Comments on: Roles — Bondage or Freedom?

by: CT

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:17:57 +0000

I think all couples have roles they follow in the family. If they match their gifts and they enjoy doing them, then they are also probably happy and pleased with the roles. When the roles don’t match interests and gifts is when the situation gets more dicey. Unfortunately, there are some jobs that hardly anyone likes to do. How the couple deals with those issues says a lot about the marriage. I’m not sure, but I think maybe marriages that are highly role-based and where both are comfortable with their roles may be easier to live than those marriages where each have to battle out who does what every time another situation comes up.

by: Patricia

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:55:49 +0000

I have been married now going on 31 years and our ‘roles’ are pretty much stereotypical — he does the fixing and I do the doing. I mow, he makes sure the mower works, we both do house cleaning , especially since my girls left the nest. He a truck driver, I don’t drive, not physically able to, but I go with him and do everything else — cook, clean,help with his paper work, bills etc. I think if I was raised in the more modern climate and taught to do those ‘manly’ things, maybe it would be different. But we don’t do these things because he is a man and I am a woman. It’s just that he is better at those things, and I am better at mine.
Blessings, and salom.

by: CT

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 05:35:39 +0000

I think TL says it well. But, boy, there’s more role expectations at church than just about anywhere on God’s earth. It’s lessened some in recent years, but I think it’s still there just below the surface, simmering, ready to break out in new and horrid ways that sadden God.

by: TL

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:22:53 +0000

Hard to say which it is. Depends upon the particular people. My great aunt, now deceased, settled into the “helpless” role in her marriage. And because of that she became dependant upon everyone in her later years.

I have found that personally, there are things I’m not that good at fixing and putting together that I’d prefer someone else do. But if left to my own devices I can indeed do them.

From my observations the strict role thing doesn’t work well. People are unique. We just don’t fit anyone’s prescribed ideas of how people should function together. Leave us alone, encourage us to complement each other, and likely we will all come out doing our “roles” somewhat differently.