How Do I Effortlessly Submit to An Imperfect Husband? | An Interview with Hannah Maz

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Hannah Maz as we answer the age -old question, how do

I effortlessly submit to my imperfect husband? Now, Tim, as we get into this episode, what have you got to read for us?

Yeah, all right. Well, I wanted to read 1 Peter 3, 1 through 7, and that will get us started.

So 1 Peter 3, 1. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair or putting on a gold jewelry or clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed

Abraham, calling him Lord, and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that's frightening. Now, Hannah, we wanted to have you on because you seem like an example of someone, particularly that you can find on Twitter, who is regularly tweeting on the subject of the patriarchy in general, which is somewhat odd.

I mean, most people are pretty embarrassed or ashamed or humiliated at this word, but then your

Twitter handle is PatriarchyHannah. So we thought based on that fact alone that we would have you as a guest and that you could set us straight about why you're doing this in the type of world that is dead set on trying to smash the patriarchy.

So what are your thoughts on this? Well, I didn't start off on Twitter intending to just talk about patriarchy all the time.

And I do like to always clarify that we're talking about biblical patriarchy, which is not the same as whatever is going on in the world.

But I think it's important. And I think, you know, following God's commands to have biblically set up homes is something that's really going to make a huge difference in the state of our country, in the state of the church.

It's kind of something that we've lost sight of. And a lot of women struggle with the idea that they know that they are supposed to submit to their husband, but they don't know how to do that.

And they don't know what that looks like. So part of what you're doing on Twitter is trying to help let them know that it's not this deathly, terrifying concept that it's actually kind of a normal thing that they should be embracing.

Yeah, it's just normal. It's not terrible. It's actually awesome. So why patriarchy and why not complementarians?

So you're intentionally choosing this word patriarchy instead of maybe the more milder term complementarian, which,

I mean, most of your big name evangelical people are going to try to prefer complementarian over patriarchy.

So why your specific choice of the word patriarchy? And what do you think about the complementarian movement in general?

So complementarianism basically was kind of developed in the 80s,

I think, by John Piper. And he wrote a book and kind of purposefully avoided the hierarchical language.

And it was just kind of to appease feminism in the church in a lot of ways. And I believe in being bold.

So we're not going to, you know, let's not beat around the bush. We're not talking about, you know, male authority.

But then they can't really, like, you know, use the authority. So they're kind of neutered.

Like, you know, this is patriarchy. He rules the house. It's still awesome. So you're wanting to lean into that word.

You basically consider complementarianism to be kind of a weakened, neutered, you know, effeminate kind of form of patriarchy.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's like egalitarian life pretty much. So what I'm curious about is, though, how did you come to those kind of convictions?

So what, you know, got you to the place where you—like, is there some sort of story behind this?

Or is this just something that seemed obvious to you from the start? Or, you know, is this related to some kind of church circles you're running in?

Or, you know, how did you get to a place where you've, like, embraced this word that must not be named?

Many people, you know, many people, when they hear this word, they basically assume that you hate women. They do. Why do you hate women?

And then why are you using this word? Well, I don't know how long you want this podcast to go, but I can list a lot of reasons why

I hate women. No, just kidding. Love women. But, I mean, I got here because my husband told me this is where we were going to be.

But I'm not associated with anything. I just realized that when I was doing normal Twitter posts about my husband leaving our home in a way that seems extremely normal to me, the replies

I would get were just, like, out of control. And so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to tweet about it more.

And now I just tweet about, like, our normal, everyday, very boring life. And I don't know.

It seems, like, amazing to a lot of people. It's fascinating to me, personally.

That's pretty funny, your response after getting pushback from people.

I'm curious to hear what this pushback was, but I want to make this comment first. It seems like your response when people were basically coming at you and,

I assume, telling you that you were wrong for the way that you were living your life, your response was to say, well, okay,

I guess I'll just talk about it more. It seems like a lot of people, what they do is you read the

Bible, and then you say, okay, I'm going to follow what the Bible says. Obviously, Tim read the passage just a few minutes ago that clearly says, wives, submit to your husbands.

I mean, there's no words minced in any of that.

It's pretty clear what the command is. But then a lot of times, it seems like people, especially some evangelical leaders, when they get pushback on these kinds of things, they try to back off of it.

But then you decided to just talk about it more. I find that pretty interesting.

What's the thought process behind wanting to talk about it more? And then also, I would love to hear just some anecdotal.

