What Am I Bid for a Useless Hubby?

Published May 21, 1981. It was so embarrassing! Each member of our church auction was asked to bring something that they didn’t have any use for. Several women brought their husbands.

But it was not totally unexpected. Some of the husbands in our congregation are rather listless, almost lifeless at times. One of them recently passed out during church services, and we called the ambulance. When the paramedics arrived they carried out three men before they finally got the right one.

Our church auction does raise an interesting question. How much should husbands and wives depend on each other? Most would assume that the greater the dependency the better the marriage. But a recent study of a happily married couples reported in the journal Family Relations questions this assumption.

Dr. Paul Ammons and Dr. Nick Stinnett of the University of Nebraska administered a questionnaire to 72 middle-aged, middle class couples who, by their own assessment, by their peers, and then by a panel of family specialists, were judged to be happily married. Among the findings of Ammons and Stinnett were the following comments.

“These marriage partners appear to have well-developed ego strengths, that is, they have characteristics that enable them to function autonomously (alone) and to separate themselves from their mate. Healthy ego strength is indicated in that the majority (75 percent) of the respondents expressed a moderate need to make independent judgments and take independent actions. Furthermore, only 2 percent expressed high dependency needs, and not one of the respondents reported high needs to accept undue blame, or admit inferiority.”

Ammons and Stinnett noted that stress and conflict are inevitable in marital relationships, even in the successful ones in their study. And stressful times seem to be particularly threatening to the husband or wife with low ego strength.

The underlying insecurity and fear of losing the marriage partner may cause a spouse with a low self-esteem to adopt a posture of over accommodation and cling to his mate in neurotic desperation. The researchers concluded, “High ego strength enables couples to weather stressful times and frees them to work toward their resolution while leaving each partner’s basic integrity as an individual intact.”

The ability of a married couple to both act alone and act together is a difficult balance to attain. Either extreme may be detrimental to the relationship. Too much individual endeavor by either husband or wife may, in fact, train a couple to be so independent they have little or no need for each other. Being highly individualistic in marriage often promotes isolation, despair, alienation, and insecurity.

Too much togetherness or joint action, on the other hand, may suffocate a marital relationship so that the individuals involved begin to lose their sense of individuality or lose control of some aspects of their lives.

Dr. Ammons and Dr. Stinnett concluded, “Husbands and wives in happy marriages both give and receive a great deal form each other forever. Like the ancient god Zeus, they face two directions inward toward their conjunct relationship and outward toward their functional autonomy. Mutuality is furthered by their commitment to the relationship through reciprocal need-meeting. Individuation, on the other hand, is furthered by the presence of sufficient ego strength to as if losing their independence.”

The proper balance both individually and mutually in marriage is perhaps reflected in a comment by Cyril Connolly. He noted, “In a perfect union the man and the woman are like a strung bow. When is to say whether the string bends the bow or the bow tightens the string? Yet male bow and female string are in harmony with each other, and their arrow can be aimed. Too taut, the bow or string will break. Unstrung, the bow hangs aimless, the cord flaps idly.”

By the way, if other women have things they haven’t any use for, our church is having another auction next fall.