Transcript
Dr. Greg:
Hello and welcome to the Being Human Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Greg Botarro. Today, I’ve got my favorite special guest ever. She’s my wife, and we always get great reviews whenever she’s on. I really should learn more from that and just have her on all the time because you guys love when she’s on.
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AI-Generated transcript of this episode:
Dr. Greg:
So, I was gonna bring her on for the 200th episode. But funny thing is when you have seven kids under 12 and they’re being homeschooled, the time is not exactly all over the place for making these podcasts and doing these recordings. So, we did set out early in the morning before the kids get up to record this episode, and I followed up after the keynote that I did for the 200th episode on complementarity between male and female. And especially we talked about some a major error in the work of Thomas Aquinas and a way in which our whole culture and Church are still reeling and still have not corrected the sort of culture and customs and beliefs about this particular thing that Aquinas is so wrong about.
And it’s not just Aquinas, it’s the whole world. It’s all of culture and society is wrong about and has been. And so, I talked about that in my keynote, but then I thought, you know, I want to talk about this just in the personal details of regular life, not from an abstract keynote academic paper kind of way. And so, yeah, I wanted to set the stage with episode 200 to then have a lot more context and meaning for this conversation now with my wife. So this is really my favorite thing to do on this podcast. And there’s no better way to celebrate 200 episodes getting this far than by having my wife come on with me to do this work, which so much of what we do is together, if not directly and explicitly then implicitly. And so being able to share more of our internal family dialogue with you is a beautiful part of our mission here, and I’m really grateful to her and I’m grateful to you. I’m grateful to God for this awesome vocation, and I do hope that this blesses you. We get into some things that may be a little bit challenging for people, and I press into some cultural assumptions and things that I think that a lot of even really faithful good Catholics maybe aren’t getting quite right. So as always, I look forward to feedback. Let me know if you disagree with anything from this episode, if you agree, if you’ve got ideas on how to go further with what we’re talking about here. But otherwise, I just hope that it is a blessing to you. Thank you so much. Enjoy.
I spent the last 10 years learning how to help people using the best techniques available in psychology integrated with the Catholic faith. Now we’ve figured out that there’s a better way to help people than just slapping a Catholic label on the same secular model of therapy you find anywhere else. The real question is how will we make this shift to a new model of truly Catholic accompaniment, keeping the psychological sciences in mind while opening up to a more human and more effective approach? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I take you behind the scenes of what this new model looks like using recorded audio from sessions, working with my team, with colleagues, and even directly with clients. My name is Dr. Greg Bottaro, and I want to welcome you to the Being Human Podcast.
Dr. Greg:
Good morning
Barbra:
Good morning
Dr. Greg:
So I want to talk today about, also, I only have this one mic here, so I have to project a little bit.
Barbra:
Okay
Dr. Greg:
I want to talk today about how we, together lead our family.
Barbra:
Yep
Dr. Greg:
So the reason why I think that’s an important topic is because I just presented this paper at Franciscan. It was the last week’s episode on the podcast, and I was at this conference and I was talking about the complementarity between man and woman.
Barbra:
Uhm
Dr. Greg:
And I was talking about the, well, at the end of the conference I was on a panel and somebody asked this question, what do you think we’ve done wrong that needs to be corrected in the church?
Barbra:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And I’m on a panel with, it was four of us, well, plus the moderator. But it was. And the moderator was Deborah Savage, a woman, and then two other women, and then me and another man. So there’s five of us up on stage on the panel. And it was awesome because we were having a lot of really great complimentary conversation, but I essentially said, I think we’ve been continuing a misogynistic,
Barbra:
Narrative.
Dr. Greg:
Narrative and culture even in the church. And I think we need to do a lot to change what that looks like. And then I used as an example how we tend to think of leadership as a predominantly male role.
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
And my sort of proposal is that that’s not the case. But, and so I gave some examples, and Mary Hassan, who is a really accomplished and pseudo famous in the Catholic world type lawyers, she does a lot of pro-life stuff. She does a lot of the agenda fighting stuff. She just looks at me and she goes, “Well, what do you think we should do differently?” And I was like, “I don’t know.” But I’m just coming up with the ideas. I don’t know what this actually looks like.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
But it’s been a question I’ve been thinking about. And then I thought, well, I don’t know what we as the church need to do differently, but I can think about how it affects my life.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Or it affects our life. And so I’ve been sort of thinking, like, do I take that approach to our family life or do I put into practice? Do I practice what I preach.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And how does that actually look like in our family? And I think maybe I have a tendency towards like thinking that my rule is like the overrule, and if I have the final decision that somehow I’m supposed to, like that’s my job. But I feel like that’s not really the case in our life practically as our life plays out.
Barbra:
Yeah, I was thinking lucky for you, you didn’t marry somebody who is like, “Okay, yes, yes, sir.”
Dr. Greg:
Well, no, and I think mean even being attracted to you in the first place, like if I was a person who thought like the man’s the head of the family and the head is supposed to make all the decisions.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
Now that so like lots of stuff has come up from this because
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
It’s been really interesting to see how it really is deeply embedded in the church.
Barbra:
Well, I would just say maybe this doesn’t move anybody else, but for me, because I didn’t grow up in a family that was necessarily in the Church in a traditional sense. My family was a broken family and then when my parents remarried separate people, like there’s just it wasn’t this family stayed together, you know, traditional upbringing. And so, I wasn’t this never has crossed my mind. And then when I became a part of the Church, like there’s just nothing in me that has experienced any part of Church history that would feel like that for me. So all of that is to say I didn’t necessarily bring that to our marriage. In fact, if there is supposed to be some of that, it’s something that would be like brand new to me or something that I would sort of need to practice. But I don’t find a lot of that in our marriage. Do you know what I’m trying to say?
Dr. Greg:
Yeah, I think you probably came, I mean, if anything, you came from the opposite side
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
Of things where it was like you could have been going down a path of like liberal feminism.
Barbra:
Right
Dr. Greg:
Like,
Barbra:
Like you just repel
Dr. Greg:
You have all the decisions. And it’s like you like, what’s the Greek uh My Big Fat Greek Wedding where it’s like the man maybe is the head
Barbra:
But the woman is the neck.
