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33 Things Christian Men Should Know About Women

Tags: woman

A common lament from chaste Orthodox men I meet is their lack of experience in dealing with women who are more socialized than them. How can these men understand women, identify one with strong faith, and make confident decisions concerning marriage? As an unmarried middle-aged man, I stress to them how I’m not in a better situation, but they nonetheless feel that I can give them profitable lessons in their quest to enter an Orthodox marriage due to my excessive secular experience.

I have tried to be thoughtful about what I’m about to share so as not to interfere with God’s will in bringing together man and Woman in one flesh within the Church sacrament of marriage, because most of my experiences with women took place sinfully outside of marriage, causing me to lose all manner of healthy child-like innocence when viewing the opposite sex. I do not consider myself bitter, but I am surely cynical from partaking in behaviors that went against the commandments of God for so many years. If you perceive undue pessimism or even anger in my words, it is due to the damage I inflicted upon myself, not because God made a mistake in how he constructed man or woman. If you participate in evil for a prolonged period of time, you will carry distorted views of reality even long after repentance.

It could be possible that a secular woman you have feelings for will possess every negative trait I’m about to describe. When a woman lacks spiritual life, she does not struggle against her passions and sins, or even think they are wrong. On the other hand, the Orthodox women I’ve met and observed possess at least a basic desire for moral goodness, and will automatically be more suitable for marriage. However, some Orthodox women are more zealous than others, and they all swim in a putrid secular fishbowl. The tainted water corrupts us without our conscious awareness, and so it’s not uncommon for an Orthodox woman to possess deep-seated secular beliefs that can strain a marriage. You must be discerning when it comes to identifying any beliefs that would be detrimental to maintaining a Christian family home.

I will often use the secular word “game” in this article. Game is a collection of psychological and behavioral techniques to attract a woman physically and emotionally for the purpose of fornication and fleshly pair bonding. Game includes: approaching an unknown woman in a public place while play-acting as a confident man, optimizing one’s aesthetic so that it pleases worldly woman, using salesman techniques of rapport building and scarcity to make a fast “sale,” hiding flaws while showcasing strengths, deliberately pumping up a woman’s emotions, lying, omitting the truth, putting a woman in a negative state of anxiety or dread to modulate her attractive feelings, and exploiting a woman’s human weaknesses for selfish gain.

In the game process, God is absent, and the primary goal of the man is to satisfy his selfish craving for positive female attention, worldly love, and physical pleasure. Even if you claim to desire abstinence before marriage, you can still be using game by implementing secular techniques to meet women, get their phone number, arrange dates, and so on. A sign you are not using game is if you adhere to the old cliché “be yourself,” where yourself is a child of God who follows His commandments with the understanding that marriage is a sacrament whose purpose is to usher two souls into heaven. The Christian way is to trust in God to pair you with a woman who is on your social and spiritual level instead of pretending to be an alpha male to deceive a woman into liking you using mostly physical and psychological means.

That said, here is a list of general guidance for men who want to pick the right woman for marriage in an Orthodox courtship where the man clearly expresses to the woman beforehand that no intimacy can take place until they are united in one flesh through the Church sacrament of marriage.

1. Assume that you will never change her

Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. —Proverbs 31:10-12

It’s a fatal temptation for a man to look at a woman, especially a young one, as a tabula rasa, a blank slate for him to mold into his perfect, traditional wife who bakes cookies and croissants all day. Such a man sees all her flaws and thinks that, with time, he can eradicate them one by one as if using a laser beam. Or he sees her annoying personality traits and thinks that he can dampen them with a sort of punishment-reward stratagem. This is delusion. Who she is is who she is, and if she does change, it will be entirely dependent on her own will and its cooperation with God to serve the good. Any immediate change you do see in her, without much in the way of effort, should be viewed with suspicion.

