“There is a middle ground in things.” Horace
You’re familiar with the story. Goldilocks goes into the house of the three bears—Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear. She sits on their chairs. Tastes their porridge. Climbs onto their beds.
Goldilocks finds that Papa’s stuff is too harsh. Mama’s is too soft. But Baby’s is just right.
And that’s the approach you need to take with your marriage.
Not her way. Not your way. But a way that is just right for both of you.
It has been proven that this approach works in parenting.
Authoritarian parenting is too harsh and rigid—producing rebels.
Permissive parenting is too loose and without consequences—producing anxious or entitled children.
But authoritative parenting has boundaries but also flexibility that results in well-adjusted children and competent adults.
The same thing works in marriage when you find the middle ground.
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But people don’t think in those terms.
They want things straightforward—black or white, good or bad, this or that.
But these simplistic false choices are the source of many marital problems.
When you only see things in contrast, you either careen back and forth between the two. Or you get wedded to one side, pushing your spouse to the other.
This leads to the non-relational choices the writer The Mental Mirror refers to as the Tamed Man—desperate for approval and afraid of rejection and the Untamed Man—aggressive, ego-driven, and controlling.
The relational middle ground option is the Tempered Man. Like tempered steel, this man is forged through overcoming difficulties. He has faced his own emotions, desires, and challenges and mastered them.
He has found his own “just right” and brings it to his marriage. And you can too.
This is what I teach in the second pillar of The Hero Husband Project. Contact Me if you want to learn how