Dr. Greg:
The woman is the neck.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Well, and that’s,
Barbra:
Actually, I don’t think that that’s really that bad.
Dr. Greg:
Well, I think maybe we’ll qualify that. I don’t know if I would agree, but I think if so, yeah, I mean, neither of us came from a family background where it was really strong, clear church led examples of
Barbra:
Good or bad. It just didn’t exist.
Dr. Greg:
It just wasn’t. And so it was both of our families were sort of just fumbling with what they had. But I think when like it now that I’ve become more acquainted with and have studied the church in terms of like culture and psychology, and like I just see this all over the place,
Barbra:
Right. But you’re much more involved on that level.
Dr. Greg:
Sure. And so there’s a lot more of this in the culture, and it’s always been in the culture. This is the crazy thing. So then it’s like, all right, well, if a man is the head and that there’s a proper place for that, and so it comes from St. Paul. And so in Ephesians 5:21 is his passage when he says, “husbands and wives subject yourselves to one another.” And then he says in 5:22, and he says, “wives subject yourselves to your husband.” And then he gives some direction to that. And then he says, “husbands love your wife.”
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
Now, it’s interesting, he doesn’t say subject yourself to your wife,
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
But the point that I’ve been making now and from my paper that I presented is he wouldn’t contradict himself.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
So, it’s not like
Barbra:
Likes each other and people are wipe that out.
Dr. Greg:
It’s like, well, he does say each other at 21, but then he goes on in 22, he doubles down on wives, submit yourself to your husband, subject yourself to your husband, and he doesn’t double down for husbands, it’s like, well, that doesn’t mean he is contradicting 5:21.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
So,
Barbra:
The love portion is pretty big there.
Dr. Greg:
Well, and this is a side note, but I think it’s because he’s correcting what happened in the fall
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
In in Genesis there’s consequences given to Adam and Eve. And Adam and Eve, God says to Adam, “because you listened to your wife,” when he is meeting out consequences.
Barbra:
Ya-yeah, right.
Dr. Greg:
It’s funny, Deborah Savage brought this up. People gloss over that first line. God’s telling Adam “because you listen to your wife, now you’re getting a consequence.” And it’s such,
Barbra:
It should have been strong enough to be like, hold up, this is wrong.
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
But he didn’t.
Dr. Greg:
Correct. So that’s this.
Barbra:
Not that a woman is like a child that needs to be, but it’s like both of them in that situation were wrong.
Dr. Greg:
Right, so people hang onto that traditionally, culturally, it was like, well, see, a woman didn’t think clearly about the situation
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
Because Adam was listening to his wife. He got into trouble, he was led by his wife, and therefore the evil entered into the world. And so now his punishment is to go be focused on the garden and toiling by the sweat of his brow and her desire will be for her husband. That’s the consequence of the fall. Well, so there’s this concupiscent consequence in which a woman is sort of disposed towards the man more
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And the man is not disposed towards his wife. But the problem is, and I’m gonna read a quote from Aquinas that’s misunderstood as being, what is the natural order that God created us with. As that so there’s, you know,go back to theology of the body. There’s like original man. It’s like, how what’s the perfection that God created us with? What was God’s intention for our humanity? And then there’s historical man, which is how we are now because of the fall.
Barbra:
Aha.
Dr. Greg:
So we have to be really careful to not equate things about us as historical man, as being part of God’s plan originally.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
So if a woman has this sort of like unbalanced proclivity towards her husband that’s not matched by her husband towards her, that’s not how God created us.
Barbra:
Yeah. Right, you mean like a like a dependency or like a codependency.
Dr. Greg:
Yeah, or even just like an orientation. Man is naturally, “naturally”, but I’ll say naturally, historically oriented towards things of the outside world.
Barbra:
Right. We talk about this all the time
Dr. Greg:
Right?
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
So it’s not the most natural thing for the man to be like sort of just be oriented towards persons, but man is capable of that and is supposed to grow into that
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
Which is the whole other point of complementarity. But,
Barbra:
Right. We’re not wild animals outside.
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And also the woman’s proclivities are not to be unreasonable. It’s like she made a bad decision in the garden. It doesn’t mean that she’s never able to think clearly. And that Eve before the fall was somehow like this irrational mess.
Barbra:
Well, maybe this is a silly comment, but if you know if you think about it like Eve is in the garden, Satan is pretty convincing.
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
And every day of our lives, Satan is trying to get both men and women. He’s not just like, “Oh, forget men. They’re the head, they’ll never fall.”
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
“Let’s always go after the woman all day.” And we’re just stuck fighting all of these spiritual battles because we’re so hysterical.
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
Like both are equally tempted.
Dr. Greg:
Yeah, exactly. And they’re tempted maybe in different ways, at different times.
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
But the point is, if we go back to that moment, Adam has this disposition to be outwardly focused
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And then it’s amplified, it’s, it’s sort of create it turns into an extreme because of sin.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
And then, so when St. Paul is giving direction to husbands and wives, all he has to say to woman is, “be subject to your husband.” But women are already oriented towards their husbands.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
So he basically just says it and then he repeats it, and then he leaves it alone. Then he gets to man, and he is like, “alright, now we’re gonna have to do a little more work.”
Barbra:
He’s like be subject and love your wife.
Dr. Greg:
So, and then he is like, “okay, if this is gonna be hard for you, man, think about woman as if she’s your own body.” That’s what he says to.
Barbra:
Yeah, I know but.
Dr. Greg:
It says, love your wife. And then he says, “like she’s part of your own body.” So, it’s like, “I know this is gonna be hard for you, man, because you’re not oriented towards your wife.”
Barbra:
Not because you’re like a bumbling idiot.
Dr. Greg:
No, but it’s focused on things out there, but everybody’s thinking about their own body. So, at the end of the day, like if you can, if you just need to just think about her, your own body, love her like your own body. That’s how you’re gonna be able to subject yourself to your wife. So, we’re going back to 21, “be subject to one another. Woman, be subject to your husband. Man, be subject to your wife.” And he’s giving them help on how to do that. So, this mutual submission is in there, it’s in the gospel, it’s in the Bible, and then it’s also in our Church teaching. And then we’ve got St. John Paul II who’s saying, “Okay, we’ve gotten this wrong for thousands of years in the Church and in the world, and we need to start to transform.” So, he has in, Mulieris Dignitatem, he says, “the awareness that in marriage there is mutual submission, mutual subjection of the spouses out of reverence for Christ, and not just that of the wife to the husband must gradually establish itself in hearts, consciences, behavior, and customs.”
