This question came up on the reddit, and I don’t think I’ve actually covered a way for wives to do it without nagging. Essentially, Cane’s analogy of learning to “bow lower” is a good one for these types of situations.
You do need to learn how to encourage (not force) him to take the reigns in the relationship if you want to succeed in the long term and not just find someone else to marry.
One way to do this is to always “bow lower” (e.g. submit to his submission) if he brings out his own submissive attitude wants you to make the decision. Example:
“I like it when you take charge and make the decisions”
If he’s really beat down in his decision making, he might say “but I want to know what you think” in which case you should not offer a decision/opinion (because he will pick that one). Instead, go over some pros of one decision and pros of another.
“I like this because [insert opinion] and I like this other because [insert opinion]. They’re both good options to me.”
Then he will have to pick between them making it actually his decision. If you did prefer one over the other but they are both good choices, just bite the bullet.
Then actually follow it up with more encouragement, appreciation, and gratitude showing that you like his decision either way (even if you didn’t like it). Might be awkward at first, but practice it is good.
Notice throughout the wifely parts of the interactions, the wife is not telling her husband what to do (“I like it when you make decisions”). She’s basically putting the ball back in his court by talking about herself and encouraging him at the same time. This is different from focuses on what the husband is not doing which is similar to and often comes off as nagging (“you should make the decisions” which is similar to nagging “you should do this and that”). The “you” is more accusatory and trying to directly influence what the husband is doing and comes off as disrespectful which directly sabotages what the wife wants to do.
Once a man gets some good decisions under his belt, he’s much more likely to start to take hold of it and run with it. Men that are beat down by the society, culture, and even the Church about decision making will be very hesitant and will often think to defer to their woman/wife. They need encouragement to take the baby steps sometimes.
They’re not going to get it anywhere else except from their woman/wives in most cases.
Indeed, for wives or anyone under authority, you need to take the same attitude of what Jesus did when He was praying to the Father: state your options but “not my will but yours be done.” Cane’s analogy was of the servants of old and serving their masters in the Bible: “what can I do that would please my lord?”. Both are the correct respectful attitude.
