Should I take control of our family's activities?

disposableprofessor · 2015-03-11T21:54:37+00:00

Effectively delegating responsibility is one of the most important things a leader does. By putting her in charge of something you both know she has a knack for, you're showing that you're a good leader. Doing it yourself to prove a point is the sort of thing an enraged 2 year old would do.

exbp · 2015-03-11T21:49:09+00:00

I wonder this too. My wife keeps the social calendar and plans alot of the vacations. It feels wrong sometimes but honestly I'd work until I dropped if she didn't drag us all away once or twice a year. Anything more complex than a dinner out is always cleared in advance though.

I don't think who writes the checks is as important as the decisions about money. If she's deciding how much you have to spend on X vs. Y then I think I'd have to do something about it. But if she's just doing the monthly chore of paying bills I'd leave it but supervise and ask for a summary.

TheGreasyPole · 2015-03-11T22:48:32+00:00

Why would a leader pick himself to coach his sons basketball team if his partner is Michael Jordan.

If you've got good general frame control, then you assign tasks to those with the right skills.

It only becomes a problem if it threatens the general frame you're setting, say if she's booking stuff you don't want to do and trying to enforce that over you.

rediscover03 · 2015-03-12T00:52:35+00:00

yeah, my wife is very similar in that she controls (and until now or recently I have been mostly passive about it) the calendar, social stuff, family, events, esp. travel. However, I am the only one with access to bank accounts, investments and I pay the bills. Even her school loans (I know...). So my battle is to (a) delegate slightly more of this menial stuff to her, like paying random bills, and (b) gradually fill calendar ahead of time with my stuff (which I started, with things like martial arts full Saturday seminars or some nonprofit event I want to go to) and with stuff I want us to do as a family. So to boil it down, as others have mentioned, I think it's OK to delegate, as long as you are the leader and not the follower. And definitely get involved in the calendar - you must control the agenda and get in the driver seat to make sure you guys do the shit you want and not 100% of what she wants.

BluepillProfessor · 2015-03-12T02:22:14+00:00

My wife sends me notices on my IPhone calendar. It gives her great pleasure to give me a honeydo list electronically although she rarely abuses it with bullcrap- and when she does, I hit 'reject appointment' and wait for the phone call.

On your question, the Captain controls the direction of the boat. Often the First Officer handles crew discipline and the day-to-day activities. I would definitely decide WHERE and WHEN you are going after consultation and have a basic plan but if she likes planning hotels and the annoying search for the right airline price then I am happy to say do it babe.

UEMcGill · 2015-03-12T14:40:31+00:00

There's a difference between doing and being in charge. My wife does a lot of these things but she'll still come to me with a "so that's my plan, ok?" Right there she acknowledged my leadership.

Being a leader is about managing intent, but giving people the leniency to fill in the blanks. Women, kids, direct reports all follow a path. No confidence/no experience, no confidence/experienced, gaining confidence/gaining experience, and finally confident/experienced. Your job is to get her to the end so that she says "I know what I'm doing stay out of the way".

Recognize your wife's ability and confidence and support her according to those. I

MarriedAsFuck · 2015-03-13T10:05:09+00:00

Should I take control of MY family

There... Fixed that for you.

The answer is of course yes. But to extend that to "what does yes look like?" You should drive the solutions, and let her sort out the details.

I'm the CEO of three companies. I make decisions that affect a lot of people. I'm not sitting down making every single decision for everything that happens all the time, that's why I hire smart people to assist me. Marriage is the same thing. You hired someone whose good at being a personal assistant, so let her do that. But you should be the one making the overall sweeping decisions.

"During spring break, we should go down to Florida and visit Xxxxxx Xxxxx. While we're down there, we need to go see Xxxxx Xxxxx." That's it. What airline you take, what gas station you fill up at, or what hotel you book along the way is really none of your concern. What you decide on is big decisions.

If you want to look at the captain / first officer relationship, when you watch Star Trek, and you see the captain say "put us on a course of 335 at warp 2.5, engage", you don't hear him say, "avoid that star system blargady blu, and let's be sure to not cross over into bloopity blees space", the first officer, or better yet, someone else does that. The captain just puts the big picture out there, it's other people's jobs to pick that stuff up.

Now if asked, the captain is going to have an opinion. He's not going to say "that's your job number one". So have an opinion. But stick to the big questions, and let her sort out the rest.

Title	Should I take control of our family's activities?
Author	frozencobra
Upvotes	1
Comments	9
Date	March 11, 2015 9:32 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MarriedRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/2yq2s9/should_i_take_control_of_our_familys_activities/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MarriedRedPill/should-i-take-control-of-our-familys-activities.202372 https://theredarchive.com/post/202372

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