? All that kind of stuff is on the table and it should be able to be discussed right now.

But a lot of that kind of stuff, it just doesn't really need to be discussed in the moment as far as that goes.

Now, there might be some big thing that the coach forgot that the assistant coach can remind them of.

And unless that coach, the main coach is so proud that he could never bear to have his, to have anyone point out that he could have possibly forgot something, that should be a normal, that should be a natural thing to point out that isn't fraught with all the emotional baggage on the other end.

But that shouldn't be every decision that's being made. Like there should just be a healthy dynamic where the assistant coach is trusting the main coach to run the play, then everyone is following the play and then you discuss it later.

You don't have to discuss it in the moment as far as that goes. So as far as that's concerned,

I think we understand how these things work in other areas and we need to apply it to a marriage and we need to, and the problem is that males have abdicated any kind of actual leadership within the home at all.

And so whenever they try to start leading, then like what's happening is that leadership at this point, living in more of a matriarchal society is totally being challenged on the ground in a pretty comprehensive way.

And that's a problem. Now, one of the things that I mentioned in the course of our podcast is that the vast majority of males, they conceive of leadership as involving basically going up to the wife and asking, hey, we're going to eat out tonight.

Where do you want to eat out? And then what do you want to watch tonight? Is there anything that you want to do as far as recreational activities?

And then a comment could be made. So I conceive of that as a bad situation.

I conceive of that as basically just an abdication of leadership. But what I'm not trying to argue as far as that's concerned is

I'm not trying to say that a husband basically should be micromanaging everything that happens in the house, including all the recreational choices, including all the food choices, and including all the entertainment choices.

And so something that I did in the early part of my marriage is

I would come up to my wife and we decided, hey, let's eat out tonight.

And that was the kind of thing we were going to eat out. And then I would come up to her and I'd say, hey, honey, where do you want to eat?

And I generally wanted to serve her and I generally wanted to be someone who's preferring her own interest and not looking to my own interest but the interest of others.

And so I'd ask her that kind of question. But then the problem is that she didn't know, typically, where she wanted to do.

And she could get flustered when I would ask her where we want to eat. And it could be the kind of thing where I'm asking her, well, where do you want to eat?

And I'm asking her to make a decision and she doesn't know. And then we're having conflicts and we're having fights about me trying to prefer her because the longer and longer this indecisiveness happens, the hungrier

I'm getting. And then one of the things that would happen along those lines, and this is a common dynamic that happens in many relationships as I've talked to people, is that a husband can look at his wife and say, hey, you want to eat here at this place?

And she's like, no, no, not really. And then he'll look at her and he'll say, well, where do you want to eat? And then she'll say, oh,

I don't know. And he's like, okay, well, what about this restaurant? Do you want to eat here? No, I don't want to eat there. And it's like, okay, well, do you have any ideas?

No. And then you can just get in all sorts of fights and conflicts. And part of what I'm trying to say with that kind of thing is what's happening in those kind of situations is that a man isn't really providing much leadership or much direction.

And then the wife is struggling to come up with something that she wants to do as far as that goes.

And so what you end up having is you have kind of a strange situation that's happened as it relates to these entertainment choices.

But if that's your habit in general, every time there's anything to do, all you're doing is saying, hey, honey, what do you want to do?

Well, functionally in your marriage, what's actually happening is that your wife is making all the decisions. And women can actually get very stressed out having to make all the decisions, even when those decisions benefit them or that they get to have their way all the time.

That can be pretty stressful for women. And that's pretty much the standard thing that I see happening on the ground where men and women are having conflict over silly areas like that.

And part of it is because the woman is basically put in this situation where she's the one always making all these choices.

And so just on a practical level, something that I've done as it relates to that is just I'll come to my wife and say,

I mean, I know our budget. I know what we can afford. I know this night will be eat -out night.

We've already decided that's what's going to happen and everything else. I'll come to her and I'll say, all right, so here's three choices.

Which one do you want? And you want this one, this one, or this one?

And that's the way it goes. And so then she'll pick between that. And then basically,

I'm exercising leadership. She's exercising, you know, followership or something like that.

And so, I mean, I'm just saying what I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to say that there's some sort of hard and fast rule that a husband should never ask her wife what she wants.

I mean, it may be the kind of thing where there's plenty of situations where a husband comes up to his wife and say, hey, is there anything you've been craving this week or anything that you'd really enjoy?

No, not really. And then he comes up with three scenarios or something along those lines. And so I'm not trying to insert some sort of hard and fast rule.

And I'm not trying to advocate for some sort of arrangement where essentially the husband basically just does everything he wants to do all the time and calls it leadership.