What were people saying to begin with? I don't know. I guess I'm just a rebel.

I was like, I'm just going to patriarch harder. I just found it fascinating.

And I just was like, okay, I guess I'll just talk about it more. Maybe people will understand that it's not my husband bashing me over the head with anything.

It's just literally just normal. But I get a lot of messages about how

I'm abused, how I promote abuse. A lot of the initial pushback was like, this is not normal.

This is what we call abusive relationships. You've been brainwashed. You have Stockholm syndrome and all of these things.

And it was like, yeah, I just don't think that that's true. But maybe

I do have Stockholm syndrome. We'll see. She's confessing.

Maybe we could help her figure it out. No, it is funny because this is one of those topics that I've noticed particularly in church circles where my impulse has always been just to talk about gender roles in a fairly straightforward way.

So to do so without apology, just to talk about husbands have a responsibility to lead their wife.

Wives have a responsibility to submit to their husbands. One of the things I've noticed is that almost every single sermon that I've ever heard on this topic in general has always been the kind of sermon where there's very, very few exceptions to this.

But almost every single one, you have the nervous pastor who's talking about this topic, who is basically just spending most of his time apologizing for what he's about to say and giving all these qualifications.

And I know this is going to be hard. I know that this has potential for misunderstanding, and we don't want to get carried away with this and that kind of thing.

And so in the vast majority of sermons I've actually listened to, most of the pastors, they're trained to talk about patriarchy, complementarianism, male -female roles, whatever word they're using.

They're trained to talk about it in such a way that it's scary. It's dangerous.

They spend most of their time apologizing about it. And personally, I've never respected those kind of guys.

The moment they start doing that, that's like a cue to me to say that, man, their home probably is pretty unhealthy, actually, because you can't embrace something that you're just deathly afraid of.

If you're going to treat this as if it's just a plague or something like that, then don't expect me to think that you're actually living it out and you're actually living it out with a good attitude and you actually know what it's talking about.

Because that's just not the way you talk about good things in general. You don't talk about good things as if they're just these scary, dangerous, be careful, be afraid kind of dialogues.

With me, I've been in denominational meetings with different denominational leaders.

And if I just talk about authority and submission in a very straightforward way, they just look at me as if I'm just some monstrous dictator or something like that, or if I'm just some kind of tyrant who's just probably ruling my wife with an iron fist or something.

Maybe I don't even let her wear shoes or something like that when she cooks or something.

But that's essentially their perspective out of it. But then it's interesting to see that on your end, you seem to – whatever your life history has got you to where you're at, you've gotten to a point where you've just fully stepped into talking about this topic in a very straightforward way.

I even see you regularly posting pictures of yourself making your husband a sandwich.

And so it seems like you've stepped into the woman -make -me -a -sandwich joke pretty fully there. So do you have any thoughts about that?

Why do you post pictures of the sandwiches you make for your husband? Yeah, the sandwiches are – it's just the running joke, the make -me -a -sandwich.

We need to get women back in the kitchen, back into the sandwich making. That is pivotal to turning this country around.

It's like women, you too could be making sandwiches like this.

I don't know if I've ever quite heard it put that way, but I think that's a beautiful way to describe it.

If we want to fix this country, it doesn't come down to who we elect into office.

It doesn't come down to what policy that we push through our government. It comes down to who is making the sandwiches.

That's beautiful. I really appreciate that. Yeah, and I would like to point out that it's not just the egalitarians that get upset with me.

I think I get more – I probably get more DMs about how my relationship is not healthy from people that identify as complementarian.

Yeah, so can you give some examples of that? Give some – if you have any off the top of your head, like of things that seem like perfectly normal to you but then that trigger complementarians.

So I mean I know that most complementarians are basically just closet egalitarians, but then maybe – do you have any examples that you could give for the sake of us having some entertainment?

Yeah, well, I made a post one time about how my husband would not let – he did not want me to go on like a girls' trip.

And that he was fine with me going, but we had less children then, and he was going to rent a condo in the same building because he didn't think it was a good idea for all of us to just be running around Florida, all us women.

So he was like, I'll just stay in the same building, and I'll just be there. And my friends that were going, they freaked out, and so I just ended up not going.

And I got a bunch of DMs about that, that it was like, he has to let you go. He shouldn't say no. And it's like, how does this work?

Like, does your husband just never say no to you? You just do whatever and he makes it work?