Barbra:
This is so nuanced.
Dr. Greg:
It is.
Barbra:
It’s so nuanced. It’s like sort of hard for me to talk about it because I don’t, it’s sort of just, you have to, it’s like moment by moment almost like what you’re trying to navigate and um, yeah, go ahead.
Dr. Greg:
Well, this is I mean, just the fact that he has to say this first of all,
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
Is like, okay, let’s recognize why would he write that in Mulieris Dignitatem 24, “the awareness in marriage that there is a mutual subjection of the persons of spouses out of reference for Christ, and not just that of wife to husband must gradually establish itself.” So, “must”, that’s pretty clear. And “gradually” it’s like, okay, we need, this is gonna take some gentle sort of nuance. It’s going to take out an approach which is recognizing how deeply this has been embedded in hearts, consciences, behavior, and customs.
Barbra:
Well, but if you just look at men and women generally, there’s not a lot of women trying to dominate each other. Right? Maybe there’s like that strange jealousy thing or whatever it is. You know, there’s maybe a competition but when women are in relationship with each other, a lot of it is, it’s not dominance. But when you look at men’s friendships, right, like I’m going out to play basketball, it’s like a constant battle of, of even if it’s friendly, but it’s a constant battle sort of domination?
Dr. Greg:
Yeah, men are more hierarchical.
Barbra:
Very much. And so, it would just, like you said, like the natural disposition is that’s what they’re, and it’s for good reason, right? But bringing that to a marriage needs to be, it needs to be tamed.
Dr. Greg:
Right? That’s exactly right. And yeah. So like through marriage, through the messiness of marriage,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Through the like hitting walls of my natural disposition, your natural disposition, like we have to work things out.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And in the working out, either you would be a woman who just as like you know deferential and submissive and
Barbra:
[inaudible]
Dr. Greg:
But these are like the different ways that
Barbra:
I can be those things.
Dr. Greg:
Yes, but I’m painting the picture like how it could go wrong. You certainly, we both, yes, we will get to that in a minute, but the ways it can go wrong and I probably ways that it can go wrong for us too at times. But if like on one hand you have a woman who could be more deferential, on the other hand, you could have a weak man who’s deferential. And so then a woman who’s been sort of jaded or influenced by this liberal sort of progressive feminism, and then you know the pendulum swing of domination if man was made to be dominant. And after the fall, we’ve seen the reaction to by some women throughout history that tries to wrestle back some power. Then that’s where this comes from. And then so some women have the upper hand in the current, you know, pendulum swing, and then they find men who submit to them and are deferential.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
And then there’s lots of reasons for why that happens, probably because the physical intimacy is being held as a sort of bargaining chip or emotional sort of, you know, nurturance or something like that, where a man feels like, “Well, if I don’t submit to my wife, she’s going to be mad at me. She’s not gonna give me what I need.”
Barbra:
You’re looking for either the total opposite or actually the wounds from your childhood. Right? So, if a man has a very domineering mother or a very, very domineering father, like maybe he’s looking for even unconsciously, mostly unconsciously, that in a spouse to sort of continue that unhealthy pattern. And then vice versa, the woman is sort of looking to take control. Maybe it’s like a scarcity mindset or no trust or whatever it is. And so, they might say like, “Oh, we have a great, great marriage.” It’s great, but it’s not actually rightly ordered,
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
In the way that the woman shouldn’t be domineering. The man shouldn’t be domineering.
Dr. Greg:
So, this is what happens. So, if the third option is that each has their own sort of opinion or way of looking at it, but they never really connect.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And then you become sort of separate,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And people manage that however they might. And that has a lot of different sort of ways that gets manifested. But at the end of the day, all of those things go against sort of our core nature
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And it goes against the core vocation of Christianity. So, if we’re not going deep enough into our own interiority and then realizing that there’s supposed to be this mutual submission of self-gift, we become disoriented, we become disfigured, and instead of us becoming better versions of ourselves through marriage, we become solidified and cemented in really distorted ways of being. So spiritually, psychologically, and human development wise submitting ourselves to each other has to happen at the level of personhood.
Barbra:
Right. And it’s not always a one to one. That’s why I was saying it’s so nuanced, because it is so,
Dr. Greg:
Practically speaking, you mean?
Barbra:
Right. It’s so subtle.
Dr. Greg:
Yeah. So practically speaking, in each moment, in each snapshot of our life, it’s like, “Well, what is the mutual subjection of wife and husband to each other look like here in this moment?”
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
And I think that’s when people get it wrong. Because they want to have rules that they know how to follow. It’s like, well, what if we have an argument about some decision about how we’re running our family.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
So, most people like most, I’ll say most. I don’t know if this is actually true, but I don’t know. I’m gonna guess right now, most,
Barbra:
Many?
Dr. Greg:
Many.
Barbra:
Sometimes or often or other words you could use.
Dr. Greg:
Thank you for correcting that. So in a lot of cases, there are and solid Catholic, you know daily communicant, maybe homeschooling or at least like really serious Catholic families.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
There’s this almost unwritten rule. It’s like, well, if we have an argument or if we have a conflict, like maybe it’s the man’s job. Yes, it’s the man’s job to listen, to hear his wife out, to understand where she’s coming from, but at the end of the day,
Barbra:
It tires him
Dr. Greg:
It’s the man’s job to make the decision like regardless of the situation.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And I think that’s absurd.
Barbra:
Right. I was just thinking when you said homeschooling families, because this is the community that we’re in, and I’m thinking through a Rolodex of the women I know, and they are traditional Catholic families, not trad wife Catholic families, but traditional Catholic families. These women are brilliant. They are not shrinking violets. Their husbands are also brilliant and good leaders. And the linchpin there is good leaders because they serve their family and they serve their wives. And so I can’t think of an example in this huge community that we have of any woman who is like, uhm, who is not that, who is not brilliant, who is not also, I don’t want to say also a leader in her family, but like it’s a partnership for sure. And it’s, and she respects her husband.
