Captain and First Officer in a Crisis Situation

Adding on to yesterdays post… 

(1) Captain and First Officer is a metaphor for marriage roles and chain of command. It is quite purposely based on Star Trek because it is immediately understood by readers as both roles being positive ones. It is extremely important that I take this approach, otherwise women almost invariably have an immediate and strong negative reaction to any suggestion of female submission and completely stop listening to anything else I have to say.

Once women can hear exactly what I’m saying, most admit to liking the idea.

(2) There are no combat situations in a marriage where a husband would need to send his wife and children to their deaths without them questioning his basic sanity. There is always time to discuss important family decisions. It’s a family unit, not a military unit.

(3) There are occasional family emergency situations where the Captain may simply give direction without discussion. If a kid falls out of a tree and breaks their leg, there is simply no time for discussion and clear instant direction is the order of the day. “You stay with the kid, I will call 911.”

(4) That being said, true emergency situations typically require immediate 911 calls as a default action. Both Captain and First Officer should be capable of acting appropriately in such situations, either alone or in tandem. Heck, the kids should know how to do this as well.

(5) True combat situations where the family is under direct physical threat of harm, the Captain and First Officer do their best to ensure the safety of the rest of the family. If need be, sacrificing their lives for the safety of the children. If there is a choice available over who lays down their life, the Captain does.

And just to underline that this is a shameless metaphor designed to speak to geeks, here’s a Captain and First Officer combat situation video lol.

And just to underline things one more time…

There is no requirement that you do any of this. It’s your marriage to live together. I’m simply describing a model of marital functioning. I don’t get upset if you have the wife as Captain and the husband as First Officer for instance; what you do in your marriage doesn’t affect my marriage. It works for Jennifer and myself, so we’re talking about it.

There’s no MMSL hell I send you to if you don’t live the Captain and First Officer lifestyle. I’m an author, not Mr. Deity.