That doesn't seem like the way that a healthy household works. But that was one that got like a ton –

I got a ton of messages about that in particular. But anytime I post anything about him saying no to me or doing something that I may not like 100 % love, that's, you know, the messages are going to come pouring in that he's just terribly mistreating me, that we should totally be in alignment all the time before he makes a move.

But it seems like the message is that he should align with me and not the other way around. And I don't understand how you reconcile that biblically, but that's what they tell me.

It seems like in the minds of many people, submission is kind of this idea that – particularly complementarians.

And so like in the complementarian world, submission seems to be this hypothetical idea that functionally should almost never happen.

So it seems to be this idea where the husband like technically has some sort of like tie -breaking authority.

Like he has some kind of tie -breaking authority that functionally he should probably never use. And so if he's going to live with his wife in an understanding way, essentially what he needs to do is he needs to figure out what she wants to do.

And his responsibility kind of as a servant leader is to figure out what his wife wants to do in any given situation and then do that.

And then maybe in some rare situation, like there might be some rare scenario where they're just – they don't agree and then he's going to have some tie -breaking vote.

But then he probably should – that probably should never happen. And so in the minds of many people, it seems like that's their view of authority to where functionally if a husband is loving his wife like Christ loves the church, what woman wouldn't – as they say, what woman wouldn't want to follow that kind of guy?

And functionally like he should never be asking her to do anything that she's remotely troubled with.

But it seems like that's your experience too based on what you're saying. But do you have any more examples of that?

I've gotten messages about him. He approves my clothes.

And I'm not a guy. I don't know like what dudes look at. It's not really that serious.

But that's another one. I've spoken about how I don't think women should wear two -piece bathing suits in public, and I'll get messages about that.

And he's like super controlling, and that's terrible because I guess

I should be allowed to just run around with all my body parts out that I want out. And I mean it's pretty much just a lot of that.

It's a lot of – Isn't that weird though? Isn't that weird, like that one? Because most women dress men. I feel like it's pretty weird.

Wait, what's weird? That my husband approves my clothes? No, it's weird to think that like on the other end, like most women wouldn't bat an eye to tell their husband that they're not liking something that he wears, right?

I would think so, yeah. I mean most of the women I know, like when they've gotten married to people like I know, essentially all of a sudden their wardrobe just radically changes.

Like the guy goes from being like dressing like a slob to all of a sudden he's dressing a lot different. And I know it's because like the lady is like exercising some kind of input in the very clothes that he's wearing at this point.

Right. But then when you reverse the roles, it's like if a guy were to say, hey, you're showing off too much there.

It's like, oh man, like handmaiden's tale, like what's going on here? Right. And so isn't it kind of weird double standard there that I mean –

Get the burqa. Do you think – That's it. Don't tell your wife what she can't wear or you might as well put her in a burqa.

It is strange and it's a lot of – It's all about,

I feel like it's just all about appeasing the woman. It's fine for her to tell you that that sweater is ugly and that you should throw it away.

But don't tell her that she can't wear a string bikini. If you have to make a decision that she doesn't like, you should be really sad about it and sorry that it has to happen and find another way to appease her.

All of this like compromise everywhere, which compromise is, of course, important within a marriage. But it's just –

It doesn't make any sense and it's all very woman -centric and I don't understand it.

Personally, I think it makes perfect sense biblically.

If you go back and you look at the fall right after creation with Adam and Eve.

God tells Adam that Eve is basically going to try and rule over him and that was how it was going to be.

People like to always say that a wife having to submit to her husband is a consequence of the fall.

But if you read Genesis, if you read the first few chapters of Genesis, it actually seems like the consequence of the fall is that the wife will try to rule over the husband instead.

In terms of the reaction that you're getting, I think it makes perfect sense that people are messaging you.

Essentially, it sounds like trying to smuggle you out of that relationship through the patriarchal underground railroad to get you to safety because you've obviously been brainwashed by your husband.

I think it makes perfect sense why they're bringing up those objections and claiming that obviously your relationship is completely and totally abusive and terrible in every way.

I would just want to ask you, is that true?

Is your relationship with your husband, as a relationship that's trying to pursue the patriarchal, biblical view, do you feel like your relationship is a terrible, miserable mess that you desperately wish you could escape?

What does your husband allow you to say? Yeah, my husband says no. Blink twice if you think that you need escape.

No, I mean, I don't know how anyone who professes to be a Christian can say that God's way is abusive.

I totally agree with you when people take this kind of namby -pamby approach to discussing gender roles as if they're apologizing.