Dr. Greg:
Yeah. And I don’t think you know it’s like without getting into details and naming names or anything like that, but you know if they didn’t have a life like that, like that would be really sad. You know it’s like because I mean, I can think of examples of friends, your friends, UN, people who work at the UN.
Barbra:
Oh yeah,
Dr. Greg:
Lawyers.
Barbra:
Yeah, Julliard pianists people, like yeah
Dr. Greg:
Are like some of the most brilliant people.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And I’m like,
Barbra:
Oxford educated PhD’s, amazing.
Dr. Greg:
They were in their marriage, and I like somehow there was this sense of like, well, at the end of the day, it’s because the man is you know the man that if there’s an impasse or if there’s a tension, it’s like, well, it’s the man’s job to make the decision. That would be really sad. Like that I’d be like that so sad for that family that they miss out on the leadership of the brilliance of those women.
Barbra:
There’s a lot to me it seems almost like a balanced beam of this is like so cheesy. It’s like when you go to a wedding and they’re like, it was a dash of love and that you know whatever those you know that love recipe is. Anyway, it’s almost like a balance beam of trust. Right? I have to trust that you have seen the bigger picture, whether it’s finances or my stress level, right, like you’ve seen the bigger picture and that you have our best interest, our kids’ best interest, my best interest uhm at hand. And that is how you would make a decision. And the same goes for me. Like if I am coming to you with something, you need to be able to trust that I have thought this through for the kids, for you, what our family looks like. There’s this idea of trust that like “you’re gonna catch me and I’m gonna catch you all the time.”
Dr. Greg:
A hundred percent. That’s exactly where I feel like our family, like the way we are leading our family is filled with that and it’s balanced by trust. And so just like you trust me to have that bigger picture like, I trust you to have the personal picture.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And there’s so many times that you bring something to the conversation when we’re figuring something out, and then we have to make a decision.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
And this is what I want to just articulate. It’s not just like I’m throwing you a bone and then ultimately I make the decision. It’s actually, if man is the head, great, and woman is the heart,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Great. But no decision should be made by the head alone.
Barbra:
Right. Well, without the heart you’d be dead.
Dr. Greg:
Exactly.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And this is what’s missed in our culture. This is what’s missed in Aquinas. This is what’s missed in the tradition of the Catholic spirituality and Catholic culture. So, decision making. This is and there’s, I talk about this book, Flight from Woman and Carl Stern says that the culture, Einstein says that “intuition is a sacred gift and reason is its faithful servant. We’ve created a culture, a society in which we have elevated the servant and forgotten the gift.”
Barbra:
I read Flight from Woman years ago, so I don’t always remember it, but I mean it makes sense.
Dr. Greg:
So, his point is like, because of our Western culture, if woman represents intuition and that sort of artistic perspective, it’s more personal. It’s, it’s and then man represents this sort of compartmentalized, rational break things apart approach. In Stern’s book, he says, “the approach to truth is the integration of both. The approach to leadership has to be the integration of both.”
Barbra:
I was just thinking as far as your business goes, well, there’s so many examples, but as far as your business goes, there have been times when I have said, like or not just business, but in our life. My intuition, I don’t usually use that word, but like “this is the feeling I’m getting. This is what I see.” And you’ll say like, “well, give me an example.” Like, okay, I can usually muster up a few examples, but really it’s more like what I see. And if you made every decision based on that, you’d get it all right? No, but if you made every decision based on that, it would be sometimes it’s it could be impulsive. Right? So with business, I might say to you, like this is what I’m seeing, or this is what I feel, or whatever. But also, and you listen to me, you take that and maybe you continue on in the same path with that in the back of your mind, but you need to have the full picture of your business at the forefront of your mind too. So, you don’t just say like, okay, great. This is one opinion, and like now, excuse me, now we’re going to use it. But you, uhm, my counsel for you is very important
Dr. Greg:
And my counsel for you is really important when it comes to making decisions and leading the way that our family runs internally.
Barbra:
Totally.
Dr. Greg:
So, like “which kids are gonna be gone to school this year instead of homeschooling? How are you running your day homeschooling? What curriculum are you putting the kids through? Who needs vision therapy?” Who needs, you know it’s like I might put in some counsel to that where it’s like, Hey, think about this. Maybe this is a different approach. I’m compartmentalizing things out, but at the end of the day, that’s your decision.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
And I, and so we have different approaches to the different aspects of our life. We each are in control of certain dimensions. It’s not like because of mutual subjection to one another. We are always making like,
Barbra:
No, it’s impossible.
Dr. Greg:
An exactly mutual decision about everything.
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
But there is no world in which it’s okay to think that I have the responsibility to have the final, ultimate decision about things in general as a rule.
Barbra:
Well, I mean, neither of us have an entire picture of the other person’s everything. Right? Like,
Dr. Greg:
Yup.
Barbra:
It would be impossible for me to know every aspect of your business and every aspect of every relationship and every dynamic that goes on there too for me to tell you, like this is how you should run everything. And then the same goes for our family. Right? I spend my entire day with our kids and you spend a very good portion of your day with the kids, but you’re not intimately homeschooling them.
Dr. Greg:
No, there’s a lot that I miss. And actually it’s funny while we’re talking, I’m realizing too that many people don’t, number one, have that the blessing and opportunity and gift of
Barbra:
Both being home,
Dr. Greg:
Well, both being home. And because I run my own business, I get to share that with you.
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
And I talk about this. Somebody was asking me somewhere I was talking and they said, “how do you integrate your family life, your prayer life and your work life?” And I said, “well, I have this incredible blessing of my work is part of our family mission”.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And like when we pray together every day, it’s like we’re praying for together for my employees, clients, students, faculty, like everything that I’ve built, a Catholic psych is shared in our family.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And people don’t realize how much you are instrumental in running Catholic Psych. Like some of my leadership team gets it eventually when they start showing up enough, they’re like, “how does Barbara know every person that has anything to do with Catholic psych?” And your intuition and insights about people, about roles, about all sorts of problems that come up and how to solve them. Like it’s an awesome thing that not everybody get not everybody has that opportunity, which is a beautiful gift from God. Number two, I don’t know that many people would want to even entertain what that looks like. It’s like that’s such an advanced level of marital friendship and partnership that I don’t know that people would even be able to entertain that possibility. But the reason why I’m naming it right now is because not only is it possible, but it’s the goal.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And in whatever way is appropriate in context. You know if a man is a mailman, like what part does his wife have to play in that? I don’t know. But there’s a some context where there’s a goal there where she is part of that.
