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Here's the deal. Your wife will put on weight when she's pregnant. This weight may take time to come off, especially if she gets pregnant again within a couple years. She might spend most of her child bearing years overweight. If you try to control this or punish her, you put her health and the health of your children at risk. This comes across as really severe.
If all you mean is "Don't get tatoos or medical procedures without telling me first" then that's fine. But there's a spectrum between that and "I will track what you eat, how much you exercise, and select your wardrobe" which is how it kind of came across the first comment.
I've said it before (though I can't find the link at present), if she's willing to bear and raise my children, she will receive my reverence eternally even if her looks slide.
Indeed, that's part of the point. If she is willing to accept the travails of pregnancy, I will dig in deep to my provider role, and will accept the tradeoffs to her personal appearance because the outcome we're achieving is SO mutually beneficial I can't imagine deciding against it. My consent to her gaining weight is both implicit in the act of getting pregnant and I will happily make it explicit and praise her to the heavens for the sacrifice.
I'm mostly seeking the parts of a good and compatible personality that happen to correspond with keeping oneself healthy and aesthetically pleasing... while not overindexing on that measure.
Because guess what, those are traits I'd like to pass on to and inculcate in my kids! Its all tied up in the same ultimate objective.
Yes, and I'm suggesting you should interrogate a bit why you jumped to THAT interpretation from the rip rather than asking clarifying questions. "I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself," to me, means closer to "she's making decisions independently (or with my counsel), but I hold veto power when I think it necessary." Tracking how much she eats and exercises sounds like a freaking DRAG, man. Although maybe more possible with AI agents. She wants to get ice cream for dessert I will provide without blinking. She wants to eat ice cream for every meal... imma put my foot down.
I try to be as specific as I can and avoid ambiguity in my language, and don't always succeed, but man, if I wanted to say "I WILL CONTROL ALL HER FOOD INTAKE AND WILL PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN HER FROM GETTING A HAIRCUT" I would have said that.
And whilst I can SEE how you could get to that interpretation, I would suggest that isn't the most charitable or straightforward takeaway unless your priors suggest any signal of wanting some control in a relationship indicates being a micromanaging overbearing control freak.
Hopefully I've given sufficient clarity now.
A lot of the language you used implied very strict control against a woman's wishes.
"additional authority... that a lot of women ALSO don't want to grant" "I will make final decisions...I will dictate I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself"
So yes, control over her physical appearance, which would require control over her food and exercise.
"The whole house is indeed my castle," good luck with that when you get small kids. It's clear that you think of yourself as a benevolent dictator, but your still describing a dictatorship.
"fair and equitable for any woman willing to help raise my kids." Language imply that this control persists after she's had kids, and that the kids are yours (singular) not yours (plural).
I'm glad to hear that your expectations are not quite that severe but the language you used did encourage a more severe interpretation.
I mean, I noted that women left to their own devices have gotten fat, covered in tattoos, and do weird things with their hair. And they're abjectly unhappy too.
Who else should rein them in, if NOT their husbands?
Yes. Actual dictators have wives too.
But I only extend my dicatorship to the boundaries of my actual, personal property. And, it turns out, I don't view a wife as personal property.
Do you think the phrase "help raise my kids" implies that I'll be involved with and assisting this process too, as in there's mutual exchange here?
I dunno, once again I just try to use the terms that actually express my beliefs as precisely as possible. You're pattern matching them to a type of guy that is basically nonexistent in the modern era.
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It doesn't work like that. I mean, maybe you're the level of advanced autism where it does, but for a psychologically healthy man, you'll see those changes happen so continually and slowly that it'll barely even register. By the time you really notice she'll be the mother of your children and the reverence will come naturally.
My autism is sufficiently advanced that yes, I am simply predicting with confidence that the natural/inborn evolutionary psychology factors will kick in and I will feel that specific way in the future with near certainty.
But you realize how many steps have to happen at this point to even get there, what else can I do but talk in theoretical terms?
No, that's fair. I'm not trying to downplay your situation. I'm just saying that if you win, I don't think you'll have to be making explicit tradeoffs like "Well, she's dropped from a 9 to a 7, but I'll tolerate it for the two sons".
I do wish you the best of luck in your quest.
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