Meddling Mothers and Distant Dads

One of the biggest mistakes that a woman makes is meddling in everyone's lives. The result is a weak hen pecked husband (a husband that is like one of her kids), rebellious kids, or kids that can't do anything for themselves anymore.

Few women realize the harm they do by adopting a stance of self righteousness and then interfering in and trying to control everything everyone in the family does. Even after the whole family is ruined, with kids with mental and emotional issues, on drugs or in jail, dad absent or withdrawn, or a family of wimps walking around on egg shells, she rarely sees the damage she has done. She blames it all on her husband and plays the martyr, feeling hard-done-by for all she did for her ungrateful brood.

Along the way, there were warning signs. When the kids were little, they cried in frustration at her willfulness. They tried to establish some space for themselves, but she was an omnipotent force, seemingly everywhere to critique, criticize, and nag; and when her meddling interfered with their natural functioning and they began to mess up, she took over and did it herself.

The result is generally an upset emotional child, whose emotions interfere with performance. This becomes for her, the meddling mother, a self fulfilling prophecy. "I knew you would mess up." She takes over and the child may become incapable of functioning from self.

Then in guilt, seeing the pathetic dysfunctional child (she created), she feels sorry for the child and to assuage her guilt, she rushes in with help. This of course is what liberals do--create victims and service the needs, creating dependency. Liberals are just a macro societal example and an outgrowth of what happens in the home because of the weakness of fathers.  

Dad may have tried to speak up, but she was more clever verbally than he was. Besides, most men tend to be reasonable and when confronted with her unreasonableness, he most likely shrugged his shoulder and let her have her way, rather than risk her wrath.

Many dads become distant--not saying much and spending time out in the garage or in front of the television. His wife was just too much for him. Anything he said was wrong, and when he spoke up, his at first good natured correction was interpreted as meanness. Soon he became silent and let her run everything.

He did not see the harm he was doing through his failure to correct her unreasonableness. Most likely he walked around on egg shells because he wanted something from her (reassurance,  sex and food support for his ego), so he did not correct her because he did not want to risk losing his perks. Later, he wanted peace, and so he sold himself down the river for peace or popularity. The result was that he became a doormat.

Most men eventually do speak up, but only after they have become angry. He speaks up in an angry way and looks bad. She cries and looks like a victim. We are all familiar with how the basketball player who is fouled and fouls back is the one that gets caught by the referee. The referee did not see the first foul that tempted the next foul. In the family situation, it is often the more verbal wife and mom--who resents her husband, and nags, criticizes and emasculates him--who tempts the husband to get angry. But to all the world, he looks like the bad person and she looks innocent.

He feels guilty (because he is wrong for being angry), and so he lets her have her way. His anger weakens him and pulls the rug out from under him. His real manly strength would come from courage of conviction, patience, long suffering, and virtue.

Of course, I will say here as I have said thousands of times over the past 23 years - the fault is the man's. If he had courage and the virtues that come from a right relationship with Principle within, he would have been able to gently joust with her unreasonableness and corrected her naughtiness. He would still have suffered; but he would have suffered for being right instead of suffering for being wrong.

Due to the failing of fathers, beginning with her father who was not there for her, and then her weak or violent husband--her natural naughtiness remained uncorrected. Most women wish their husband would be more a man, but she does not know what being more of a man means. Nor does her husband.

She is conflicted because she wants it both ways. She wants him to be a man, and yet she wants to always be right and be in charge. Part of her wants to be led by a good man. The other part wants to be in charge and control her infant male.

She cries out in agony for him to be man, but when he brings her flowers and is even more submissive, she is frustrated. The good part of her wants him to be the noble knight who with graciousness, patience, and quiet strength, corrects her naughtiness.

But her dark side fears a man's strength and refuses to be corrected. It is willful, self righteous, and takes advantage of her resentment and judgment toward her husband and all men to egg her on in self righteousness and judgment toward him.

The weak man, no matter how decent he is, hardly stands a chance. He worships women--his mother and wife--and looks to women to be his all. He craves to have his maleness accepted and reinforced, so his thoughts are on sex constantly.