Do you know how hard it is to change a single behavior, personality trait, or quirk? For example, I have the bad habit of taking the Lord’s name in vain by saying the word “Jeez” as an exclamation. For a couple of months, I have tried mightily to stop using this term, but I have not yet been successful. I have a bad habit of eating past 8pm. I’m grumpy in the mornings. I’m overly sensitive to noise and odors. I prefer socializing only in the evening. I have innumerable preferences that a potential wife may not like and will try to change, but chances are she will fail until I’m enlightened by God to work harder at correction not for my sake but for the sake of the marriage.

Through God’s grace, I’ve been able to step away from sinful behaviors, but the little things that are entrenched into my personality, and which do not pose an immediate risk to my salvation, have remained. This is also the case with women. Do not assume you will change her. Do not assume you can even get her to grow her hair an inch longer than it already is. Do not assume she will change at all. Of course a woman will do many things to please her man, such as to lose a few pounds or dress differently, and she may be motivated to improve for you in a way that she didn’t while single, but don’t expect immediate, permanent change.

2. Women are capable of deceiving men

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones.
—Proverbs 12:4

The more secular a woman is, the more likely she will set out to deceive a man without ever believing she is being deceptive. How this plays out is that everything will seem to be going well with her while in a romantic relationship, and then one day you are blindsided by her shocking behavior. I wrote books on women, thought I knew them better than myself, but was still badly deceived by them, because as a man, we are not given natural tools to spot every female deception under the sun. There are thousands—perhaps millions of men—who came home one day and stumbled upon a horrible discovery that changed their lives forever. In heartache, they concluded that they never really knew their significant other at all.

It’s possible for a woman to pretend to be someone she is not, sometimes for many years and certainly for the short amount of time needed to put forth a favorable impression and cement a man’s affections during courtship. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Depending on how skilled she is, the lie may be something as minor as a political opinion she’s hiding to not displease you or as serious as living an entirely different lifestyle behind your back. The man who is lusting after a woman will not be able to see through the deception, but a chaste man whose eyes and ears are not tainted by lust should be able to see through any false façade by picking up on inconsistencies in behavior while continually self-checking whether she is “too good to be true.”

At the risk of getting philosophical, I believe that women themselves don’t know when they’re being deceptive or not. Their behavior is subconsciously driven to maximize the rewards received from a man with whom they want to be in a relationship. On the other hand, it is unlikely that a woman is consciously deceiving you if she is open about confessing all her flaws and problems.

3. If her spirit and behavior are more secular than Orthodox, she is abiding by the secular world

Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, But what is in the heart of fools is made known. —Proverbs 14:33

A fish may strongly desire to be a healthy fish, but if it’s swimming in polluted water, many of its biological functions will be impaired. As sincerely as we wish to be Orthodox, the waters around us are dirty and foul, and though our intentions may be good, we simply cannot block out all the toxic effects that are seeping unaware into our souls. I believe that even listening to one pop song can be damaging to the soul, and yet if we don’t voluntarily listen to such music, we are subjected to it every time we walk into a retail store.

It’s great that a woman goes to Liturgy every Sunday and confesses her sins and receives Communion, but it is not great if for the six remaining days of the week she is glued to her smartphone, watches Netflix, attends a university, listens to rap music, reads feminist influencers online, uses TikTok, watches reality television, follows celebrity gossip, and participates in Snapchat exchanges with men. In such a case, her behavior will be more driven by secular trends than her faith, driving her away from traditional family life.

If I met a woman who consumed over 20 hours of secular content a week, but spent only 5 hours on her faith, yet proclaimed to me that she wants to be a traditional wife, I would think she’s confused, because it’s not traditional to be attached to worldly content streamed from her smartphone. If, however, another woman said she wants to be traditional, and shares a sentiment of hatred toward the modern world, and I can hardly get in touch with her because she leaves her smartphone off for most of the day, I can be more assured that she is sincere.

Since a woman’s smartphone is an extension of her personality and innermost desires, I may ask any female I’m considering if she can show me all the apps installed on her phone. If she has all the popular social media apps, and not even a single Bible or prayer app, you have an answer.

Just because a woman is Orthodox does not mean you must throw away all discernment and think everything will be fine. She is still a product of this corrupt world and you must keep your wits about you to see if she possesses the most important qualities needed to be a wife and mother. You must examine her flaws and ask yourself if you can endure them, and ask if your flaws can be endured by her. You don’t want a woman exclaiming “I’m Orthodox” to cause you to close your eyes and jump in without discernment.

