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I find it really interesting how much differently my husband was affected by being around some of these teachings vs. myself. I did not read this particular book, but others of the ilk. In 8th (!) grade I did this “Bible Study” that walked through “5 Aspects of Femininity” and swallowed it whole. Perhaps certain idealistic personalities are uniquely bent towards checklist ideology, when we so badly want to do things the right way.

It certainly did me no favors when I had years of “good church girl” behavior to unlearn in order to even figure out how to name and identify emotions and find healthy ways to process them. It makes me wonder how many women just exist in a state of emotional flatness from having to squash everything down into these tiny boxes of God’s will. I was so relieved when I realized there was no scriptural precedent for emotions themselves being sinful. I’m so thankful that life became such that this framework was obviously unworkable, but I wonder how many women must become severely depressed (my own experience) before realizing this does not work.

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Oh my goodness YES. So relate to this, especially how vulnerable idealistic young women can be. Plus how the resources are specifically targeted toward them. Having read many family life resources at this point, it's noteworthy to me how quite a few of them include women describing long seasons of depression and anxiety.

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I read and studied this book in the late nineties when I had three small children and a fraught and fractured marriage. I devoured it because I was unknowingly suffering from complex childhood trauma and was desperately searching for a formula to ease my pain. For years, I tried to erase myself based on Martha’s, and conservative Christian radio pastors’, teachings. When I finally snapped at age forty nine, I began the long hard road toward freedom and the authentic me. Thank you for this very astute and calm dissection of a book that has done so much damage to so many women. I don’t believe in banning books, but for this one, I might make an exception!

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"erase myself" - that really says so much. That ends up being the strong undercurrent in so many of these teachings. It makes so much sense how you and many women turned to these resources to help make sense of an impossible situation. So thankful you found a way out of that and an alternate path forward.

I really do hope the next generation will be empowered to just toss this straight into the trash.

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I grew up attending a very geriatric congregation where the hot new books never made the rounds, so I was spared a lot of the weird relationship books of the late 90s/early 2000s. But when I got married in 2020, and tried applying some of the more extreme teachings I found online about womanhood, my not-Christian husband was like “what are you even doing?” It was as if I was so desperate to be a good wife (whatever that looked like), that I mimicked the most strict formulas.

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I so relate to this. My husband had a similar response when a few years in he heard what kind of things were included in the "Christian wife" resources. He was appalled.

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I am a newly-wed who was gifted this book by a young, married friend at my bridal shower. I would imagine she was given it by someone in our childhood church that she still attends. I am familiar with the teaching, knew what I was getting into, and read it almost ironically. The author presupposes wives are the problem. I find the teaching that “spiritual maturity” = “life’s trials don’t affect you” to be a very prevalent and harmful in modern conservative evangelicalism.

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100% Wives are the problem. It's w-i-l-d to me how the expected undecurrent is for the wives to constantly evaluate her own sinful motivations, even for ordinary desires, but the equivalent is never really indicated. Husbands are given license to continue acting badly in Martha's framework, and a wife cannot have anything to say about it unless she can find a Bible verse with which to reprove him. Even then, she may find herself with only the option to suffer for righteousness' sake, etc. etc.

I think your story encapsulates how this gets passed on. These resources are pushed on people in vulnerable moments and they continue to circulate it b/c that's what they were given. So thankful you were able to read it with a critical eye. Absolutely. The idealization of detachment as a spiritual good is in a lot of self-help style Christian resources.

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This is so life-giving!

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Thank you for reading! I am glad it resonated!

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This was very interesting! Is this directly related to Complementarianism?

Did you ever look in the Exemplary Husband book to see what husbands were supposed to be doing with their obedient families?

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I have not! I'm kind of curious now to see what EH had to say. I do think this is directly related to complementarianism. I think many comps don't take this to these extremes, but Martha is really carrying it out in a scrupulous way, so I think it really spotlights the flaws with this kind of thinking.

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Oof, so sorry to hear you had such a suffocating, misogynistic young adulthood. Really glad you made it out. Speaking of years the locusts have eaten!