Barbra:
A hundred percent.
Dr. Greg:
Like when are you taking time off? Are you asking for a raise?
Barbra:
Yeah. Or maybe it seems like something
Dr. Greg:
Are you putting up with some boundary issue from your boss?
Barbra:
She’s packing a lunch for him in the morning. That’s not a small thing. And it’s not like, “Oh, my wife makes lunch. She gets up early and makes lunch for me because she submits to me as that.” Like it’s a beautiful, small act of love. And those small acts of love are like what filled marriage and a family. I just want to say if something happens to me, somebody needs to step in and help you with the car seats because that’s one thing that is completely my job and,
Dr. Greg:
Which is hilarious because it should be like something I’m good at technicality like on paper.
Barbra:
Yeah, no, you have no idea.
Dr. Greg:
Because you know, it’s like because I don’t know. Because it has, that like you’re so dialed in because it has to do with our children.
Barbra:
And ages and weights and whatever you want.
Dr. Greg:
All that stuff. I’m like,
Barbra:
Yeah, you have no idea.
Dr. Greg:
I wanted to give one more example of not our family life, but something that just happened in culture. Did you see the acceptance speech for Trump?
Barbra:
Ah, part of it.
Dr. Greg:
Did you see when you know his campaign manager?
Barbra:
Yes.
Dr. Greg:
What’s her name?
Barbra:
Susan. Is that her name?
Dr. Greg:
Forget now.
Barbra:
Okay.
Dr. Greg:
So, what was her name? Okay, let’s call her Susan
Barbra:
Susan Wiles. Is that her?
Dr. Greg:
I think that’s it. So, you know, Trump is giving his acceptance speech. And then he’s calling people up and if you know JD comes up and he says a few words. And then he gets some of his campaign team and he says, “Susan, come over here. Susan come over here.” And she is, has wants nothing to do with it.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Did you see this part?
Barbra:
No.
Dr. Greg:
It was so funny. Coz, she was like, well, like he called her out and was like, this was definitely unplanned.
Barbra:
Yeah, sure.
Dr. Greg:
He’s like, “come on, come on.” And she’s like, “aha”, and she’s like, they’re over. She’s literally hiding her head, like turning behind Trump. And he’s like, “come over here, say a few words”. She’s like, “no”, she refuses him. Now, number one side note, this is, this is an example I think of like maybe he’s got narcissistic qualities,
Barbra:
Ahem.
Dr. Greg:
But she just denied him and he was like joking and laughing.
Barbra:
And then he elevated her in the cabinet.
Dr. Greg:
That’s what I was going to say. She’s the first woman Chief of Staff.
Barbra:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
So, this woman who could run his campaign and then denies him.
Barbra:
She’s like, “no, thanks, Don.”
Dr. Greg:
Yeah. She’s like, “no thanks”. But also, she’s not trying to be in the public eye.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
She was so uncomfortable with saying something on the microphone in front of all the people and the cameras and all this stuff, but she could run his campaign. She is now the Chief of Staff.
Barbra:
He very much values her opinion.
Dr. Greg:
Like talk about leadership. Holy cow. So like how like how do people square that? It’s like, I just wanted to read lastly, this is, this is why it’s in our culture, and we need to fight this because Aquinas in the Summa says that women are of a lower hierarchical value on the sort of level of being than men. And he says that women do not have the same predominant quality of reason. Subordination, according to Aquinas, is not a result of the fall, but a part of the created order.
Barbra:
And what does JP II say about that?
Dr. Greg:
Well, he says that we need to go to, again, that quote about mutual submission.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
That we need to go deeper. JP II, like this is what’s so crazy. Aquinas is so enshrined in Catholic thought that like there’s no church document that reverses this yet. Like there’s no one saying, well, we need to go back. I mean, there’s no church document going through the Summa fine tooth combed anyway, but Aquinas is elevated as a thought leader.
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
As a doctor of the Church.
Barbra:
I was just going to ask how you square that? I mean, he’s a doctor.
Dr. Greg:
Yeah, of course. And no doctors of the church are perfect.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
And there’s doctors of the church that argue with each other, that disagree with each other, but we have to be rational enough and intuitive enough,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
To now look at this and say, okay, well, the way that he was thinking, and I have that this is what my paper was about also, it was based on Aristotelian understanding of biology.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
It had to do with this idea that the man has the seed
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
And the seed is planted into the fertile soil of the woman, and that the person that emerges if it’s more like what originated the seed and it’s more perfect. So, in other words,
Barbra:
Hahaha
Dr. Greg:
Before they knew genetics
Barbra:
Aha.
Dr. Greg:
Before we knew that 23 chromosomes come from a woman, 23 chromosomes come from a man biology thought since Aristotle, that the whole person in seed form and the potential of a whole person is in the man.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
Not in the, and all the woman contributes, is the fertile soil.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
We still use the words of seeds today to talk about biology, right?
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
So it makes sense philosophically, when if you play an acorn in you know something that’s not an oak tree comes up or an oak tree without branches comes out. You’re like, “oh, that’s not a great oak tree.”
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
It’s a distorted oak tree. Well, if you plant a whole person from a man and a woman comes out, instead you’re like, “oh, you’re missing something.”
Barbra:
That’s great.
Dr. Greg:
It’s a distorted human. But that’s where all this is coming from.
Barbra:
Aha.
Dr. Greg:
Which is obviously garbage. Like but philosophically, that’s how we thought of the person. And so, Aquinas is like, “well, how do we make sense of the natural order?” Because theology and spirituality and philosophy can’t ignore the natural order. So naturally speaking, that process makes sense.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
They got it wrong from the start. It’s not a full person in the man. It’s actually 23 and 23 chromosomes. Oh, well, that changes everything. If Aquinas had a microscope,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
He could have seen that. He would’ve known that. He never would’ve come up with that way of making sense of it. And his whole framework would’ve been entirely different. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s a worthy benefit of the doubt.