4. A woman who maintains a perfect physical appearance may crave validation from men more than God

And there a woman met him, with the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious, her feet would not stay at home. At times she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking at every corner. —Proverbs 7:10-12

It is my experience that the more time a woman invests into her external appearance, the less time she invests in the internal (her soul). This was most vividly shared with me during my long-ago stint in Ukraine, which had the most beautiful women out of all the nations I’ve visited. Part of their beauty was natural, as the beauty of Slavic women is renowned, but much of it is time spent on manual physical enhancement at the beauty salon.

On my dates with Ukrainian women, they revealed to me how much time they spend on their hair, nails, makeup, skin, clothing, and so on, and yet those same women could not tell me the last book they read. It turned out that I—as an impassioned foreign tourist—was selecting the most materialistic women in Ukraine who wanted to trade their beauty for an increase in adventure or living standard. Consider that these women spent a huge percentage of their low incomes simply on beauty upkeep, which in hindsight was depressing because Ukraine is an Orthodox country with God’s bottomless grace available to them if they walked around the corner of their home into a church. I enabled their materialistic behavior by giving them my attention, interest, affection, and time in the hopes of a carnal reward.

Be on guard for a woman who has excessive concern for her appearance, because that may signify that her flesh is getting more maintenance than her soul. That will be a large problem for a passionate secular man who marries her, because a woman’s vanity may only please his eyes for a short period of time.

5. You will not choose a woman with wisdom if your passions are elevated

With her enticing speech she caused him to yield, with her flattering lips she seduced him. Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till an arrow struck his liver. As a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost his life. Proverbs 7:21-23

Passions are fleeting, temporary, and capricious. Making life decisions based on your passions and emotional urges is like building a house on sand. If a passionate woman likes you, it is more likely because you please her physically and emotionally in the current moment, not because she has assessed your faith and values for the long term. Passionate secular men, of which I was one, want to be pleased in the moment. They think that every flight of fancy that enters their mind is a worthwhile pursuit that can maximize their happiness. It was my unbridled passion that allowed me to waste two decades of my life, selecting the wrong women continually for bodily pleasure, pride, and masculine ego gratification. I had built my whole life on sand and realized at a late hour what a folly that was.

If you meet a woman you like, and for the next few days you can’t even think straight because your mind is whirring with fantasies about how beautiful she is and how great your future life will be and how many children you will have, you are aflame with passion and emotion. Even adrenaline may be at play if you find it hard to sleep because of thoughts concerning her. This behavior is actually feminine, codified in hundreds of romance novels. We are men, not women, and must check ourselves when we enter “romance novel” mode, of which I have done innumerable times.

It’s safer instead to make a more detached assessment that allows logic to reign so that you can build any future relationship on rock instead of sand. One sign you are proceeding correctly is if you’re patient and take your time to evaluate a woman before even speaking with her. If there is a woman in my church who I’m interested in, I will not immediately strain to talk to her. Instead, I will observe her from a distance, politely ask about her situation to married parishioners or church elders (without fishing for gossip), and then contemplate the matter for days or weeks until I can make a calm assessment of whether it’s even reasonable to have a conversation with her. On the other hand, if I see a new girl in the church and run up to her after the Liturgy with a church pickup line, I’m simply following my passions.

I am surprised how much pickup culture has infused into the minds of young Orthodox men, but I can tell you that such techniques are a blind alley. You must not be burning with desire when deciding to get to know a new woman.

6. Beware if “game” works on her

The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands. —Proverbs 14:1

If game works on a woman, either she’s naive in a healthy manner, and has not been previously exposed to men who methodically trigger her fallen nature, or she is a woman who has chosen to feed her fallen nature. Think of game as an offensive joke. Even if you’re pious, the joke may get a laugh out of you, but then you quickly comport yourself and decide not to “enjoy” it further since it comes at the expense of others.