This is God's word. This is what God said. The ins and outs don't have to look exactly like my relationship, but the overall vibe,

I hate to use that word, but that's what it is. That's what God said it's supposed to be. If both sides are doing their part in that right, your relationship is going to be happy.

It's going to be great. It's not abusive. One of the things that's interesting, listening to your tweets or reading your tweets and listening to you talk about the subject in general is it seems like you have some kind of sense of humor about it in general.

It's something that you joke about. You lean into the woman make me a sandwich joke by posting your pictures of sandwiches that you've made for your husband online and things like that, but it seems like you have a sense of humor about this topic.

It's one of those topics that I've noticed that most ladies are, just speaking frankly, they're wound up pretty tight about it.

They're wound up pretty tight about this topic, and it's the last thing that they would ever think to joke about because it's this thing that is supposed to be treated with this fear.

Gender roles are something that primarily the pastors feed into this, and people's attitudes in general, women's attitudes in general seem to be primarily that this is a topic that is supposed to be dominated by fear.

So it's not something you're supposed to laugh about, and joking about it is fundamentally just absolutely inappropriate.

You shouldn't be doing that. As I've taught on this subject in general in church settings, the standard kind of comment that I'll get from ladies in general is that, hey, we got to be really careful when we talk about these things because these things can be abused and all that.

It's just like fear, fear, fear. One of the things I notice is that in relationships

I do a lot of counseling, if a lady can't joke about this topic at all, if there's no humor related to it at all, if it's just this like there's no laughter, there's no whatever,

I've kind of trained myself to kind of assume that it must be something that she really struggles with.

Whereas when I see ladies that joke about it, my operating assumption is that they're able to joke about it because they've made their peace with this topic at a pretty fundamental level, and it's something they view as good, and they're not at war with the concept.

But then as the representative woman in the podcast right now, would you say that that assumption that I'm making bears itself out in reality with the women you know?

Do you assume with women who are able to laugh and joke about the topic in general, are they the ones that have an easier time at it than the ones that are just no humor whatsoever related to this topic at all?

I would say that you are pretty spot on. You know, classic patriarchal move there, spot on.

But yeah, though, my little, you know, biblical wife corner of Twitter, we all like to kind of like joke about it.

There are a lot of women that are really uptight about it. They always want to asterisk everything with like, okay, but if this and what that is, like, okay, that's not what we're doing here.

We're talking about normal, healthy relationships. And I'm not ashamed of living the way that God says that I should live, which is in submission to my husband.

And I'm not going to pretend like I'm ashamed of it. And if you're not ashamed of something, then why can't you joke about it?

So this is a conviction that you've developed, like a conviction that I'm not going to be ashamed about this.

And I'm, you know, if I'm not going to be ashamed about it, then that's going to affect even the way I'm talking about it.

And you put some thought into what that means, basically. Is that what you're saying? I mean, I didn't, I guess.

Or is it just a kind of like an intuitive? Yeah. Like, is it just an intuitive? I love this. So why wouldn't I? I just like to laugh and I think that things are funny.

And so, and this is how I live and I'm not ashamed of it. I really never intended to be the avatar face of biblical patriarchy on Twitter.

But here I am, because we don't talk about it in just like a normal way.

It's always, you know, like you said, talking about, you know, this can be abused and that can be abused.

And what if your husband, you know, does something that you don't like or is harsh with you one day or something.

And it's like, my goodness. Like, do you guys, you know, just live normal lives with normal stuff happening?

It doesn't always have to be this like big drama. Well, that seems like the primary posture that most people seem to have about this topic in general is that they're looking for ways out.

Like they're looking for ways to like wiggle out of just the plain, obvious, you know, sense of what they're talking about.

So it always leads with like the exceptions. And if you just, you know, you try to present some kind of positive vision of what this looks like, then everyone kind of loses their mind.

But I mean, is that essentially what you're saying is that most of your experience is that people are just trying to find a way out of it?

Yeah. And isn't that the way that it is with everything, though, when it comes to God's commands? There's always a lot of like, did

God really say or did he really mean this or in this situation?

Or would he really want you to submit to your husband when he's telling you that you're going to move across the country when all your family is here?

Or, you know, these situations like, yes, that is what he would want you to do. And that's what he's told you to do.

And all of the exceptions, you know, are the. You know, the times when it's not good, like if a husband is abusive or something like that,

I just don't I cannot believe that that's the norm. Right. In in the marriages that I know of that operate similarly to mine.

