The Happy Wife School

Reader and friend Claudia asked me to review The Happy Wife School.

TL;DR: The last thing most women need is to be told to take responsibility for more of men’s shit.

In the channel summary, The Happy Wife writes that her marriage used to be unhappy. She “emasculated” her husband until realizing that she was “the problem.”

Truth be told, she doesn’t look all that happy now. However, I can certainly believe that at one time she put too much pressure on her husband to meet all her needs.

If that’s your problem too, you might find her content helpful. But this is not a common problem among women who are married to men. In fact, the real problem is exactly opposite.

The intro says The Happy Wife offers “unconventional perspectives.”

But no perspective could be more conventional, at least where and when I grew up, than believing that women are ultimately responsible for what men say, feel, think, and do.

Why, for example, does The Happy Wife think her husband’s masculinity was ever in her control? Isn’t that on him, ultimately?

Women, generally speaking, already take disproportionate responsibility for men’s thoughts (see: modesty culture) and behavior (see: purity culture).

The average wife takes far more responsibility for the happiness of their marriages than her husband. For more on this, read Zawn Villines and Celeste Davis.

The Happy Wife School seems like a nearly perfect example of the conservative fantasy of full agency.

Most life outcomes are relatively easy to influence, but really difficult to control.

The conservative mind has a really hard time accepting the reality that sometimes shit happens. Despite our best efforts, bad things still happen, even to cautious people.

For example, her sign that reads “Happy women have happy marriages.”

On average, this is very true.

But sometimes an otherwise happy woman ends up married to a miserable or selfish fuck. You can do things to increase your likelihood of marrying someone who ends up being a pretty happy, well-adjusted person. But no married person can entirely eliminate the possibility of waking up one day to find yourself married to a shithead.

This fantasy is even more common when it comes to rape.

A person can reduce their likelihood of getting raped. But no one cannot totally eliminate the possibility.

Not only can no one entirely control everything that happens to us, but neither can anyone fix all of our problems alone.

For example, one person cannot always fix an unhappy marriage.

It really does take two to tango. If one person can’t be made happy, the other person cannot fix that by themselves.

Would that they could! It would be incredible if conservatives were right and every individual really did have total control over all our circumstances and outcomes. I mean, it would be unspeakably boring. But I guess we’d all be safe.

As a human living with anxiety, I completely and totally understand why so many people find this kind of content and messaging so addictive and inviting.

It would be amazing if I knew I could fix any bad marriage all by myself. But I can’t.

And the last thing most women need is to be told that we should take even more responsibility for even more of men’s shit that we ultimately cannot control.