In the same vein, game can “work” on a pious Orthodox woman in that it can get her attention, pique her interest, and create temporary feelings of attraction, but she should have the spiritual tools to fight this common temptation. She knows that pursuing a man because of romantic or sensual feelings is not pleasing to God, and will let the temptation fade away like all other temptations she faces throughout the day. If a woman acts on the temptation by seeking a man’s attention who is obviously unsuitable (i.e. a “bad boy”) and actually wants to date him, she may not be ready to sustain a “boring” monogamous relationship with a devout Orthodox man where the household revolves around serving God instead of her emotional feelings.

It’s a simple matter to use some game on a Christian woman to command her attention, but it should quickly fizzle out when she comes to her senses. However, game reliably works on any woman-–Christian or not—who is individualistic, selfish, narcissistic, impious, and carnal. In fact, such a woman may only respond to men who use game. If a man is able to use a couple of game tricks to inflame a woman’s emotions and send her on a roller coaster ride of excitement and desire, and she makes a choice to be with that man to seek a further amplification of pleasure and “happiness,” fornication can happen in no time because it is merely a culmination of the emotional satisfaction she craves.

All women can have their emotions stirred by a cad, but the mature woman with an active spiritual life and pious support circle should be able to isolate those emotions, know that such a man is not good for her salvation, and move on to a more suitable match. If you see a woman who whips her head this way and that for the most attractive men with big muscles, a cocky attitude, and affected gorilla-like movements, pray for her that she can fight her passion. The same, of course, applies to you. If all it takes is a pretty face for you to forget about God then you must increase your spiritual labors. Until you gain maturity, run away from the type of woman who stirs up your passions.

7. A woman who simultaneously communicates with numerous men likely has an addiction to male attention

This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, and says, “I have done no wickedness.” —Proverbs 30:20

I assert that a woman who is addicted to male attention will wreck a marriage. This addiction has affected me personally and made me extremely sensitive to a woman who must continually present herself to random men and converse with male “friends.” What happens is an acquaintanceship or “friendship” turns either into something more or something inappropriate, where she seeks in those men what she should be seeking from her man alone.

At best, she may view the other men as friends, but at worse they are “backup plans” for the moment when you dissatisfy her by trying to uphold an Orthodox or moral standard upon the relationship. In the minds of the men who are orbiting around your woman, they may view the friendship as an investment where one day they can cash in with an instance of sin.

It is certainly possible that a man and woman can be friends, but it should be within a strictly Christian context. With my current female friends, we talk about God more than anything else, and if their gender happened to be male instead, the topic of our conversations would hardly change, only the tone would. All my conversations with women are structured around the fact that we are in the same Church looking to save our souls. There is no innuendo, flirting, or double entendres. If a woman you are evaluating has friendships with men that do not present like this, she is either in pre-courtship with multiple men, using them for favorable attention, or sizing up suitors as if shopping in a department store. I wouldn’t trust any platonic relationship that doesn’t have a spiritual foundation, because if the root of her problem is an addiction to male attention, that addiction doesn’t magically go away when you marry her. In that case it’s not only her you marry, but all of her male “friends” as well.

8. A woman who can’t maintain small commitments may not be ready to make larger ones

For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? —Proverbs 5:20

If a woman cancels her first official meeting (date) with you, she’s setting a bad tone. As men we should not be entitled, and adapt graciously when unexpected things happen to people, but if there’s a clear pattern of a woman not respecting your time or treating you flippantly, it could be a warning sign that she is not that interested in you or using you as a backup plan. In my experience, a woman who is genuinely interested in a man will go out of her way to uphold dates and show up on time. If she repeatedly cancels dates, is silent with communication for prolonged periods though you were expecting a response, or actively flirts with other men (even in your presence), she may be using you only for attention.

Think of all the steps it takes to go from meeting a woman to marrying her: all the phone calls, text messages, meetings, Bible studies, planning sessions, and so on up to the wedding date. What is a woman telling you if very early on she takes days to reply to a text message or cancels multiple meetings for the flimsiest of reasons? The earlier a woman displays flakey behavior to you, the less serious she may see you as a marital prospect.