All I'm trying to say is that if that's your standard posture across the board, what do you want to do with our free time?

What do you want to do with our entertainment? What do you want to do with our food choices? One of the things that can happen is that there are spiritual things that should be inserted into the schedule.

Like, there are things that will help a marriage grow. Like, a wife should have, or a husband should have some sort of plan with his family that's going to involve intentionally making decisions related to how this free time is spent.

And so a good husband isn't going to control every aspect of it in a military sense. But a good husband is going to ask the broader questions.

Are we being fed as a family? Are we pursuing the things the Lord wants us to pursue as a family? And that's going to involve some intentionality that's going to involve some sort of specific plan that he has that he's going to try to carry out and it's not just going to be a laissez -faire kind of leadership where at every single point it's like, honey, what do you want to do?

Now certainly, part of being a good leader is trying to determine what kinds of things would be delightful for your wife.

But that isn't the only consideration and that's the point. It's not the only consideration that should be happening.

You know, good leadership is not just figuring out whatever your wife wants. Good leadership is going to involve figuring out what

God wants for the family and then secondarily, what would be the wisest for your family and that's going to include doing things that would be delightful to your wife.

And you have to have some mechanism to figure out how to do that without it just basically being everything revolves around the central goal of making your wife happy and giving your wife whatever she wants.

If that's the goal, then you're not really living to the glory of God at that point. You're living to the happiness of your wife.

Those two things are not the same. So yes, a husband should be wanting to pursue activities that his wife finds enjoyable.

But here's the thing. I mean, here's how this could be corrupted and this is the kind of thing that I'm talking about.

Let's say that the only thing that a wife wants to do is spend her time watching, you know, binge -watching television shows.

Is a husband being a good husband by basically just spending all of his time trying to love his wife by binge -watching her favorite shows?

Well, the problem with that is going to be that you know, that really isn't going to bring them closer together.

And you know what? She really isn't even probably going to consider that quality time because they're just sitting in front of a screen, you know, pursuing her recreational interest.

A husband needs to have much more of a specific plan than that. Now certainly, like, sacrificially loving your wife and looking to her interest is part of that, but you can't just devote your life to be revolving entirely around your wife's interest.

Because the more you do that, the more worthless you're going to feel and the less sanctified you're actually going to be.

And so there is some sort of place for that, but it's not, it shouldn't be just the overriding goal of life.

Now, a follow -up question related to that is, you know, if a husband is going to be intentionally on the ground providing tangible direction, and part of what we were saying in the last podcast is a husband is going to be the type of husband who does have expectations and has plans for his wife that he is communicating, how does that involve, how does that relate to the wife having some sort of freedom to set her day -to -day schedule?

You know, like, should the husband be the one with some sort of nailed -down schedule he has in mind that he's going to rigidly enforce on his wife in his absence?

Or, you know, is there freedom that a wife can have as far as that goes in that area? You know, how does that all look?

And I would say that there really isn't any simple answer to that kind of scenario. So, like, there are, yeah, there are individual, there are husbands and wives who have different kinds of gifts.

Oh, certainly a woman is going to, a wise woman is going to be the one who builds her house, she's going to be a worker at home, she's going to be domestic, she's, she is going to be a hard worker as far as that goes.

I think that, you know, no husband, I mean, no one in any kind of authority relationship likes to be micromanaged.

And so, no one likes, no one likes that. Men don't like being micromanaged by their bosses, women don't like being micromanaged by their bosses.

We all have, we all have a category for micromanagement, but then there's also a category for undermanagement as well.

And so, there's both kind of categories that exist. And so, if an owner basically has no expectation for his employees in his corporation, it might be that that corporation isn't run in a very efficient way.

So, you know, there's, if there's no oversight, if there's no direction, if it's all just do whatever you want, well, part of the problem is that that freedom can be abused in a pretty substantial way.

And, and that's just the way things work. I mean, two, two of the most, like, two of the professions that are most prone to depression are those of pastor and those of homemaker.

And the reason why that's the case is because generally, in both of those kind of frameworks, there's very little accountability as it relates to the carrying out of the day -to -day job.

So, one of the things to realize is that a husband going to work is typically going to have a much greater degree of accountability than a wife who is doing her job at home with no one functionally watching as far as that's concerned.

And so, one of the things, you don't want to fall into the ditch of micromanagement and at the same time, you don't want to fall into the ditch of just under -management where it's just laissez -faire where it's just everything goes.