Those husbands are like the best husbands. Women would kill to have a woman, a husband like mine.

And so I have to believe that those things go hand in hand, though.

He is fully able to to love me as Christ loves the church, to to work with me and live in an understanding with me as the weaker vessel, because I have accepted that that's who

I am. He doesn't have to tiptoe around that fact. He can just be like,

OK, she's being emotional, weaker vessel. Let me deal with this and then move on. He doesn't get mad, you know.

And so. I don't know, I just think you have to accept that that's who you are. Women don't like that.

They even conservative women. They want to say, well, I'm weaker physically, but not in any other way.

Well, that's not what it says. And that's also not true. So I think a lot of it is just it's pride.

It's a pride issue. The world definitely is telling women that they're strong and powerful and courageous and, you know, basically a better man, you know, in every way.

Yeah, be a boss, babe. Yeah. So, I mean, that's essentially what, you know, society is intent upon portraying it every single level.

And so it's almost like some duty that a woman has to prove that she absolutely needs her husband for nothing.

Right. So like the competent woman, like the good wife is the wife who could basically do without you and would be perfectly fine if you were dead and doesn't need you in any way at all.

But that I mean, that's essentially what they're telling women. Yeah, I get that comment a lot whenever I post about how I don't do home repairs.

There's always at least two or three women who are like, I do the home repairs of my home. My husband wouldn't know where to find the toolbox.

And it's like, that's cool. But you still should need your husband. And you actually do.

So, yeah, that is like a very popular attitude. And it's very anti -woman.

And, you know, from my point of view, women are awesome. What do you mean? Women are awesome.

We are awesome at turning houses into homes and making people comfortable. Hospitality.

You know, we definitely have a lot of positive traits that men have, too, but maybe less so.

Women are courageous. We give birth. You know, that's very physical. I've personally never done it, but it's very physically difficult thing to do.

So women are tough and courageous, but in a very different way than men are.

And so when you tell women that they need to act like defective men to be successful in the world, you are denying the beauty and awesomeness of what women are.

Fair enough. So, Hannah, our main question for you today, and we've kind of talked about a lot of things related to this topic in general, but our main question for you today is how do

I effortlessly submit to an imperfect husband? And so we're looking to you to give us an answer to this, and we're emphasizing the word effortlessly there.

So the ladies want to know, you know, how do you effortlessly submit to an imperfect husband? What do you got? Well, if you want to do it effortlessly,

I would say look into a lobotomy, perhaps. That would make it easier to do it effortlessly.

I can say I wasn't expecting that answer. Hey, Human 2 .0

is on the horizon. Maybe they'll develop like Stepford Wife friendships that they can put in women.

Maybe Neuralink will help with that. Maybe so. Yeah, no, it's probably not going to be effortless.

You're probably going to have to put some work and prayer and a little introspection in it.

And sometimes it's hard not to say that one thing that you just really feel like you need to say.

And instead just say, yes, sir. Yes, my lord. Little L, you know.

You know, but the effortless part, I don't know. We can look for some psychiatrists.

Maybe they can give you some advice on that. So you can't tell the women how to do it effortlessly.

But how do you do it with effort then? You pray. You pray. And you practice self -control.

And you also recognize that your husband, why did you marry him if you can't trust him? You know,

God has given him this authority in your home. And you just have to recognize that that's what it is.

And, you know, read your Bible. What do you think most women are looking for in a husband?

Because, I mean, it doesn't seem to me to be obvious that most women today are looking for a leader. Like they're looking for something else.

And so they're not looking for someone to follow. They're looking for other things.

So what do you think they're looking for? In a lot of ways, I get the impression that they're looking for a roommate almost.

It's like two people who live in a house because they don't have the same goals. Like he has a life.

She has a life. And they bring the life together under the same roof. I don't know.

Opposite sex bestie? Something like that, yeah. With benefits? Yeah. I mean, it sort of seems that way.

But is that not what you were looking for? Were you, from the start, were you wanting, like,

I want a husband. I want a leader. I want a lowercase l, Lord. Is that what you were looking for from the beginning?

Or is there, at some point, you just transitioned into seeing that as what you needed, like what was right?

Does that make sense? Yeah. I just thought that that's what husbands were supposed to be, like always.

And so when my husband and I started seeing each other, I mean, it was obvious from the beginning.

That he was someone that could handle his business. That would lead us properly.

