"I Should Give This to My Wife" Is the Wrong Thing to Say
"I Should Give This to My Wife" Is the Wrong Thing to Say
I have a little ritual. I go to a fancy restaurant in Vancouver, I sit at the bar, and I put my book in plain sight. Title up. Why Submissive Women Are Happier, right there next to my cocktail where everyone can read it.
It is bait, honestly. Like when you are fishing and you put the worm on the hook. I leave it sitting there and I watch what people do around a title like that.
And what they do tells me almost everything about them.
The engineer at Blue Water Cafe
One evening I was at the Blue Water Cafe. Seafood place, high end, the kind of bar where the people sitting alone are either on a business trip or a couple who wants to talk to other couples. I sat down, ordered a drink, and there was a man one chair over.
I noticed the watch first. A Rolex, but with a leathery band instead of the metal one. And on his other wrist, a Fitbit. I had to Google what a Fitbit even did. He was eyeing the title of my book the whole time, but neither of us said anything for a while.
Then I turned and said, nice watch. He said, nice book title. And right away it started.
He told me he agreed with it. That women should be more submissive. He was a geological engineer, so everything to do with the earth and the rocks. I asked about his life, because that is what the book is about, and he told me he had a wife and three kids. She has a job too. They are both working parents, both coming home tired.
And then he said it.
"I should give this book to my wife to read." — the engineer
He went on. He was exhausted. He works all day. He just wants to come home to a wife who is nice, relaxed, who has made the meal, who does not want to talk about all these things.
"I just want a wife that I can come home to. And she's nice. She's relaxed." — the engineer
So I sat there and I thought about it. Is that what a submissive wife is to this man? He comes home and she shuts up, says nothing, prepares the meal, takes care of the kids, so he can read or watch TV in peace. So she submits to him like it is the 1950s and decompresses him after his hard day.
I saw so many problems. First one: she has a job too. So maybe she needs to decompress too. So who takes care of the kids then? Who makes dinner for her? In his mind, his wife does not really work. But she does. He is not providing enough for her to stay home, and yet he wants her home behavior.
That is not what my book is about. Not even close.
What the laugh told me
I thought maybe the engineer was a one-off. He was not. A while later I was walking through Yaletown and ran into a little film crew shooting a magician for some local restaurant promotion. I love magic. I am an atheist, I do not believe any of it is real, but I love letting myself be tricked. I love surrendering to it.
So I jumped in, did a trick with him, and afterward we exchanged Instagrams. I gave him my card. He took a beat, read the title, and said the exact same thing the engineer said. I should give this to my wife.
And then he laughed.
It was not a normal laugh. You know the laugh in Fight Club, the guy on the plane, the laugh of a sick person? That was it. Stress, anguish, fear, excitement, all mixed together.
"That was a sick laugh. It's like mixed with stress, anguish, scared, excitement." — Marian
And that laugh said everything. Because the question is never really about the book. It is, why did you choose this woman? You dated her, you married her, you had a life with her. So what is happening now that makes you think she is the one who needs to read it? Is it the submissive part, or is it the happier part? Is she unhappy? Or do you just want her to submit more?
That is the question I always come back to. Submissive or happier. Which word scares you.
The right way to share it
So here is the thing. Both of these men wanted to hand the book to their wife like a verdict. Hey honey, you should read this, see you later. And I do not think that is how you do it.
I tried to fix it with the engineer. I offered him my Instagram. And I watched him panic, basically hide his phone, because adding a woman on Instagram means backlash at home. Why do you have this girl on your phone, who is she.
But I was not presenting myself as a girl at a bar. I was presenting myself as an author. A woman who wrote a book for women and for men about happiness and purpose. And if you cannot even have that conversation with your wife, that is the actual problem.
Imagine the honest version instead. You go home and you say, I met this author tonight at the Blue Water Cafe, had a great steak, sat next to a woman who wrote this book called Why Submissive Women Are Happier. I found it interesting.
"Not you should read it. Shall we read that book together, the two of us as a couple, and see how maybe it can change our relationship?" — Marian
That is the whole difference. "You should read this" is an order disguised as a gift. "Shall we read this together" is an invitation. One of them puts your wife on trial. The other one puts you both on the same side of the table.
The engineer did not take my Instagram. He told me not to worry, he would remember the title, it is not exactly forgettable. And that is what I am afraid of. Not that he forgets the title. That he goes home and never tells his wife about any of it, and nothing in their marriage ever changes.
That is exactly why the book exists. Why the podcast exists. Why I keep leaving that title face up on a bar where strangers can read it.
Because the way a person reacts to four words, submissive women are happier, is rarely about the words at all. It is about what those words press on inside them. The engineer wanted a silent wife. The magician laughed a sick laugh. Neither of them was going to bring it home, and that, more than anything they said out loud, is what told me about their marriages.
So if a title like mine ever lands in front of you, do not hand it over like a sentence. Open it like a door, and walk through it together.
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