A wrong man wants to make his wife into his mother or a whore. He wants to use her for pleasure, and when he does and she hates him, or when she can no longer sink low enough to satisfy his increasingly low cravings, he goes off the another woman, the bottle, marries his work, or another man.

After his rebellion from his boss wife, he may come whimpering back for her to accept him and forgive his trespasses.

She can hardly resist accepting him back. She is very guilty for having judged, resented and hated him. And so she accepts him back out of guilt. But since she is putting the imprimatur on what he his, she is only reinforcing and reassuring what is wrong with him, guaranteeing another round of infidelity, gambling or whatever else he sooner or later go back to.

These indulgences, you see, are substitutes for her. When she withdraws her approval, or he can't stand her nagging, he turns to other temptations to excite and soothe him. He did not marry her for putting a wet blanket on his ego. He married the temptation in her which excited him.


It is hard for her to resist playing God again and accepting him back. She has a need to be needed. And by accepting him back, she feels needed. This is also how she gets power. But part of her also resents his always calling on her to support and enable his wrong.

In most homes, the dad is basically decent. He goes to work, earns a living, is home nights and  weekends, mows the grass, and sits in the living room watching television.

On the surface, all appears well. She is in charge of carting the kids off to daycare, school, doctor visits, Sunday school and so on. More and more, he lets her be in charge of everything. She rises to the occasion of his default, but it isn't long before she is secretly seething with resentment.

She tempts him to let her have her way. He often starts off being angry (especially early in marriage) and there is constant squabbling. He gets angry and then becomes silent. She throws everything in his face and then sulks and is unhappy. There is the usual making up in bed, and things are okay for a while. Then another round.

Because he is not grounded in virtue, and because  he worships women and looks to them for validation, he is on shaky ground. When she is unreasonable, he wavers and gives in. Or he goes to the other extreme and becomes angry or even violent.

If he becomes violent, he is, of course, wrong and he looks very bad. His violence makes her look like a saint in comparison, though it was her teasing (which he did not deal with gracefully) that may have led to the violence.

She becomes a victim of his anger, or he becomes a victim of her wrath and judgment. It is basically his fault for not being the noble knight in shining armor that might have ruled the day with reasonableness.They are both victims. Both suffer, he in his way and she in hers. Both complicate each other's problem.

Although it is his fault for being weak, this is not license to judge him. He may have been half way decent, but she was just too much for him. He came from a typical home where his dad was weak. He went out into the world looking for a woman like his mother.

The lady he finds came from a home with a fierce or passive mother, and a matching angry or wimpy dad. Either way, her father was not there for her. She resented him and then found in her partner someone like her dad to resent, judge and then serve out of guilt.

Sometimes a woman will sense the spirit of her mother within, and she makes the common mistake of confusing aggressiveness with strength. She marries a man to help control her dark angry out of control spirit. But she discovers that he is violent. She becomes the victim, and hates him.

On the other hand, if she marries a weak man, then she will have the agony of experiencing her dominating side grow, due to his weakness. And as she sees herself become more manly, she also resents him. As she grows in power, due to his defection, she also grows in judgment, which only favors the hell operating through her.

Many men and many women are basically decent and reasonable. Though they come from a typical dysfunctional home, they really do want to be reasonable and don't want the kind of hellish home they experienced as kids. Unfortunately in order to buy peace, they compromise and are too easy going, which tempts the other to take liberties. Then that in turn tempts them to become judgmental and resentful. And before you know it, these otherwise decent people recreate the same hell they knew as kids.

The two could work things out. If one begins to wake up and see what is happening, the other might wake up too. But in most homes, things deteriorate to violence or repressed resentment. Often there is divorce, and the kids get hurt.

So he can't win for losing. If he clams up and lets her be his woman god, then he becomes subject to her unreasonableness and her wrath (she will punish him for not giving her the love she needs). If he speaks up for himself but does so wrongly (with anger), then he looks bad and she grows in self righteous judgment of his real faults.

The solution, of course, is for him to do some soul searching, and see that something is needed. He needs to see that he needs grace, courage, virtue and wisdom to deal with her. But it is grace, virtue, courage and wisdom which he does not now have. He must cry out for answers, and hopefully the answers will come from God within.