9. A woman is capable of making it crystal clear that she likes you

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord. —Proverbs 18:22

The most common problem I see in men is not being able to realize that a woman is completely disinterested and has moved on from them many moons ago. They relay the story to me as if wondering if there is some type of chance remaining when she has probably cycled through several new suitors in the meanwhile. We’re not living in an age of coquetry where a woman displays her interests through a fleeting stare, incidental touch of the hand, or a written letter doused with her favorite perfume. No, we live in an age where a woman does the child equivalent of throwing little rocks at the men she likes. It’s a myth that women are “hard to read” and that we must “read between the lines” to know if they like you. Frankly, I’m shocked at how blatant even meek women can act toward men when they have an interest.

If you’re not sure if a woman likes you or not, simply wait a short while. Your inaction will cause her to escalate the means by which to get your attention, and only after that fails will she give up. If she doesn’t take any small steps in the first place, her interest in you is either slight or non-existent. Women want what they want, and they want it quickly with the least amount of delay, and can only tolerate playing games for so long.

Beware: don’t try to stir up a woman’s interest by acting aloof or pretending you are disinterested. Technically, this is game, and you will one day regret that you used negative emotions to build fleeting attraction.

10. There is no excuse for an Orthodox woman to support leftist causes like feminism, climate change, and abortion

Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths; For she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death. —Proverbs 7:25-27

While uncommon in the Orthodox Church, I have met women of other Christian denominations who were fully on board with the leftist Satanic agenda (I remember once when a non-Chalcedonian woman told me that eating meat is bad for the environment). Such a woman may be Christian in name only, and you must understand that it’s not her faith that will predominantly determine her behavior towards men, including her approach to marriage, but the beliefs that the oligarchs of our times implanted into her through propaganda and various psyops. It won’t be a surprise to you that many of these women respond readily to a man using game.

A temptation is to try to change the beliefs of such a woman, perhaps by saying to yourself, “She’s so close to the truth; if only I can get her to believe that abortion is wrong, and face tattoos are ugly, then she will be the perfect wife.” I already talked about the foolhardy endeavor of trying to change a woman. If a woman has beliefs that are not Orthodox or traditional, it may be best to leave her alone and pray that she accepts the truth on her own with the help of the Holy Spirit.

11. Beautiful women live in a different reality

Do not fall for the beauty of a woman, and do not long for her beauty. —Ecclesiasticus 25:20

In general, the more beautiful a woman is externally, and the more urban the environment she has lived in, the less work she had to do internally on her soul, personality, charity, and demeanor, because since puberty, worldly men freely gave her everything she wanted in exchange for simply being beautiful. No merit or effort was required. In these times, where it takes only one selfie on Instagram for a girl to be propelled to minor fame, a beautiful woman is put on a different life track than one who is not beautiful. The former live in a fantasy world where everyone is nice and polite, it’s so easy to get a job, it’s so easy to date, everyone holds doors open for them, Uber drivers are all supreme gentlemen, and so on. Unless they know they are being treated better for their beauty, they risk becoming detached from reality, and if she remains outside of the Church, this will cause huge problems for her future husband.

I’ve seen firsthand how very beautiful women who did not mature in the Church become allergic to struggle (since eager men always bailed them out from it). They may find it difficult to dive deeper into the more ascetical features of the Orthodox faith. Therefore, if you insist on marrying a beautiful woman, you will have to discern carefully so that you don’t marry someone whose best quality is her beauty. One exception is if a woman used to be very ugly or obese but is now beautiful, because she actually did live a period of struggle.

