Marriage Jiu Jitsu: Submitting Your Spouse

Jiu Jitsu is one of the few environments where the word "submission" does not cause women everywhere to start shouting "oh no you did-ehhn" as they start triple snapping a 'z' pattern while shaking their heads back and forth. Husbands, if you've ever wondered how to get your wife to submit to you, a study in basic jiu jitsu might offer some very helpful advice.

One of the concepts that is taught early on in the study of jiu jitsu is "position before submission" which basically means that you should never attempt a submission on your opponent until you have first established a strong base position to work from. The reason that "position before submission" is important is because if you do not have a good base position and you attempt a submission, your opponent can reverse your submission attempt and put themselves in the offensive position while forcing you to a defensive position.

So how does that translate to marriage? What is the base position that a husband needs to be in before he can go for the 'submission'? Amazingly, this base jiu jitsu position for husbands is described in the book of Ephesians.."Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25). Oh yeah husbands, I totally just sucker punched you. The 'offensive' position that you need to establish before you expect your wife's submission is the position of a servant...like Jesus. It is the position where you are willing to not only give up your life for her (which all husbands are theoretically willing to do) but you are even willing to do the hard things like give up the t.v. remote or give up your fantasy league obsession or give up Saturday to hang with the kids while she has a chance to get out and have some alone time. It's a position that looks very much like you are washing your opponents feet or even worse, it's a position that looks like you are actually giving in to the will of your opponent.

The sneaky thing about the whole "position before submission" concept is that she'll never feel like she's being "submitted". She'll want to do what you want once you have established the position of loving her just like Christ loved His church.

There is a catch. though,....once you start loving her like Jesus loves the church, the only time that you'll attempt the "submission" is when you are truly looking out for her own good and benefit... better stated, out of love for her..

and then once your position is based from selfless love for her, you can go for the "submission"...and you probably won't get a lot of triple snap reactions...