by Nate Brooks
Part 2 of this series looked at the first two ways in which complementarian men slide into functional patriarchy. Today’s discussion adds the navigation of a husband’s and wife’s desires.
3) Desires
Desires are good, God-given impulses, and human life would grind to a halt without them. Unsurprisingly, husbands and wives often vary significantly in both the strength and object of their wants. Differing desires are not restricted to marriage, as any negotiation among a friend group over where to eat out demonstrates. But marriage provides the opportunities for different wants to be felt and expressed across every category of life. Desires drive thoughts about what church to attend, which ministries to be involved in or give to, the disciplining of children (both in theory and individual situations), how clean the house ought to be, how important living near family or in a certain region of the country is, budgeting and everything therein, what kind of vacations to take, what pattern to load the dishwasher, what constitutes being “on time,” frequency of sex, dividing time between in-laws and other family, if and when to drink alcohol, what kind of school for children, and practically every other conceivable
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