That he had a vision for how he wanted his life to go. And he wanted, like, a help me along the ride with him.

And it just never occurred to me to look for other things in a husband.

So I don't know. I just, I didn't read enough complementarian books,

I guess. To be corrupted? To be brainwashed, right? To be corrupted. Well, you know, and it sounds like because you committed to trying to, you know, you basically were trying to seek out what

God has said is good for a husband to be. And it sounds like you're basically asking yourself what sort of characteristics match or enable a man to fulfill the things that God, or the responsibilities that God gives to husbands.

And it seems like because you were looking for that, you know, as far as I can tell, it sounds like you found a good husband.

You know, by all accounts, a good husband. But then on the flip side, for people who are looking for the sort of, you know, roommate, bestie, with benefits kind of situation.

Essentially, those women are setting themselves up for failure because they're ultimately looking for husbands who are, you know, to put it politely, in a lot of ways, they're subpar.

Right? Is that essentially what you're saying? Your experience was like, hey, I found an amazing husband.

But then I know a lot of people who weren't looking for the same thing as me, and they ended up, you know, in a much more difficult situation with their marriage.

Yeah, pretty much. I cannot tell you that if you, I can't tell you that if you do it my way, that it will be perfect, or that you'll definitely be happy.

I definitely can tell you that this way works, because we're golden. And the other way seems like it doesn't work that well.

But maybe you can make it work. I don't know. I doubt it, though. It seems like no one's happy when everybody decides to step out of their

God -given roles, which really should be to be expected, but it seems not now.

Right, right. The men definitely aren't happy, and the women aren't happy either.

So the men, you know, they know that there's something wrong. And the ladies, I mean, when they've emasculated their husbands fully, they despise them.

Because, I mean, God obviously has designed men and women different. And He's designed men to have strengths that are corresponding to the weaknesses of women, and women to have strengths that are corresponding to the weaknesses of men.

And when you put them together and you let them play to their strengths, that's going to go well. And when you get them fighting those basic things the whole time, then they may figure out – they may get their way, but then they may realize that the person that they've – like if you turned your husband into a pathetic, no -initiative, groveling man, you may find that you don't like the person you made him into for sure.

Well, and that plays out in the statistics over and over again about divorce, about how likely you are to divorce when the wife earns more money than the husband, and a lot of different factors like that.

So I think young men have been kind of conditioned for quite a while to go against their instincts to want a properly submissive wife and have kind of been told, like, you should not want that.

You should want your wife to be your equal. You should want a career woman. You should want this, want that.

And it's difficult for everyone now because there have been so many messages that are, in my opinion, unhealthy that have been pushed on young people.

Darrell Bock Hannah, going back to the question about how do you effortlessly submit to your imperfect husband,

I know you said obviously there's effort involved, right? And that's understandable.

We're all sinful. Obviously, men are tempted to, in a lot of ways, especially in today's culture, to be extremely limp -wristed.

And then on the other hand, women are tempted to try and overtake their husband's authority in a marriage relationship.

But I was wondering, for you personally, what did you find to be the easiest aspects of trying to pursue a biblical marriage with your husband?

And what did you find to be the most difficult, both in relation to submission to your husband?

What was the easiest thing and what was the most difficult thing that you had to face in submitting to your husband?

Oh man, okay. So I think the easiest is probably financial for me personally, as in money stresses me out and him paying the bills and just giving me my allowance, which that always makes the eagles mad whenever I call it that.

But whatever you want to call it, my spending money, that's so easy for me. It doesn't bother me.

And I think a lot of women feel a little differently, which is totally fine. But the hardest is—

Is that a question about that? Do you feel like your allowance is—is it easier based on the amount of it?

Do you get what I'm saying? Sometimes women can resent the fact that maybe there isn't a lot of money to give for an allowance and they can look at their husband and kind of be resentful of that fact.

But then if you had an ample allowance, then it's like, well, this is wonderful, right? Because I have all this spending money.

So how does that map onto—how does your attitude about your allowance map onto the reality of what it is actually?

Does that make sense? I just meant it's easier that he just hands it to me and that I know what's mine to spend, what he doesn't expect me to account for.

That's just for me. And as long as I'm within that amount of money, then

I don't have to worry about if I'm spending too much or if we can afford something or something like that.

So that's what I meant. No, when we got first married, we were super poor and there wasn't a lot of money for him to hand me.

