I go to a fantastic Antiochian parish. It’s a great home.
This is gold. As a marriage and family therapist myself - this is all so true and it was hard to wrap my mind around it and put it into words as you so eloquently did.
Curious… as a man can you speak more on how to “maintain leverage” and how compromise isn’t always good?
Question, as a marriage therapist, why are you looking for a spouse? I'd presume you are experienced? I took you as a younger man.
"Leverage" really is not a good thing in all honesty. However, obligation is something that keeps people on the straight and narrow. So, for example, ideally grandparents are very hands-on with their grandchildren out of the goodness of their heart. However, if they have nowhere to live, almost no social security, etcetera and economically rely upon their children the children have more leverage to acquire the services of the grandparents. The grandparents, loving their grandchildren and children oblige and honestly are probably happier being involved with family, but it is the financial leverage exercised over them that in effect forces them to do the right thing.
So, leverage exists in every relationship. The person without leverage is generally at the mercy of the person who has the leverage. This can be abusive, but depending upon the individuals it may also be beneficial. It all depends upon, ultimately, what the person with leverage is demanding of the other person.
For example, if a wife threatens to divorce her husband and create financial Armageddon if he pursues an affair, she in effect is holding her family together. If she does the "Christian" thing and says, "Like Hosea I will forgive you even if you are being adulterous" then most likely the husband will not bother correcting his behavior. Here, exercising leverage is the right thing to do.
As a contrary example, if a wife threatens to divorce her husband and create financial Armageddon if he is doing absolutely nothing wrong, but based on unjustified suspicions, she might have effectually neutered her husband. He'll be walking on egg shells. But she is tearing her family apart. Her relationship with him will not have any trust (even though she is "keeping him honest") and it actually puts the husband in the situation that it would make no difference if he actually went ahead and had an affair. So, sure she has leverage by trying to have one over on him, but to what positive effect? The "Christian" thing to do in this situation would in fact be like God, keep no record of wrongs, and keep one's mind on what is good and pure.
The beauty of both examples is that they demonstrate how leverage can be used both positively and negatively, and that the "Christian" thing is applied situationally as often we lack the discernment to know when God metes out justice, but also when He relents and forgives. He does not do so arbitrarily, He does so with the goal of maximizing our repentance and faith.
So, from the preceding you may see how compromise is not always good. A wife, generally, cannot compromise with a philandering husband. Likewise, a husband cannot compromise with a wife that constantly berates him over things he is not doing. Compromise, in these situations, actually encourages negative, soul and relationship-destroying behaviors.
To sum this up, Sacred Tradition teaches that men should be head of the household and sacrifice for the wife and family, women should submit (but win their husbands over through silent and edifying means), children should obey. There must be a willing consent--but leverage rightly used is what ensures consent to the right things. If people seek to exercise leverage outside of these roles where there is mutual obligations, they disintegrate the very basis for the relationship. To go back to my original example, it would be like the destitute grandparents that won't watch after your kids after school when you are finishing up work and driving home. If those grandparents don't help when they need your help, then you lose your job and can't (and won't) help them. Hence, by fulfilling these mutual obligations, hands are not idle, minds are not in the gutter, and people know their place within a larger organization.
It is simple economics when it comes to marriage. If financial incentives remove the leverage a man has over a relationship, his "headship" borders on fantasy as even a faithful Christian wife will be bombarded by the temptations to dominate her husband and the husband will have little means to stop it, as he has no leverage in which to defend himself. In the same way, if we are to speak of past times, if the Church is to tolerate physical abuse and marital infidelity from the husband and the wife has no means of support apart from him and no recourse from church or state, what leverage does she have to defend herself.
So everyone needs leverage. Everyone seeks leverage. Not everyone uses leverage for the benefit of others, either our of sinfulness or simple ignorance (not knowing what to do). So this requires wisdom, discernment, and the desire to fulfill a function within a relationship that has mutual obligations.