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
But it was so implanted in culture that the whole person is in the man and that a non-man emerging from birth would be a distortion that it’s like, okay.
Barbra:
And it also doesn’t even make sense biologically, coz you’re like if the women are imperfect, you still need them to be able to continue having men.
Dr. Greg:
Well, and Aquinas does say, he does say that. He tries to like reverse it and give something back to the woman. And he says, and then he makes this other statement that I find offensive, which is by order of grace, women reach a higher perfection than made. So then he points to Mary as sort of like what’s possible. So she wasn’t immaculately conceived according to Aquinas, also another error of Aquinas. But through grace, she becomes higher than all men. And you can see this pendulum that was the result of original sin.
Barbra:
And he doesn’t mean men in a collective sense where
Dr. Greg:
No, no.
Barbra:
Married.
Dr. Greg:
No, it’s like all men. So every woman has a calling to a higher order of grace than every man. So even though by nature men are higher by grace, women are higher. And then people are like, well, if you look at Genesis, God made Adam first. He was the rough draft, and then he perfected humanity and Eve. So, she’s the perfect version of human. It’s like that’s so derogatory to men. It’s like, I’m not a rough draft.
Barbra:
I was going to say, it’s so hard to have this conversation because of our current culture as well. It’s like there is no sort of like middle ground. And see they’re all the way over here or all the way over here. And so even in this conversation, I feel like everything has to be couched in. Like we don’t think that women should be priests, we you know. Like we,
Dr. Greg:
Yes.
Barbra:
So,
Dr. Greg:
So much true.
Barbra:
So much to say about this, that is like just because we’re talking about how the man shouldn’t like finalize, make every decision and is shouldn’t be domineering of his wife. We’re also not saying that I should take on that role or that all of these other distorted, there’s like this very nuanced middle ground. And I want to say sometimes I feel funny having these conversations too, because there are people who have been married for longer than us or already know this stuff and um are sitting there kind of laughing to themselves. Like well, of course, of course, we all know that.
Dr. Greg:
But this, yes. But to that point, I think there’s way more,
Barbra:
People that don’t.
Dr. Greg:
People that don’t. And I feel like if there’s a married couple that’s out there that knows this, like it’s your responsibility to say it really loudly. Because people don’t know this, and we’re still suffering from a quietness. And Aquinas was suffering from culture and society. So, this is the old culture that we need to listen to John Paul II and realize that “the mutual subjection must gradually establish itself in hearts consciences behavior and customs.” So, when we talk about roles. Roles are like, does the man work? You know, and people are like, oh, the woman shouldn’t work. You know, it’s like.
Barbra:
Hahaha.
Dr. Greg:
That’s a custom.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
That can change
Barbra:
For sure.
Dr. Greg:
And in some cases, it has to change now. Some men are sort of maybe physically unable to work, or women are, well, first of all, the single women who are heroically taking care of families and have jobs or family’s dynamics financially, or
Barbra:
The woman is just very talented in an area where it’s
Dr. Greg:
Absolutely.
Barbra:
A beautiful thing.
Dr. Greg:
So it’s not even by necessity, but it’s like
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
Can we construct? So, I think that’s balanced by, okay, but okay, the kids need mom. And so if there’s a proper order that she’s not wanting to pursue her dreams outside of her vocation to being a mother first
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
Like that’s a whole another situation. Here we go being, hehe. Kids are up.
Barbra:
Oh, come here, Patty.
Patty:
Yes, you take off my diaper. i just don’t want to take off my diaper.
Barbra:
You don’t want to take off your overnight diaper. That makes you sad.
Patty:
Yeah.
Barbra:
I’m sorry, Patty.
Patty:
I wanted to have it on.
Barbra:
You want to still wear it?
Patty:
I still want to wear it right now?
Barbra:
Uhm, can you guys take the French toast out of the oven? But hey, hey, there’s two of them.
Dr. Greg:
Close the door please.
Barbra:
And can you use pot holders please? It’s gonna be hot.
Dr. Greg:
Thank you. Do you want to be on our podcast?
Patty:
No.
Dr. Greg:
You can say hello.
Patty:
I don’t want to.
Dr. Greg:
You just want to sit.
Patty:
[inaudible]
Dr. Greg:
So, it is a lot of nuance. It’s a lot of, well, it requires a lot of dialogue.
Barbra:
Well, I was going to bring that up too, because I can’t, like there are decisions I have to make in, right, game time decisions where I’m not gonna call you and be like, “what’s your final answer on this?” Like I just have to make, just like you do game time decisions. But there is definitely is a lot. I might call you in the middle of your workday and say, “here’s something that came up. Let’s talk this through real fast.” And you have a different perspective than me, right? But more often than not, we’re like, okay, this makes sense for our family. Great. Uhm, when it comes to your work travel, it’s something that I have a pulse on in our family. Like “how are the kids doing this week that you’re gone?” Like is it time to maybe like start saying no to a few things. Or is it like, you know what, actually things are great. The time when are, you have been home, everything is awesome. Like go for it. Or this is really important. We’re all gonna make a sacrifice because like it would be really important for you to take on whatever it is that you’re being asked to do. And so,
Dr. Greg:
I just think, yeah, I mean all of that’s so necessary and the dialogue in real life, this is what this is how it actually looks.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
I think this sort of abstracted, theoretical world in which the man is the one who has the ultimate responsibility for leading the family, I think that needs to change. What do you think about that?
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
Because as a man, I feel like by saying that, I almost feel like, oh, that’s kind of like weak. Like that’s an admission of weakness.
Barbra:
Well, I don’t know if it’s weakness. I think, again, if you trust, if you’re able to trust me and I’m able to trust you, like that’s built on also years of doing this together, right? And ways in which like I have grown into my role and ways in which you have grown into your role and that we have grown into a partnership in a marriage together. So,
Dr. Greg:
Right.
Barbra:
There’s a lot more grounding and basis for like you to trust me and for me to trust you. I do wonder, like, I mean at the end of the day, Adam should have taken a responsibility and said to his wife, like “no”.