And so, you know, I think, you know, in terms of wisdom, how that would look is that, you know, that that that husband and wife are going to have many conversations and the husband and wife are going to talk about the kinds of things that the direction that they want for the home, the activities that they're expecting to happen, the kind of, you know, if they're doing homeschool, the kind of curriculum that they're going to be teaching.

There's going to be a lot of discussions along those lines and I would say that the less efficient that,

I mean, the less efficient that that a woman is in her job, like, the more that a husband is going to feel of necessity, like he has to have more conversations and more discussions about everything else.

And so, if your husband and your wife is refusing to homeschool your children or something like that and you've decided to homeschool and she's not doing it, then, yes, you're going to have to have discussions about, hey, what does a schedule look like?

You know, when are you going to do this? When is this going to be fit in? How is it going to relate to nap schedule?

What times do these things need to happen? And those are normal, natural conversations to have. And I would say that, you know, just being proactive, those are the kind of discussions you might have on the front end.

I mean, it's not just like, well, let the wife do whatever she wants unless she does a bad job and then, I guess, you'll have to step in.

I mean, generally speaking, if she's not doing a very good job, you're going to have to step in. But then, just coming up with some sort of overall strategy, talking it through.

I mean, I think in a normal, natural marriage and normal kind of situation, you're going to be asking your wife, hey, what does your schedule look like on a regular basis?

All right. Now the kids are getting home school age. How are we going to accomplish this? Do you have any thoughts about what this is going to look like?

And I do think, you know, having some sort of oversight, some sort of direction, I mean, that shouldn't just be like viewed as some sort of monstrous intrusion into her affairs.

And at the same time, you know, the wife is going to have a much greater kind of, a lot more information on the ground about what's actually happening.

And so a wise husband trying to interact with that is going to listen to the kind of things that she's saying.

And they're going to have a lot of helpful, productive conversations along those lines. But then part of the problem is that anytime a husband tries to step in at all, it's just viewed as just an attack and assault, typically.

And, you know, basically calling the wife incompetent and everything else. And I mean, I think, you know, across the board in all those kind of areas that the husband has delegated to the wife.

You know, the heart of, like, if, the excellent wife, the heart of her husband will trust in him. But then the less, you know, well -managed this actually is, like, the more conversations you actually are going to have to have.

And that's just a practical reality. You know, if your wife is going grocery shopping and spending, you know, $300 on groceries each week and you only have enough money for $150, you're going to have to talk through.

What are we going to do? What's the plan? You know, if basically you both get married and both of you gain 100 pounds in the first year, you might have some plan about what you're going to eat.

You might have some conversations along those lines. And so, yes, I do think, you know, a husband should be delegating a lot of that to his wife.

He shouldn't be over -managing her. But then, if we have no category whatsoever for any discussions along those lines, there's a significant problem.

You want to have preemptive discussions on that. Hey, let's talk about a plan. And, you know,

I don't think that that needs to be overly specific, but let's just talk about some objectives. And then, how is it going?

How's the plan being carried out? What are some ways we think we can improve this plan? What are some things that we think we can do better?

What are some things that we're missing, that we're not taking care of in the course of a typical day? You know, just as an example, if, you know, the

Bible reading is always being forgotten, it's like, well, maybe we need to put Bible reading first. Maybe that needs to be the first thing that we do.

And those are just natural, normal discussions. And so, I don't think a husband is just going to, you know, the first thing he does is just, in leading a home, is just going to say, here's your schedule, honey, that has all the activities that I expect you to perform on a 15 minute interval every day.

I think that would be a little over the top. At the same time, you know, some kind of, you do need to have some intentionality and some kind of, you know, how are we going to govern our affairs?

And the more, you know, complicated things you get, the more conversations you're going to have and you're going to talk about how things are going. And that's just the way it works and that shouldn't be offensive and everything else.

And so, I wouldn't want to advocate across the board that a wife has no voice in the decision making process and I'm not trying to say that at all and that the husband just comes up with some, you know, unrealistic, rigid plan that he's going to shove down everyone's throat to their detriment.

At the same time, a husband should be a natural leader and he's, and it probably is that we're so far the other way that any time a husband does try to be proactive, it is going to be viewed as a tyrannical act of authority and it's not

But this, you know, a husband should primarily in these kind of situations be looking to lead in such a way as having the first objective being to honor

God and then the second objective being to bring, you know, happiness and joy to his family and having himself be last.

And so, you know, his plan should not involve fundamentally looking out for his own interests first as far as that goes.

But it is going to be a plan that does involve a lot of initiative and a lot of communication and a lot of conversations. This has been another installment of Iron Sharpening Iron.

As always, if you would like to have your question included in one of these midweek episodes, email us at BibleBashedPodcast at gmail .com

Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Gab. Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.