One of us was complaining of a difficult day, I put this image on my Facebook page and donned my flame-retardant panties; braced for telling remarks. The women who became my sisters in Stepford replied with kindness. A week or so later we met for our monthly brunch and formed our club The (real) Stepford Wives. We began to institute small changes in each of our perspective marriages, some we are ashamed to admit, were suffering and some possibly headed for divorce.
The first was relinquishing all control in the bedroom and never arguing with our husbands. If there was an issue, we began discussing it with respect and giving great deference to their wishes. Not yelling back and calling them stupid. Believe it or not the bedroom was far more difficult since we were well acquainted with the idea that the woman should decide when sex should happen (if at all). Relinquishing that control, meant that we had to do it on their schedule not on ours and no excuses short of menses or contagious illness would change that.
After a month, we reported back with our personal successes and abysmal failures, giving us encouragement to continue. Next was we stopped treating our husbands like one of our children, instead asking them more for their thoughts and ideas on how we could better organize our day. They surprised us by rolling up their sleeves and giving us some pretty solid advice that we took to heart and tried. Was their advice always perfect -- no, even the best hitter doesn't hit a home run all the time. But we went back to them and asked what we were doing wrong, which opened the door to real discussion.
Each time we reported back with our successes we became empowered and emboldened to press further. We wished to increase our submission to our husbands and they were loving it.
Our husbands were not completely out of the loop, eventually they understood all too well what was going on and more important these changes were here to stay. They rewarded us with each with pearl necklaces to symbolize their commitment. They decided together as a group to do this just for us. One of our husbands remarked that people in the military are routinely given medals, as a show of appreciation, to wear on their uniform. We wives deserved nothing less!
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| Simple Strand of Pearls |
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| Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis |
It made us so proud of ourselves and them, we had discovered something very profound and felt very blessed.