12. You must examine yourself if you pass on a woman of strong faith because you seek a more beautiful woman

A wife’s grace will delight her husband, and her skill will put fat on his bones. A silent wife is a gift from the Lord, and there is nothing worth as much as a disciplined soul. A modest wife is blessing upon blessing, and there is no scale adequate to weigh a self-controlled soul. Like the sun rising in the Lord’s heaven, is the beauty of a good wife in the ordering of her house. —Ecclesiasticus 26:13-16

If you turn down the opportunity to court a devout Orthodox woman because she wasn’t pretty enough, I don’t know what to say to you. Do you know how hard it is to find a woman who has strong faith? So because you are receiving less carnal pleasure, you will pass on her for a prettier girl who is less likely to have the same type of faith? Do you know that if your Orthodox marriage goes the distance, any beautiful wife will look not so beautiful in a few years due to the hands of time, and that it’s her faith that is the most important feature of deciding the course of your marriage? As long as a woman is not abrasive on the eyes, and has a figure that is at least average, why covet more? I ask these questions primarily to myself.

13. A woman who is overly comfortable around strange men may have had a lot of experience with men

I would rather live with a lion or a snake than with an evil wife. —Ecclesiasticus 25:15

I interpret it as a warning sign if a woman talks with ease and confidence to strange adult men, especially when she is holding court with multiple men simultaneously who are all lavishing her with attention. While many women fantasize about a scenario where they are the queen of the ball, it’s another thing if she has no social heistation, nervousness, or awkwardness to be surrounded by virile men who are attracted to her.

Have you seen the shyness of a female child? When a strange man tries to politely talk to her, she literally runs away and hides behind her mother. For a grown woman who has not been socialized around passionate men all her life, she will feel uncomfortable when a strange man approaches her and certainly not enjoy it when men with inflamed passions are surrounding her. If she has no problems with such a scenario, we can assume that she has grown up like this and thinks it’s completely normal to talk to men who want to sleep with her. If this indicates an addiction to male attention, her future husband will surely be upset when she spends suspiciously long times talking to other men while in a visible state of delight.

14. She may hide her most negative qualities, behaviors, and admissions until you have invested in her

For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil —Proverbs 5:3

This is more common with secular women than Orthodox. A crafty woman will embark on a deliberate program to hide things that she believes a man wouldn’t like, and go to great extents to do so, and only reveal things slowly after the man falls in love with her or has invested so much time in her that she believes he wouldn’t turn back because of sunk costs.

If you’ve been courting a girl for many weeks or months, and she drops a big bomb on you, it was probably planned and rehearsed, and not the first time she has done it. She wanted you to like her, you did, and she has calculated that you wouldn’t dare leave her now. Maybe you will choose to stay with her, and that’s your right, but what you have to ask is if there’s an even bigger bomb coming in the future, perhaps after you’ve married her.

I believe an honest woman should do a full disclosure of her physical and mental health conditions, her major flaws, and any serious sins that are relevant to a potential husband relatively early in the courtship. The same applies to men. A woman has a right to know that you used to be a world-famous pickup artist who wrote a dozen books on how to fornicate. The bad decisions we make in life will have consequences until we die, even if our repentance is earnest.

15. A woman who constantly updates her social media profiles should be examined closely

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her. —Proverbs 31:26-28

The point of social media is to receive attention for your random thoughts, low-quality opinions, and vainglorious selfies. The problem with heavy dependence on social media for attention, which I had in the recent past, is that you rewire your brain to prioritize “electronic love”—or at least a digital substitute of love—over love from people in the flesh. A woman receiving “love” from 100 men online, who leave comments on her latest selfie, will spike her dopamine more than receiving love from one man who may only show it by quietly sitting in her presence or taking her out to Culvers for a burger. If a woman gets addicted to the neurochemical aspects of receiving favorable attention, your love will not be able to compete with the attention that hordes of men give her online.

A warning sign that a woman is addicted to internet attention is if she updates and curates her social media profiles as if it were a job. If she’s uploading videos or pictures multiple times a week, it’s safe to assume that she has a strong attachment that will not be immediately broken upon entering a real relationship. On the other hand, if she’s online simply because she’s lonely, you should see a rapid decrease in her usage upon easing into a relationship with you. You will have to discern if her social media is due to loneliness or due to an addiction that has to be broken through effort, lest it harms any relationship she eventually enters.

16. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, she will become her mother and treat you like her mother treats her father

Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house shared with a contentious woman. —Proverbs 21:9

Men and women mimic the roles they saw while growing up. If you meet a woman, you may think to yourself that she is nothing like her mother, but consider that she has yet to get married and have children. Once she gets married, assume she will treat you similarly to how her mother treats her father. Once she becomes a mother, assume she will treat the children in similar ways that her mother treated her. If you want to know how married life will be with a woman, you can start by looking at the mother’s behavior. Unless the woman you like has wholesale anathematized her mother’s conduct, it’s safe to assume that she will become similar to her mother. There is nothing wrong with this, and it also works with you becoming your father, but if you see major problems with her mother, you must investigate further.

For example, if you notice that her mother constantly complains to the father and tries to put him down, you may want to ask how long that has been going on. Perhaps the woman is not complaining to you right now, but that’s because she is trying to put her best foot forward in the courtship phase so that you like her. Once you get into the humdrum of marriage, she will fall back on what she knows, which she subconsciously learned from her mother.

I haven’t talked much about a woman’s relationship with her father, but it cannot be overstated that the healthier her relationship with her father, the healthier her relationship with her future husband. Heavy discernment must be used if she was not raised properly by her father or is not on good terms with him.

17. Take signs of heightened passion, mental instability, mental illness, self-harm, and a violent or abusive upbringing very seriously

Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. —Proverbs 19:14

A sign that a man may be in deception is if he says the following: “Yes it’s true that she is mentally ill and cut herself when she was a teenager, and was beaten by her alcoholic parents, and ran away from home a few times, and just got off psychotropic drugs, but she is completely fine now.” Getting over an abusive past or mental illness is not like the flu, where once you get over it you’re essentially back to full health. Instead, it presents as a continuum of symptoms that, in one way or another, stay with a person for much of their life.

When it comes to mental health problems, which are quite common, I’m sure there are success stories of women who have been able to manage their illness in a marriage, but you must not close your eyes to the problem or else you will get caught unaware when she has an episode that is triggered by the stress of marriage or child raising. Before you marry her, examine her mental health problems as if you were a doctor. Find out what triggers her episodes, how debilitating the episodes are, and then ask yourself if that’s the sort of cross you are able to endure.

If you are considering marrying a woman with mental illness, you should be comfortable with bedside caretaking. During a mental health episode, you will have to devote time to taking care of her until the episode passes, and that will include feeding her and watching over her so that she doesn’t hurt herself.

18. Do not delude yourself into thinking that you can command a woman to do whatever you want

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. —Ephesians 5:22-27

A naive man with only casual sex experience may think he’ll simply be an alpha male in the relationship and command his wife to do whatever he wishes, and that alone will preserve the marriage. One problem with that notion is that a woman has free will given by God. She has two other options in the face of your blunt commands: (1) not obey while making excuses for her disobedience, or (2) obey in such a way that she will make your life miserable.

There are always house tasks that a woman doesn’t like doing but does anyway, just like there are tasks at work you don’t like doing, but if she simply does not want to do what you’re asking her, and you attempt to force her through your masculine authority, you will probably regret it in due time. A wife is not a mindless slave, and if you persist in forcing her to do things, she will “pay you back” in ways that you didn’t imagine, starting with nagging and then escalating all the way to having an affair.

To avoid this problem, you should find a wife who wants or has agreed to do the things you want a wife to do. These conversations must be had before you get married. If you want a wife who cooks and cleans, you must inquire if she is willing to do these things (better if she already does them) and then verify her words. However, if you marry a woman in the secular way, based more on romantic compatibility, you will neglect to test her for these values and may come to find out that she refuses to do most of what you find important. Where is that romantic compatibility now when you’re eating out more than you like, the house is a mess, and she listens to hours of brain-dead music every day? In such a case, you may have been too busy lusting over her body to know what kind of person she really was.

It’s impossible to test a woman for all her little values, but you can test her for meekness and the willingness to please her husband in accordance with Church teachings. It’s preferable to find a woman who doesn’t need to be persuaded or commanded to do every little thing that you believe is important.