But if he cries out to his woman God, another woman, bartenders, shrinks, or counselors, most of which are surrogate women, he will be crying out the principality that tempted the very first couple.

Satan is a women's god, and he is very clever. It says in the Bible that the serpent was the most subtle of creatures. He knew that if he were to approach Adam directly, Adam would have sensed something amiss and asked his Father what was going on. Thus Satan, in his cleverness, approached Eve and tempted Adam through the woman.

And to this very day, Satan rules through unloved woman and women imprinted males. On the surface it appears to be a man's world, but it is really a woman's world. Tempted males vie and fight for superiority to bring home the spoils to their woman god.


Some women, the permanent man haters, like this arrangement. They get power and also get revenge on the weak, violent men who they secretly loath and hate.

A very wise man once quipped: "It is said that behind every successful man is a woman. But no one ever asks who is behind her!"

A good woman does not like the arrangement of her becoming increasingly bloated with power, having all the responsibility on her shoulders, and watching her husband become weaker and wronger.

She longs for the real man, who will be a man who--with wisdom, gentleness, and manly strength-- can rescue her from her dark side.

If the man does not find God and bring his wife into his Heaven, then she will rule over and him and drag him into her hell. Satan will rule both of them. And there you have all the homes where there is violence cruelty, confusion and unhappiness.

Santa's feast is one person's judgment on another. When the world is filled with everyone judging everyone else, Satan will  wax powerful and rule in hatred and false righteousness.

In the family, the seat of hell is in the woman. It is not her fault. It is the man's fault. But the weaker or wronger he becomes, the more she is justified in her judgments of him. And as she deteriorates into judgment, condemnation, unhappiness, depression, then bitterness and insanity, he will scratch his head and wonder what she wants. And as she judges and hates her husband, her dark side also torments her with dark and negative thoughts, depressing and even suicidal thoughts that originate in hell.

In many homes, the man eventually sits back on the cat bird seat and lets her run and ruin everything and he secretly judges her.  He might even become the woman, and she becomes the man.

This chamber of horrors will begin to stop the second that you see that what I am saying is true and have a change of heart about judging and resenting others, beginning with your spouse, your parents, and then everyone else. You must welcome the Light which shines on the darkness. You must welcome the gentle Spirit of Good which wordlessly illuminates your wrong and shows you your error.

Sure, it will be painful for a little while but only because your ego resents being corrected. But if you welcome correction, even if it is a little painful for a short while, then you will observe something magical happen. Your life will begin to change for the better. You will begin to see how others are victims too, and why you must not hate them. You must not feel sorry for them either. Just learn how to stand back and observe people, ideas and imaginings objectively.

If you are a lady and you begin to see how your meddling and willfulness has only made others worse, then just see this fact and don't resent seeing it.  Take your will out of what you do. If your kids are older and grown up (and have issues), just back off and butt out. Get out of their life (trying to help them solve their problems).Chances are you helped create the problems with your meddling, and now your meddling only makes them worse. Plus they resent the injustice of having the one who messed them up in the first place now acting like their savior.

You cannot make a man into a man. You have discovered that the more you manipulate, support or nag your husband--the more he becomes dependent on you to motivate him. Pressure and manipulation create characterless conformists and angry rebels--neither of which is self motivated.

If you are the dad or husband, realize how your wrongness--whether passivity, anger or both, has hurt your family. See now that they need you to be a man of virtue, strength, kindness, gentleness, courage, longsuffering, and patience. See that you did not have these virtues. If you had any virtue, you were not committed enough to remain steadfast, patient and hold your ground. Your wife and family tested you and found you wanting. You failed and then tried to be a people pleaser. You made being popular more important than what is right. Now you see the result. Your family has contempt for you and they are not happy either.

If you are the adult children of a dysfunctional home, then start by forgiving your parents, your poor unloved mom and your weak father. See that when they were kids, no one had the love and understanding they needed either. So they became lost, and went out into the world looking for love and found only use instead. Forgive them. When you forgive them, then the curse of sin will be broken and you will not pass on the legacy to your kids.