So the amount, you know, that's not what I meant. The hardest is probably, though, you know, when he's doing something and it's just not what

I want to do. And I just want to say that one thing that I just know if I say this one thing, it'll change his mind.

But he's already said that he doesn't want to hear anything else about it because that is what we're going to do, whatever it is he's doing.

That is difficult. It's very difficult. So but sometimes you just need to be quiet.

So submission is like a contrary to our title question.

Submission is actually like a word that has a meaning. And like if you have to submit, it does seem to imply in general that, you know, more often than not, like when you're like those moments where you're submitting.

Like conceptually, they seem to be moments where there's a decision that's being made that you actually don't want to do.

And you're having to, like, submit your will to something that you didn't actually choose.

Now, I mean, I think in the context of like a good marriage, like I mean, submission is obviously like more than that.

Like it's an attitude that you're looking to your husband or your boss or your pastors or elected officials, whatever.

You're looking to them as like a leader that you're following. So they actually have authority over you and you're changing your posture in that way.

But then the act of submitting itself in the moment does seem to imply that you're submitting your will mostly to something you don't want.

So in that sense, like what you're describing are like submission moments. And what you're basically saying is like submission isn't just easy.

Like it's not just like particularly when you have differences of opinion. Is that kind of what you're getting at?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is. It's moments. And yes, of course, it's easy to say like, look at me.

I'm a submissive wife. When you and your husband are in agreement about what's happening, it's much harder when you actually have to submit.

Like when you don't want to. But I think it's a way easier if you have a shared goal, a shared vision for your family, because it's not just about submitting to him.

It's about submitting to his authority as the leader to the leader that's leading your family there.

I don't know. It just makes it a little bit easier if you're like, okay, it's not just about his way versus my way.

It's about this is how he's leading our family towards our shared vision and less in the moment.

This is how we're getting to our shared vision. Does that make sense? Yeah. What is the shared?

Define that. What is your shared vision for your family? So, well, right now we're working on moving to Arkansas.

So this is actually my husband for the entirety of our marriage has had this idea that he wants a compound, essentially, where we live with a bunch of family.

And the kids can have land to build their own houses. And we're a little bit more self -sustaining.

And he has moved us all over the country to finally get to this goal.

And some of those moves I didn't want to make. But it was like we're making this move because this move will lead to this move, will lead to that move.

And we'll eventually land us where we want to be. And so that's kind of what we have been working for.

And probably everybody's like shared vision. Ultimately, your goal is supposed to be to have children that you raise in the

Lord to send out into the world. And, you know.

You guys have adopted six kids. Is that right? We have adopted 12. So, yeah, we have 13 total.

Tony had our oldest when we got married already. And I legally adopted him.

And then we've adopted 12 more. 12 more. So 13. 13. Are they all living with you right now?

No, we only have nine at home. Okay. Only nine. Only nine. All right.

So shared vision. All right. So give us some more insight. All right. So this is something that, you know, if you could catalog over the course of your marriage,

I would assume you're better at, you know, submitting now than you were at the start. Is that a fair assumption?

Yes, definitely. Okay. So what are some of the things that helped you along the way to improve?

I think him proving over and over again that he wasn't just, we joke about him being like a benevolent dictator, but that he's not actually just a dictator.

That he, you know, him showing that he does keep in mind what's best. You know, he's making these decisions for the family based on what's best for the family.

That certainly helps. It's much easier now that we've got 16 years, you know, past of him, you know, not that he's always made the right decision, but consistently making decisions that make sense for the whole family and not just himself.

That it's like, okay, well, you've got a pattern of behavior here. So I can trust you. But also just really realizing within myself that I don't know everything.

There's just a lot of things I'm not capable of doing. I am much happier when

I just don't worry about some things and trust him to make those decisions.

I think that's been really important for me. That I don't have to be at odds all the time and thinking about everything all the time.

I think women tend to overthink so much. And part of it is that we just really weren't designed to worry about some of this stuff.

Particularly as it relates to just like the direction of the family, you know, bearing the weight of responsibility for the family, things like that.

Like just the major decisions. Yeah. Those kind of things. Yeah, definitely. I just don't think we were designed to have to worry about, you know, should the family do this?

Should the family do that? Let's kind of...

I'm so sorry. I'm talking like the biggest blink right now. Overthinking kind of things like the easiest example would be like what kind of car to buy.

I've had female friends come to my husband and ask him to help them kind of, you know, decide what car to drive.

And they have all these printouts and all this different stuff, all of these different things.