Dr. Greg:
But did Adam have a right to turn to Eve and be like, what? Like you failed your responsibility. Like what were you thinking? Or is it,
Barbra:
I don’t know.
Dr. Greg:
Is Eve just like a sort of like damsel in distress and she couldn’t have possibly have said no to the devil?
Barbra:
No, no. I think, yeah, I see what you’re saying. No, I mean, I think on, she should have said no. He would have a right to be upset that she didn’t say no, and he should have also said no.
Dr. Greg:
Yes, mutual.
Barbra:
Right?
Dr. Greg:
That’s my point.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
It’s like, it’s not like, well, the whole thing went wrong because Adam didn’t stand guard. It went wrong because two people failed.
Barbra:
Totally.
Dr. Greg:
Adam should have stood guard and Eve should have said no.
Barbra:
Right? But that’s I guess the nuance that’s hard to sort of define in our day-to-day. If I had my way, I would be, you know, decorating our house left and right and you don’t throw down an iron fist on it, but you have a picture of like what’s, okay, listen, your, you need to focus on this this week. Like this is where this failed. Like that’s great that you want to do all this stuff and you want to make our home beautiful and warm, and that’s really great and you’re really talented, but like,
Dr. Greg:
Well, let me put it in a different way. So, I think in culture, like there’s you know masculine genius. Feminine genius.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
That’s like the big thing. So, I’ve heard people who say masculine genius, the masculine genius is to lead, provide, and protect. Like that’s the man’s job to lead, provide and protect. I’m like, wait a minute. First of all, leadership I think is the one that needs the most work. So, let’s leave that aside for a second. Provide, like why is it that like is there a role for the man to provide? Yes. But what do you call nursing? Like what do you call all the nurturing that you’re doing? How can you not see feminine nurturance as feminine provision and then protect like, holy cow, have you ever been with a woman? If you think that it’s the man’s job only to protect, it’s like, it’s like so people you know I think I use this example, like men often run through their mind scenarios at least once a week of like what happens if somebody breaks in the house.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
Or you know some danger. You walk into a room, you kind of assess whether you’re aware of it or not. Men usually are assessing threats.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Well, so do women.
Barbra:
For sure.
Dr. Greg:
And if a man actually comes to the house, or if a criminal comes to the house, if there’s like a threat at the house, I’m looking for a weapon to go after the man or after the intruder.
Barbra:
Well, I’m gonna take him down with my words.
Dr. Greg:
But also typically women, and tell me if you don’t think this is true, but women will run like to where their kids are.
Barbra:
Oh, hundred percent, yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And if there was actually an intruder that came into the house, a woman will throw her body over her babies,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Or in a fire or in a situation to like put themselves first. They’ll be hurt and killed first.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Before letting something happen to their kids.
Barbra:
Well, and I’m also in a less like violent and severe way. I am looking all the time at what are the threats to our kids in different ways day to day.
Dr. Greg:
So you’re, that’s what my point, so,
Barbra:
Psychologically, emotionally.
Dr. Greg:
So providing and protecting are not just the role of a man. There is a masculine way of providing and protecting. And there’s a feminine way of providing and protecting.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
So we less, we lose something when we say, well, this is the man’s role to provide and protect. Also, that’s a woman’s role to provide and protect. And I would say for leadership, there is a masculine way to lead.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And there’s a feminine way to lead. So, if I’m thinking about how I’m making decisions for our family.
Barbra:
Want to sit with me?
Dr. Greg:
You want to go that way? Okay, so yes. I’m going to be naturally thinking about the bigger picture, structure, financial, ah you know, what makes more sense, sort of big picture, long-term things like that. You’re gonna be leading with decisions that are much more person oriented and intuitive and has to do with our kids, has to do with the person. Both are necessary for making decisions.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
And so yes, I will say like, “Hey, let’s let go of decorating the house for the week or for the month or for the year. Let’s look at other things.” And you’re gonna say, “but our kids need to have the experience of Christmas and we want to make sure, okay, maybe we’re not gonna go all out with decorating, but let’s do something because of their experience and what we want Christmas morning to be like, and how are we.”
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
“You know making this a spiritual experience for the kids that marks them, they remember for life,” like those kinds of things.
Barbra:
Right. I was gonna say, maybe this, I mean it’s maybe tangential, but there’s this TikTok, whatever movement of this trad wife thing, and I’ve seen some of them. I mean, in our culture, there’s a huge stereotype. Right? When I meet somebody and I am dressed, like I threw myself together, like I rolled out of bed, and then they hear that I have seven kids. Oh man, it’s like, “you’re poor thing.” If I look like a disaster, it’s an immediate assumption that like this isn’t my choice. I must be submissive. I must, right? Like instead of, do you know what it takes to heroically have seven children? Like that’s there’s no part of me that is just like kind of like crouching and tiptoeing through life, right?
Dr. Greg:
Yeah.
Barbra:
So fine. But there’s also this TikTok sort of trad wife thing that I’ve seen where they’re like, I’m a trad wife and like their husband works and they stay home putting on makeup all day. I’m like, that is such a distortion of traditional values. It makes me want to throw up. Like when I see that, I’m like, it is selfish. It’s self-centered. It’s not serving
Dr. Greg:
That’s an example of wanting these rules that just like,
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
Makes it easy for everybody to know, okay, this is who I am. This is what I’m supposed to do. If I’m the woman, this is what I’m supposed to do. If I’m the man, this is what I’m supposed to do. And it keeps separation.
Barbra:
Totally.
Dr. Greg:
It keeps this compartmentalized disunity, which is more of a masculine way of approaching things actually. So, we need more of the feminine to influence the way that we understand marriage and communion and complementarity, which is to say, how are we together in this? It’s not always clear it’s gonna get messy. It means we have to have conversation, dialogue. It means we have to argue and fight things out sometimes. It means each of us has to be willing to go into each other’s perspectives and see, like okay, maybe we don’t have money for all these decorations and maybe you know we’re renovating the house and things you know are whatever. It’s like, “oh yeah, sewage lines needed to get fixed and all these other things.” Like we don’t have the same budget for decorating for Christmas. And then you’re like, “okay, but we still, we still need to make this really special for the kids. How can we work with both of those perspectives?” And then we mutually come to some agreement.
