Why I Gave Up on Submission and Headship

Is everything with two heads a monster or can it be a partnership?

In a period of my life where stability was a near nonexistent and where all my friends were marrying and birthing babies at (what I now think is) an alarming rate,¹ I had a secret little dream of my own: I wanted a little house on a back road with lilac trees. A laundry line of quilts and tablecloths, and three or four little ones running around, and a husband who would take care of all the car maintenance (cars were a particular sort of bane to my existence in this period of my life). I am one of eight children and a child of divorce, and was under not a single illusion of the challenges of multiple children and a husband, but for a time this was my dream and I’m not ashamed of it.

A few years later, as a boyfriend and I were breaking up and I was trying to understand why—when our friendship was so good and he was [and still is!] so good and I was so good—we couldn’t make it work. He said something I’ve never forgotten: “Sometimes I feel like you’re too submissive.” At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe that I was a pushover? Wishy-washy? He was not a dominating person, nor one who demanded anything of me, so I was confused about who he thought I was being too submissive to. I didn’t know and, despite how much I tried to understand then, my eyes just weren’t open.

I was looking for an email from a friend recently and found one instead that I had written to another friend during this particular relationship and I could not believe the things I was saying or things my boyfriend had said to me. My heart broke. Here’s some quotes: