The Power of a Transformed Wife, Lori Alexander, Control, Submission
This is a book review series of The Power of a Transformed Wife by Lori Alexander. If you are just joining us, you may click on previous chapter reviews to catch up.
Introduction & Chapter 1 Chapter 2
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Chapter 3 – Let it Go!
No, we’re not busting out a Disney show tune. We’re talking about women letting go of control over their husbands.
Tired of watching your husband eat unhealthy junk food all day? Let it go!
Tired of your husband constantly watching sports on TV? Let it go!
Tired of watching how your husband wastes away his free time? Let it go!
In order to have a good marriage, Lori thinks a wife must stop criticizing and controlling her husband. He is a big boy and can choose to live his life how he wants. Lori doesn’t want her life controlled, so what gives her the right to tell her husband how to live his life? Really, Lori? If you want to use that argument, what gives you the right to tell women how to live their lives. Maybe it’s time you started following your own advice and let it go! (Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Moving on…)
Lori blames women’s need to control their husbands on Eve.
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Genesis 3:16, KJV)
Lori translates “desire” in this passage as “control.” This is typical complementarian thought on Eve and the fall. Lori goes on to tell us, “The more I gave up control, the more Ken became the husband I always wanted him to be.” All I can say to this is, yes, no one wants to be controlled. However, Lori’s simple statement sounds more like a magical spell. Do this and you can have a wonderful marriage just like us! I’m sorry to say that there’s a lot more complexity in a controlling marriage than simply no longer nagging can solve.
Moving on, Lori gives the following advice for when a wife needs to confront her husband:
- Do it in a gentle and submissive way. Maybe Lori should do some role play videos with Ken to demonstrate this.
- Don’t argue.
- Say your piece and give it to God.
- Ask your husband to hold you accountable for your faults. Is this a reciprocal request? Should the husband ask his wife to hold him accountable for his faults? On, no…we’re told to let it go!
- Have your husband challenge you when you are trying to control. I can see that working out really well.
Lori again closes with an old blog post about how wives do not have the right to control their husbands because he is a man and can live his life how he wants. I guess that means he can do whatever he wants (within reason of course – no sinning allowed) whenever he wants. Why should he care how it affects his family?
Husbands don’t want their wives to nag them, withhold sex, give the silent treatment, or vent their emotions. A wife’s job is to love, serve, please, submit to, obey, and most importantly, make her husband feel comfortable at home.
We are left with a power differential here that is so common in complementarian ideology. While comps say that their ideology promotes healthy marriages and allows no room for abuse as long as there is a “different but equal” mentality, someone will always have the upper hand of control in a relationship.
It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. (Proverbs 21:9, KJV)
It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. (Proverbs 21: 19, KJV)
A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. (Proverbs 27: 15, KJV)
Spiritual Sounding Board 
It’s all about Who’s in Control, i.e.
“There is no Right, there is no Wrong, there is only POWER. And those who are too weak to have it.”
— Lord Voldemort
“The only goal of Power is POWER. And POWER consists of inflicting maximum suffering among the powerless.”
— Comrade O’Brian, Inner Party, Airstrip One, Oceania, Nineteen Eighty-Four
“AM I NOT MERCIFUL?????”
— Caesar Commodus, Gladiator
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Nobody likes to be controlled, and I thought it was many years ago standard advice that you cannot change a man. So if I thought this was about trivial things I would be ok with some of this.
However, I think they consider it for everything no matter how serious. Trivial things should be treated differently than serious things. Personal habits that are annoying should be treated differently than gross abuse. Etc. I never seem to see this acknowledged. They also leave off the ‘what happens when you confront him, about something serious, and he refuses to change’. They just act like everything will be well. This is such an error.
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Her overall message – albeit she strings it along for many paragraphs – is essentially, “Pretend everything is fine and it will be!” (if you’re female)
What a dimwit.
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My husband tells our boys that a real man is someone who can handle being told “no” — someone who respects the choices of others and doesn’t have a hissy fit when he doesn’t get his way.
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I like your husband already. (I bet you do, too!) 🙂
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OP:
I’ve always had a meek personality and was afraid of my own shadow, so this complementarian gender stereotype has always driven me nuts. I am a woman who has zero desire to control anyone, male or female. I’ve always been content to be a follower, not a leader.
Having said that – and this is something I get into on my Miss Daisy Blog – the Bible, in Genesis is saying the exact opposite of what comps like Lori assume.
The Bible is actually warning women that their tendency would be to become codependent, to become so reliant on men or a man (usually a husband) for protection, identity, stability, and financial security, that they will turn over control over their lives to men, and the majority of men will be more than delighted to exploit that tendency to control, manipulation, and exploit women.
Jesus Christ later comes along in the New Testament to correct this control-, power-, and authority- hungry mindset many men are prone to, by telling them they are not to seek control (authority) over one another.
I don’t know how complementarians manage to get the book of Genesis completely opposite of what it’s teaching and saying: it’s saying women will allow men to control them – the trade off from the female perspective is, ‘I a woman, will be your property, of yours, man, and will be a slave to you, and give you sex and cook for you, etc and so on, if you provide for me and protect me.’
And God is telling women this is a bad thing for women, that they should be turning to him, God, for protection, stability, and identity, not human men.
But Lori A. and other complementarians want to argue that this tragedy that God is upset about is God’s intent and should be celebrated. I do think this is one example of Christians taking God’s name in vain, attributing something to God that God does not feel, teach, believe in, but saying that he does.
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Lori Alexander:
Tired of other women not wanting to live by your biblical interpretation of how you think they should be living life? Let it go!
Lori Alexander:
Tired of women being tired of or stressed out by their husbands being lazy, inconsiderate, or abusive? Let it go!
By the way, Lori’s constant mantra of “let it go” to the woman will cause the couple to divorce eventually. And she claims to want to help women with their marriages?
Via this “drop it, don’t bring it up, if what your spouse does upsets you,” teaching she is asking women to constantly repress their needs or complaints in order to keep a false peace.
This will eventually create frustration, resentment, and the woman will eventually fall out of love with the husband, and may either start an affair, or divorce the guy. It will vary from woman to woman.
Some women may be able to live in a marriage like this for months, with another, years, before they break.
But one day, the woman will have it up the behind putting up with their lazy, rude, or inconsiderate oaf of a spouse –
She will either explode in anger like a volcano after years of Lori’s advice to “just drop it/ Let it go,”
Or, the husband will come home one day to find out his wife has cleaned out all her stuff from their home with a note on the fridge from the wife saying, “Bye, had it, see ya!, so long, divorce papers will arrive later this week.”
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From the OP (I am assuming this is a summary of Lori’s views?)
Um, all those passive aggressive behaviors she is describing there that she frowns upon are the result of the very complementarian or patriarchal type advice Lori gives in her blog and books, LOL!
Lori is creating the very conditions in women that she says women should not be engaging in.
If you don’t want a wife to nag, withhold sex, give silent treatment, etc, that means the opposite will have to occur:
The wife will have to be assertive, direct, and tell the husband when and if and what he is doing or did that hurt or offended her.
Telling women to not say a peep when Husband ticks them off, to bottle it up, sweep it under the rug, or to “let it go,” will result in resentment, divorce, affairs and/or passive aggressive acts, such as, with-holding, cold shoulder treatment, etc.
Women are human beings who experience anger and frustration just as much as men, but only women in our society get pressured to stuff it all down and wear a fake smile all the time. Most men most of the time are conditioned to think it’s fine and dandy for them to be bold, assertive, and direct.
So, women are humans with emotions (including anger), God designed them as such, but the Lori’s of the world are telling women to act like robots – to pretend that when their husband clips his cruddy toe nails over their salad at dinner time, they should just stuff that anger and annoyance down as though they’re a robot, and pretend it’s all a-okay, even though secretly they are infuriated.
Not good advice, Lori. You can’t change the fact that women have much the same psychological make-up as men do (women feel anger and it must come out eventually).
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I agree. I think women are just going to be told to repress their feelings, and be content, submissive, whatever. But people aren’t robots.
I think it’s sort of like building up steam. If you let a little out a little at a time it doesn’t build, otherwise it all builds up and you explode. That’s probably not a great plan.
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I also wanted to say that if someone has a serious issue to discuss (and since you are supposed to let literally everything else go it will be serious here), this is a terrible idea. It will completely distract from the point! Why would you do that?
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Not long ago over at The Transformed Wife blog, in the comment section Ken Alexander mentioned that in his 30 years of counseling married couples, he had never seen a husband trying to get his wife to sin. However, on the contrary, he had seen many times where the opposite is true – how wives attempt to manipulate their husbands to sin. (These are my words, but I will look for the exact quote and post it here later.)
In light of what Ken Alexander has said, I find Lori’s “Let it go” message very disturbing. Anyone who has read Lori A’s blog long enough will recognize the recurring theme: Women are the main ones responsible for when a marriage fails. Women have more problems than men. Women are manipulative, controlling, lazy, selfish, whiny, resentful, nagging, angry, and just about any other negative adjective that you can think of. The message from Lori is that if women would just shut up, stay at home, cook, clean and have sex with their husbands – all would be well.
Gee, with the way Lori Alexander talks about women, you would think that the majority of crime was committed by females. The prisons must be over-populated with all those difficult women who are so evil and manipulative. Oh, wait….
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“However, Lori’s simple statement sounds more like a magical spell. Do this and you can have a wonderful marriage just like us!”
Yes, formulas. I once read Debi Pearl’s Helpmeet book and she is also into “formulas” for the perfect marriage. if you are a good enough wife then even the worst husband will automatically change and become a good man. In the Bible we read that Abigail was apparently a wonderful woman married to an angry bad man… and the fact that she was good did NOT miraculously “fix” him. There are many kind, gentle, forgiving women married to abusive men who continue to use their free will to choose sin. Precisely because no one can “control” someone else’s choices, neither by nagging nor by becoming a doormat.
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In looking for that quote of Ken Alexander’s, I found some recent comments of his directed at a egalitarian husband who commented at Lori’s blog.
“My wife is not my equal as I make it my goal to out love her, out serve her, and I sacrifice more for her.”
“You get to decide how to lead your wife, but you don’t get to decide if you are to be her leader. God has already spoken on that matter…”
If you’re interested in looking at the back and forth between Ken, other commenters, and this egalitarian husband, just look under the post “Women Flagrantly Refusing to Submit from April 14th.
I’ll let the comments of Ken’s speak for themselves. 😉
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Oh that title! I doubt I could stomach that one.
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I found the Ken Alexander quote. It is from the post entitled “Does Submitting to Husbands in Everything Mean Everything?” written by Ken A. from March 6, 2017.
“I must say that in my 30 years of counseling I cannot recall a husband asking a wife to sin, but I have seen a wife telling her husband to sin.”
Ken’s quote is in the comment section of that post. Dave’s comments in that thread are disgusting, and yet Lori allowed them to be posted. Read them for yourself if you’re interested. I’ve made comments just asking questions and she wouldn’t post them.
Anyway, I find Ken’s views on men and women very troubling. It is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the views Lori and Ken hold are destructive toward marriages. Following their advice puts women in abusive marriages at risk.
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Typo above: It is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the views Lori and Ken hold are destructive toward marriages. The omission of one word make a big difference!
Mod note: JA fixed it 🙂
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I’ve had a difficult time tracking down the blog post that she references in this chapter, but I did find it on another site.
http://christmycovenant.com/meet-lori-alexander/
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I think she does not have a tenable grasp of reality, but that is just me.
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In my opinion, the Alexanders promote a model for a self-destructive marriage. Good marriages have give and take, support and criticism. Lori confuses love with approval.
In her mind, if a woman loves and respects her man, she isn’t allowed to disapprove. Can you imagine this in the workplace? Can you imagine a co-pilot feeling it is disrespectful to disapprove of a pilot’s actions — saying nothing — even though those actions down a jetliner?
(Apparently it happens. Read how “deference” in Korean pilots might have contributed to the Asiana crash. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm-gladwells-cockpit-culture-theory-everywhere-after-asiana-crash/313442/)
And in my opinion, a marriage is so important, God wanted two intelligent people to bring the best of their wisdom, experience, and intuition to the union.
My parents have a wonderful, loving and supportive marriage but they critique each other every day. There’s a constant low-level of recommendations and suggestions, yes, and even criticism, along with a lot of love and affection, that keep their relationship healthy and happy.
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From that article Kathi linked:
Goodness, I suppose you should just let him die, lest you be a nag. I don’t think that’s what they were talking about in proverbs as being ‘quarrelsome’.
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What is LA going to do if her husband is involved in an accident or has a serious health that issue mentally incapacitates him? Is she going to sit around on her duff, ignoring the doctors, letting him harm himself even more by doing as he wills, while she waits for him to regain his senses so he can tell her what to do?
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@Daisy:
i.e. You were a Fluttershy!
At which point, the soon-to-be ex-husband goes to his church and all his Christian social media contacts with “SATAN Hath Entered into My Wife”, i.e. the Geraldine Defense. JMJ over at Christian Monist saw this happen with a LOT of the “God Sent Me a Wife” marriages from his days in the Navigators.
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@Darlene:
Does that include when Christian Husband demands a swingin’ Threesome?
(As one of the usual-suspect Christian gurus seemed to be obsessed with…)
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How supremely devious for Lori Alexander to include the word “POWER” in the title of her book.
Her book cover declares that a “transformed” wife has power!
By using this deceitful title, Lori is implying to women searching for help: Buy my book, follow my directives and you will be able to reclaim some personal power (and by inference, dignity) in your marriage.
The horrible reality is that all of Lori’s “transformational” directives to wives strip them of all power and dignity and make them into de facto slaves of their husbands in the name of God.
But an accurate title like “The Cower of a Misinformed Wife” would not sell many copies.
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Forgive my bluntness , Maybe it’s just me but I kind of get the idea that Mrs. Alexander was a real bitch for years and years and somehow thinks every woman is too. Like the reformed alcoholic that now is alway screaming that abstaining is biblically mandated. Like the idiot that gambled away his home & business making judgmental comments about someone enjoying the fantasy of buying an occasional lottery ticket. We all struggle with different issues and the extra- biblical cookie cutter answers that these folks come up with aren’t applicable for everyone. Maybe Lori should just work on not being a such a bitch and leave the rest of the world to their own journey.
I’m just really sick of all this holier than thou advice that church folks profit off of. Very little of it is really biblical and when it is somewhat supported by scripture they take it to such extremes that it no longer is.
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scott, I honestly can’t tell with Lori. I got the strong impression from the first chapter review that she really didn’t even like Ken, so I can see that carrying on. OTOH, Ken seems like kind of a jerk too. So maybe they deserve each other.
I do agree with you about people who have a problem with a thing going crazy against other people who quite obviously don’t. I think alcoholism is another example. Some people can have a glass or two of wine occasionally and some people can’t. It is a good idea to figure out which person you are and act accordingly.
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I’d like to get my hands around Michael Pearl’s neck. That’s my take on this discussion.
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I have a good idea. What if neither the husband nor the wife used nagging, withholding of sex, silent treatment, or venting their emotions– but both husband and wife communicated their needs clearly and respectfully, directly and without manipulation? What if both husband and wife expressed their emotions in healthy ways to one another? What if both husband and wife committed themselves to change whatever the other pointed out was hindering their relationship or harming the family?
In short, what if marriages were about two adults treating one another like adults, in mutuality and equality? Wouldn’t that have solved Lori’s marriage issues even better than her one-sided cessation of hostilities?
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krwordgazer – You’re sounding entirely too rational, now. That must be feminism influencing you! 🙂
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Well, life would certainly be boring if we just treated people like adults.
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On one of Lori’s recent blogs, she is harping on all mothers needing to stay home. Single moms, wives of disabled husbands, etc. Her go to answer is usually, “God will provide.” She has now added that she has never known anyone whose has faced “real poverty” when faced with no income (i.e., single moms with no outside job).
I can’t decide which is smaller-her world or her brain!
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@scott1253 “Maybe Lori should just work on not being a such a bitch and leave the rest of the world to their own journey.”
I think she just needs a target, so she quit harping on Ken, and a
Started harping on every woman in the entire world.
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She didn’t have any girlfriends in high school, I think she said. I think she’s always been a pill. Why anyone listens to her I’ll never understand.
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Scott said,
Great observations!
What you said dawned on me before, but I’ve never really thought about writing it out on a blog, as you did.
I sort of touched on it a time or two on this thread or another, how these Christians who promote this view that Genesis teaches that women want to control men get this wrong for various reasons –
Including there are women such as myself who has never desired to be in leadership positions – not over other women, not over men. I’ve always been more comfortable being in a follower position, working behind the scenes, not barking orders at others.
(If God supposedly cursed women with wanting to wrest control of men, as complementarians teach, God completely left me out of that.)
But yeah, I’ve thought maybe folks like Lori Alexander who write this stuff must have been catty, controlling, hags, so they assume that all other women are also catty, controlling hags.
They’re projecting their issues on to all women, and not recognizing that just because they personally had struggles with “X” does not mean other women struggle with X, or are prone to X.
As a matter of fact, complementarianism does not seem to recognize that some women, such as me, spent years being a mousy, timid, little doormat with little self esteem.
Instead of teaching women such as myself to be EVEN MORE submissive and passive, complementarians should be teaching women like me to be MORE out-spoken, to have stronger boundaries – but they will not do so, because the wrongly assume God wants all women to be passive, constantly sweet little doormats.
As I blogged about before on my own blog, Christian gender complementarianism is nothing bu Codependency for Women
My problem has never, ever been that I’m too controlling or assertive, but the exact opposite.
There is no help for women such as myself from complementarians themselves, or the teachings of complementarianism, women who struggled with being meek, afraid of people, passive (which makes us very desirable targets for most manipulators and abusers).
We’re actually told by these complementarians that we should continue being weak, meek, passive ‘fraidy cats, which keeps us stuck in the same set or problems.
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Oh, I had a few typos in that last post, like,
” which keeps us stuck in the same set or problems.”
Should have been “OF problems” not “or problems”
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HUG said,
Obviously, some “Christian” husbands must be asking their wives to sin, because the question comes up among other complementarians.
For example, some woman wrote to complementarian John Piper (him or some other comp) and asked him this question a few years ago. She wanted to know, if her husband asks or demands her to participate in sex with a third party, does she have to obey her husband?
In all my years of watching The 700 Club, hosted by Pat Robertson, where Robertson daily takes questions from TV viewers, I’ve seen this sort of thing come up numerous times. Robertson either gets the occasional question from a wife wanting to know if the wife should go along with husband’s request to do something kinky (or lie, cheat, or steal for money, whatever), and the wife will ask, “Is it biblical or not for me to tell my husband to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
Obviously, if Christian TV hosts and pastors are getting such inquiries from Christian wives, there are in fact Christian husbands out there asking and expecting their wives to do sinful behaviors.
You’ll notice that the Lori Alexander (and her husband’s) view is to “Always Blame the Woman.”
(Flip side: The Husband Is Never At Fault, No Matter What, Even If He Is To Blame.)
This view goes right back to the response Adam gave to God in the book of Genesis:
Rather than taking personal responsibility for his role in eating the forbidden fruit, Adam was all wife-blamey:
“Hey, God, it was THAT WOMAN you gave me that tempted me to eat the fruit!”
We see Ken and Lori Alexander carrying on that tradition today, as do many other complementarians:
“God, my sin as a man is my wife’s fault!”
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krwordgazer said,
I agree with you, but that comment brought something to my mind in a book I read.
The psychiatrist who wrote the book explained if you keep acquiescing to your abusive, bully, or cranky spouse, you are being complicit in your own abuse. If you follow Lori Alexander’s advice and just “zip your lip” and repress your anger at your spouse, the book author said you are engaging in a sick dance. Your partner needs for you to sit quietly and/ or accept blame (even if you are not to blame).