And he's like, yeah, all of that is good, but this is way too much information. You are information overloading yourself because you're having a commitment problem.

And I think that's very common with women. All of information is good information. You can't possibly collect all of it.

So simple decisions like that can become overwhelming if you don't have anyone to just be like, hey, this is what we're going to do.

Sure. So, Hannah, a little bit earlier, you snuck this comment in.

And I bet you think that you did it successfully and that we weren't going to ask you about it. But you said you mentioned briefly that you say yes, sir, to your husband or yes,

Lord. Yeah, little L. That's a that's a big no, no. And the and the egalitarian worldview.

So and you're just you're just saying that nonchalantly like it's no big deal at all.

What's the deal with that? Well, it is nonchalant. It's very normal. You know, it's in the

Bible. Why? Why is that a big no, no. You know, God said that Sarah was blessed when she she referred, you know, said, yes, my

Lord, little L. Always. That's always important. You know, so.

But your husband is is your authority. You would say yes, sir, to your boss at work. Right.

Right. Yeah. Maybe not everywhere. I'm from the South. So, yes, sir. Yes, ma 'am. That's very common down here.

But don't you I mean, don't you think that, you know, if you're calling him Lord all the time, it's going to go to his head.

Yeah, he's fine. It's probably hard to get too big headed when you've got to, like, clean up the shower drains and stuff like that.

You know, so he balances it out. OK. All right. Well, Hannah, you know, as we as we wrap everything up, you know, obviously we appreciate you coming on the show, being willing to being willing to talk about these things and, you know, joke with us.

And obviously this is a topic that's in a lot of ways untouchable for for most people.

But then that's sort of the point of the podcast is we want to we want to try and ask all the questions that we know people are wondering what is the answer to.

But then they're too afraid to ask because we you know, we live in a kind of society that really likes to try and shut down conversations that they don't like.

And so we find ourselves, you know, I guess we're a little bit like you in that way. We find ourselves wanting to rebel against that.

And so so we thank you for coming on the show. And, you know, before we wrap things up, we just want to ask you, you know, hey, is there is there anything that you want to say as a as a bit of encouragement, you know, to women out there to say, hey, you know, really try and pursue this because it is a blessing.

Is there is there any sort of encouragement that you want to leave the women who might be listening with?

Yeah, I would just say giving in to. What feels like a wrong natural desire to submit to your husband, even though it's not always easy.

And the rebellion can also be natural. It is natural. You will you will be happier.

Your home will run better. It's there's nothing wrong with you. That's how God has designed us.

So just just lean into it. Just try it. I always tell people just try it for like two weeks. And if you hate the result, then go back and be egal or whatever.

And nobody has ever gone back. So thank you guys so much for having me.

Yeah, you're like, hey, look, just just try it out. And, you know, if you don't like it, then just go back to living in sin.

You know, I'm sure. Yeah, it'll be fine. All right.

Fair enough. Hannah, again, we want to thank you for giving us your time coming on the show, answering all of our questions.

And, you know, I can agree. You know, my my my relationship with my wife, you know, it improved so much when

I decided to stop putting off my responsibility as the husband to be to be the one who leads and to, you know, encourage my wife to be the one who follows and who helps me as we try and build a family that seeks to honor and glorify

God. And our life has just improved so much in so many ways that it would be impossible to try and, you know, to try and name every single way that our life has gotten better.

And so so I completely agree with you on that. And I think you're right there. And, you know, obviously, God's God's ways are higher than our ways.

He knows much better than we do. And so if we simply trust in his commands and and trust that the people who seek to follow his commands will, you know, in general, be blessed by him and trust that those commands are not only going to help us to honor him, but they're actually also meant to protect us and and bring blessing to us in a lot of ways, then then we would all probably be a lot, a lot better off and certainly in this area.

So thank you again, Hannah, for coming on. And we want to thank to our audience for, you know, for supporting us and all of the ways that you do for listening to us and, you know, donating to us financially to help us run the podcast and pay for all the things that we've got to pay for to keep doing this weekend and week out.

And, you know, for Tim and I, it really is a great joy and pleasure to talk about these things to to rebel against society and ask all the questions that you're just not allowed to ask and provide answers for those things.

And, you know, and our hope is that, you know, through through having these episodes, through having conversations like this, that God will use it to bless people, to equip them to for the works of ministry and to bring great glory to his name.

So that's our hope. We thank you guys. Hannah, again, thank you. And we look forward to having you on the next one.

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