My Marriage Is Not Equal

Almost seven years ago my husband and I began this journey in our marriage known as domestic discipline and a few years later this blog was born. From the beginning we have been met with two things: an outpour of thanks and support, and criticism. We knew this was part of going public with this lifestyle, and to this day we don’t regret it.

Awhile back ago we were doing a radio interview that featured both support and criticism and one of the broadcasters proclaimed “I can’t imagine having something like this because in my marriage my wife and I are equals.” This was followed by another individual, this time a woman, backing him up. “I agree!” she said, “my husband and I have an equal marriage and anything else is just crazy!”

“My marriage is equal!” I fought back. Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be? It was a ridiculous argument, I thought.

This continued for quite some time. In fact, almost every critique the lifestyle received seemed to have the general tone of “equality”. Men and women should be equal in all areas of life, including marriage. There was once a thread in a marriage/relationship group on the popular forum site CafeMom which asked “In your house who ‘wears the pants’?” The thread had 462 responses from women all over the world, and well over half of the stated “We both do – we have an equal marriage.”

I continued to defend the “equality” complaint I heard with the same defense – “My marriage is equal too!”, but did I really believe that? Did I even know what I was saying? I’ll be honest — not really. But it just didn’t see right to say “my marriage isn’t equal!”. It seemed crazy, barbaric, so..not 2014. Just so..wrong.

At some point, which I can’t really pinpoint when but it was at least a few months ago I finally hit the realization. My marriage is not equal. It just isn’t. But then I started thinking, is anyone’s? Whether domestic discipline is a factor or not, does anyone truly have an equal marriage? Someone always has the “upper hand”, “the control”. This is why anyone (experts, your family, marriage blogs, etc.) will tell you that compromise is an amazing thing in marriage. If you’re compromising, then how is that equal? (And before anyone starts, I am not saying that you shouldn’t compromise in marriage, alright?) The main difference is in non-domestic discipline marriages that power almost always shifts, therefore creating the illusion that the marriage is equal. In domestic discipline marriages, the power does not shift.

My husband has the “upper hand”, he has majority of the power, and although he always takes my opinion into consideration before making decisions, he makes the final decisions. So yes, the critics were right, my marriage is not equal. But does it have to be? 

I can make a pretty lengthy list of times when I very reluctantly sat back while my husband made a decision that I was not happy about, but I can also make an equally long list of times when I did that and it turned out perfectly – better than I could have imagined. This is not to say my husband is perfect. But, it is to say that he makes good decisions a very large percentage of the time, and because of that I trust him to be the leader of our house and thus to “make our marriage unequal”.

It’s taken me awhile, and a lot of deep thinking, to come to the conclusion that my marriage truly is not equal. But, it is full of love, happiness, respect, and so many other things. I don’t need it to be “equal” in order to be happy, not even close.