I cannot explain it as well as the psychiatrist did, I wish I could. BTW, the psychiatrists was not saying you are to blame if you are being treated poorly or being verbally abused by your spouse.
But you are playing a role in your abuse, enabling it to continue, if you just sit there silently while your partner berates you.
If you are doing the one-sided cessation as Lori promotes, you are only going to allow the abuser to continue to abuse.
Note: what I’m saying above may not be entirely applicable in super abusive marriages, where, if the woman practices boundaries and stands up to her abuser, he may become physically violent, such as give the wife a black eye, or kill her.
Obviously, in such cases, standing up to the abusive husband is not the way to go.
But in your run- of- the- mill marriage, if the husband is just being an average jerk, or if it’s a verbally abusive marriage, standing up to the husband is the way to handle things, as most psychiatrists I’ve seen advise.
If you go about things the way Lori advises (just sit there in silence and endure it), the mistreatment is guaranteed not to stop.
The husband is never going to magically come to a realization that he’s hurting his wife and needs to stop – he’ll only get the picture that his behavior is unacceptable if there are negative consequences to his behavior, which involves the wife bluntly telling the guy it is wrong, and/or she may spend the next two weeks at a friend’s house or in a motel.
The “Lori and Ken Alexendar” way of handling marital disputes is a recipe for on-going neglect of a husband to wife to continue, not cease. If by some measure it ceases, because the wife is backing down all the time, see my posts above that mention such women will eventually grow tired and resentful of this, and either have an affair, or divorce the guy.
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Ann said
So, if Lori has never personally seen it, it must not exist?
I’ve never personally seen George Washington, but I am fairly sure he was a real guy who really existed.
She must live in a small world. Someone please introduce Lori to Shauna, the lady over at WW blog with a teen son named Billy. Based on what I’ve seen, Shauna (who is raising Billy alone as a single mom) and who is in-between jobs at the moment, struggles to keep their lights on, food on the table, and to pay their rent.
God does not magically provide or pay people’s rent for them. Which is one reason why Christians start up food pantries and other charities.
Lori sets up her views to be easily invalidated.
She’s like, “There is no such thing as a white and black animal! God would never create such a thing!”
All you have to do is send her You Tube videos of panda bears or zebras to disprove her position.
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Before we are too hard on Lori, she doesn’t seem much different from mainstream authors who write to women. People feel safer when there is a formula– if i do these things my marriage will be good or my kids will grow up to know God, or my house won’t be broken into because God will keep me safe. We have to learn that there are no formulas– no promises of an ideal life. We need to seek God because we love him rather than because we want a nice life. And we need to be satisfied knowing that he loves us.
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Good gosh, I thank God I have a spouse like Zipporah, who corrects me and gets in my face and is truly iron sharpening iron. Thank God I do not have a spouse like Lori or I’d have surely become a monster–like she is encouraging her husband to be. Thank God I have a real wife who is a true partner in Christ and acts like it–rather than a weak coward who lays low because somehow she thinks the Lord will pat her on the back for enabling my worst side..
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OP: A wife’s job is to love, serve, please, submit to, obey, and most importantly, make her husband feel comfortable at home.
Hmm. Sounds like a Golden Retriever best fits the bill.
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Lol, refugee! So nice to see you, btw 😊
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Apparently the Complementarians have discovered a 10th fruit of the Spirit. For men only. Egotism. They are always over-concerned with how large and robust their egos are; they need lots of help from their wives and all the women around them to keep these egos well-inflated.
These hubbies like to remind their lesser halves that as men they’re like Jesus. In the Bible Jesus acted as a servant for his followers. No ordinary rabbi would humiliate himself by washing his followers’ feet. Jesus said that if you wanted to be great you should become the least. He was meek and lowly of heart. Not your typical Alpha male.
Nowhere do we see Jesus spanking His disciples. Or ranting about how all those around him needed to inflate His ego. (Balloon images keep floating through my mind.)
Some husbands already have bloated, over-inflated egos. IMO they need to use a needle on them!
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