Barbra:
We have the same mission for our family.
Dr. Greg:
Hundred percent.
Barbra:
Right. I was thinking of Ballerina Farm, and she’s, I don’t know if you know them, their um, I don’t follow her or anything, but I, she’s often in the news because I think they have eight kids and sort of a homesteading kind of life and stuff. And so she is, um, so often slammed. Bless you. For having all of these kids and how her husband must be so dominant. And she was a ballerina and she gave up this dream. And I’m sitting there going like, I don’t know what their life looks like. I don’t know what their interior life looks like or you know the intimacy of their marriage, but I do know that like somebody who has a platform like that is not being domineered by her husband.
Dr. Greg:
Yes.
Barbra:
And it’s hilarious to me. I’m like, could you think if you took your own wounds out of what you are looking at, that she could possibly, like, is it possible that she is happy and that she chose that? And that there is some, somewhere beauty and goodness in like serving your family? Is it possible or are you so triggered by your own wounds that like it’s unimaginable to you? Like, that’s so sad. People are putting that on her. And then at the same time they’re like, well, um, she must have no voice. So, I’m like, everybody on the outside is giving their own voice to like what her life must look like.
Dr. Greg:
And so this is where I mean, this is where it gets really deep, especially when John Paul II says that this mutual submission has to enter into consciences. If you think about that, it’s like the way we think like about what’s our conscience. It’s our examination of our own morality, our own virtue. So where would an examination of conscience need to be influenced by deepening of understanding of mutual submission? And what you just brought up, when you talk about wounds, like people don’t realize how much their own family of origin and their own like personalities,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
Are formed by their wounds, and then they’re blind to what God is actually calling us to in virtue and holiness. So this is just to be really explicit about this. According to St. John Paul II, the great in magisterial teaching of Mulieris Dignitatem, men need to have their consciences informed that they are not by right as a man and by identity as a man, the sole recipient of a subjection of wife that they are responsible for and called to also submitting themselves and making themselves subjective to their wife. And so, like how many people just sort of,
Barbra:
That’s not like she chose what was for dinner tonight?
Dr. Greg:
No.
Barbra:
That’s not the way that it looks.
Dr. Greg:
It’s like I’ve talked about this too, even to the point of, and this is obviously in context of in the right situation, in the right marriage, but like ultimate spiritual formation is subjected to one another.
Barbra:
The goal is to become closer and more alike.
Dr. Greg:
And more but also, yes, but also more sort of myself. It’s like my path,
Barbra:
Sure.
Dr. Greg:
To becoming my perfect self is through subjecting myself to you.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
And God in his wisdom, in his crazy humor, chose us
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
To be the path that we each become saints.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
And so that literally means that I become a saint, the best, perfect version of myself by subjecting myself to you and that
Barbra:
Well, and vice versa.
Dr. Greg:
But I’m just, thought, I’m just being selfish. I’m talking about my path to sainthood. Your path to sainthood is subjecting yourself to me. And we provide for each other.
Barbra:
You want to go with the guys?
Patty:
No.
Dr. Greg:
We provide for each other a kind of spiritual direction in terms of I know your spiritual life more intimately than anybody else will ever know in your life.
Barbra:
Uhm.
Dr. Greg:
And I also know it’s not only by proximity, because I know you.
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
So, it’s like there’s a very deep process of spiritual development that happens in marriage when there’s mutual subjection of each other. But that has to be like a full gift of self and subjection of one to the other, psychologically, intellectually, emotionally.
Barbra:
You have to be in touch with the other person.
Dr. Greg:
Yeah but it’s, you all you have to be, my point here is like I as a man,
Barbra:
Yeah.
Dr. Greg:
I have to decide that that’s the thing I should do. And if I’m holding onto this idea, like well, at the end of the day, I have to make the call at the end of the day, it’s my job. There’s like a real disunity in that. It’s like, we are not making decisions. I’m making decisions. I will be informed by you, but at the end of the day, I carry this burden of decision-making on myself.
Barbra:
I think it’s really great to say all of this when you have a healthy marriage.
Dr. Greg:
That’s what I keep saying.
Barbra:
But there are, right, and it’s super nuanced because there are ways in which I was just thinking about, like there may be people out there where maybe the man is saying like, “well, my wife, you know this really bothers her.” And your job is to listen to your spouse when you are meeting the mission of the family, and it’s good for your children and it’s good for each other, but when there is something that is disordered that comes from your spouse,
Dr. Greg:
Yes.
Barbra:
It is not your job to walk on eggshells and to submit to that person’s.
Dr. Greg:
And now it goes both ways.
Barbra:
A hundred percent.
Dr. Greg:
Because a lot of women feel like they have to walk on ice.
Barbra:
Sure. But that’s not healthy. Everybody out there.
Dr. Greg:
But that’s, so I think this is a great point. If you don’t trust that your spouse is aligned on your family mission,
Barbra:
Or if you cannot,
Dr. Greg:
Then, then that’s a deeper problem. That means like that is something to look at first before all these like advanced nuances.
Barbra:
Great.
Dr. Greg:
But I would say if you do trust that your spouse is aligned on your mission as a family, then you have no justification to not be subjecting yourself to your spouse. And again, that can probably be nuanced better, but that’s a move in the right direction at least.
Barbra:
Right.
Dr. Greg:
I would say that we probably should wrap up because our kids are,
Barbra:
They have all the breakfast in the world. They just want to come here.
Dr. Greg:
I know, but that’s fine. What do you think? Should we go eat some breakfast? Not sure.
Barbra:
Are you getting so excited? Alright.
Dr. Greg:
Alright. Thanks.
Barbra:
Yeah, no problem. Talk to you soon.
Dr. Greg:
At the breakfast table.
Barbra:
You ready?
Dr. Greg:
Thanks for listening to the Being Human Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and want to help us spread the word, please head over to iTunes, leave us a review, and subscribe—it really helps us get our content out to more people. Be sure to listen next time as I take you deeper into what it means to be human. If you want more free content and information about what we do at the Catholic Psych Institute, head on over to catholicpsych.com. God bless you.