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Thank you! ❤️‍🩹

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The "illusion of control" present in all these Christian teachings - as you nail it - sums it all up excellently. Honestly I am nauseous even to think of all of this. It is all about control, manipulation and abuse. And tons of ill brains.

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It is such a trap, and it can really keep so many people stuck since it comes with spiritual language. Just heartbreaking.

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According to my experience, religious language is mostly used to manipulate and gaslight people. Mind you, I am not saying that the latter is always intentional - even far from it. Actually one needs to be gaslighting and invalidating themselves in the first place so that they can then invalidate others (through religious talk, in this particular case). Siply put, in most religious talk (again, not all but in most!) we are witnessing good old poor self-worth, passed down through generations/communities/churches/schools, etc.

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If you have time or inclination, could you point me to some helpful critiques of David Powlison, in particular? No worries if you would rather not. Grace and peace.

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So I have not read much of his devotional writing. The general sense I have from the history of the nouthetic movement and after reading his book tracing the history of it from an insider's perspective is that he seems to be one of the early leaders who was able to see some of the short-comings of the movement later on and suggest some course-corrections. However, most of his devotional titles seem to be very much still parked in the nouthetic-counseling camp, which I think is fundamentally flawed.

The primary reason he is on my radar is because Tedd Tripp thanks him and Adams in his foreward and credits both men with helping shape his parenting philosophies. I will let you know if I come across anything though!

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Thank you.

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Thank you for the work and heart you put into this piece, Marissa. I’m wondering what you think about having older mentors, in the church or otherwise. Some would say older people have good wisdom and life experience and we shouldn’t cut ourselves off from this mentorship. Others might say we don’t need anyone telling us what to do and we should live our truth. As usual, I see the both/and: certainly wisdom and input from others who are healthy can be helpful and I also think we were trained to over-rely on others instead of listening to ourselves and looking inside ourselves for whatever discernment God is giving us. Just because someone is older doesn’t mean they are good role models or have the right to speak into our lives. Counseling women and couples of all ages has certainly taught me this as I am the one in the position of teaching skills or guiding clients decades older than me. What do you think?

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This is such a great question! I think your insight is a good one - that learning from older people can be wise and they have much life-experience to offer, but, as with inviting counsel from anyone, it's important to remember it's just another person's opinion. As a young Christian woman, I remember feeling such a longing for a mentor - I saw many peers had one and it seemed like such a special relationship - to have an older woman kind of advise you with how to do adult life. But thinking back now *as an older person* I think - gosh, no! To give one individual (even a healthy person!) that much influence is perhaps unwise. So often, too, that kind of mentorship "older" could mean just a few years older. In that sense, the couple that hosted the Bible study "mentored" us, but they had little life experience to offer. It's kind of like reading all these parenting books by "experts" who have children still in elementary or even teen age. YES, they have wisdom to offer, but they are still in process and very much learning, too.

I also think you make such a good point re: counselors and age being only one kind of qualification. I kind of think this about mentoring. Same thing could be extended to other demographics. Like, I don't think I knew any young Christian women who were encouraged to seek out single mentors. It was almost always older mothers. Which is rather revealing too.

Maybe the takeaways here are: humility is key in every relationships, because that leads to someone encouraging younger people to seek out other wise voices. In the body of Christ, we all need each other! Everyone matters!

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Oh Marissa, thank you so much for this. I feel so seen. ❤️ We are both caring for our younger selves from 20 years ago. Your words are astute and helpful in analyzing how these ideas together are so harmful. Praying as we continue to heal. 🙏🏼

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You are so very welcome. And thank you for these kind words. YES. Healing is hope-ful. ❤️‍🩹

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That was a great podcast that you and Tia did with Sheila on this book, BTW! Probably my favorite Bare Marriage episode of the year.

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Thank you for joining us for conversation! I really enjoyed the time with them!

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Remembering this book still gives me the heebie-jeebies. (I physically shudder.)

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For good reason. Whew, revisiting it - even so much worse than I remembered.

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Yes. "Erase yourself" is exactly the mentality of those books. Ugh.

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I would chuck that book too. This is not God’s heart toward women! “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

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