19. If she’s an adult and doesn’t yet know how to cook, bake, or sew, she may never learn it

Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. —Proverbs 3:7

If a woman made it to 25 years of age and hasn’t yet learned the household skills that are critical to maintaining a Christian household, don’t assume that she will learn it and be good at it. That works the other way around, too. If a woman wants a husband who is good at home maintenance, but her current prospect can barely use a screwdriver, it would be unwise of her to think he will learn that skill just because he says he will. The reality is that both men and women will say almost anything to have their affections returned.

The proof is in the pudding. If a man is looking for a wife, and he is not currently learning the things he says he will do in a marriage, his wish may be aspirational. If a woman is looking for a husband and knows that she will have to cook daily in a family home, but is not currently doing it, there is a disconnect that must be evaluated. The only exception that could be valid is if the activity is dependent on having a certain kind of home. For example, I want to learn how to work with wood, but I can’t do it while living in an apartment. I also want to learn how to garden, but I can’t because I have no land and only north-facing (low-light) windows. However, I do maintain a few plants, so a woman who hears me say I want to garden can see that I have started that endeavor. She can conclude that it’s possible I will someday garden. When it comes to woodworking, however, she will not find any evidence of that skill, so she should not assume I will ever woodwork.

Personally, I am extremely skeptical of a woman who says she will learn how to cook but hasn’t turned on her stove in months. The reason is that she has 2-3 opportunities every day to do what she says she will do but is not doing! What’s stopping her now? If she lives in a home with a kitchen, nothing. If I encounter such a woman, and know that she eats takeout every day, I will have to assume she will never cook, and account for that in my decision to marry her or not. The same goes for other skills that are important to me, like sewing (buttons do fall off), laundry, ironing, and being organized in general. I must see these qualities now or at least hints of them, because talk is cheap, and we need more than talk to have a successful family home.

20. If she has a career, don’t assume she will quit when you want her to

Do not give water an outlet, nor boldness to an evil wife. If she does not follow your good leadership, cut her off from yourself. —Ecclesiasticus 25:24-25

Chances are that you will find a woman who has a full-time job. Either that job is a waystation to a family, and she will quit when the children start arriving, or she will want to hold onto that job for as long as possible because it validates how she sees herself (independent, strong, high-achieving, etc.).

If you meet a woman who tells you that she desires to be a stay-at-home mother, and that her job isn’t necessary for her, but she will work at it for as long as needed, it may be safe to assume that she will eventually quit. However, if a woman hints that her career is important to her because it gives her a sense of “purpose,” or she likes making money, it is not safe to assume she will quit, even if she does not react vehemently to your wish for her to be a stay-at-home wife. Generally, the more feminist she is, the less likely she will quit when you want, for she may have succumbed to the lie that a career is the most important part of a woman’s identity.

Failure to discern in this matter could be catastrophic: the children are sent to daycare, they will not be homeschooled, the household duties do not get done, she never learns how to cook (since it’s time-consuming), she is in obedience to a boss at work which effectively means she has two men in her life, and she is frequently fatigued and irritated. She may even try to push you into the role of stay-at-home dad so that she can have her cake and eat it too. I’m fearful enough of accidentally marrying a feminist that I must be convinced of a woman’s insatiable desire to be a traditional stay-at-home mother before entering a courtship with her.

21. She will lose respect and attraction for you if you become emasculated and allow her to take control

But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. —1 Corinthians 11:3

A common failure of men is backsliding on their masculinity and leadership. It is true that a woman will constantly test her man for strength, usually by nagging him to have more say in decision-making, but if that request is actually granted, she loses respect for him, because he becomes less of a “him” and more of a “her.” We don’t really know why women petition men for things that ultimately make them unhappy, but it is a test we must pass by maintaining our leadership position in the household.

If we fall for the trap of “equality” that is so common in secular relationships, the woman will start to lose respect for her man and so begins the typical side effects of her withholding sex, going out more often with her friends, maintaining inappropriate relationships with men online, neglecting household duties, starting a new gym routine with a young male trainer, and so on. It’s hard to relay to men the severity of this trap when it starts in such a banal manner, that obeying a woman who really believes she must choose where to go out for dinner, for example, will actually b



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33 Things Christian Men Should Know About Women

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