There are structures of “loving discipline” that must take place between a couple. There will be times in the relationship where each of you will do something “wrong”, and when this happens you will feel the urge to “correct” this behavior, to teach your partner that this is not acceptable.
In this blog I will be sharing and promoting the Vedic ideals of womanhood and “the Vedic relationship” which are established in traditional fundamentals and values.
So, loving discipline…
There is a feminine way to do this and a masculine way to do this.
If you are a woman and you try to discipline your husband in a masculine way, you may win the battle but you will lose the war. And if a man tries to use feminine energy to discipline his wife, she will gradually lose respect for him and start seeing him as weak, a push over.
This is the art of learning how to discipline your partner in the right way.
There is only one way to get this right and many ways to get it wrong.
The only way to do this in the right way is to combine your “disciplinary measures” with kindness and love. That means you you only have a right to “teach your partner a lesson” as long as you do it out of love, and not out of anger. It’s very hard to achieve this. If you feel like you cannot continue to feel love and kindness, then the only person you should be trying to teach something to is yourself. Leave him alone.
Here are some of the different combinations:
THE RIGHT WAY!
Discipline + love =Loving discipline
Every “disciplinary measure” should be proportionate and reasonable to the act that was committed. Ideally you should leave your “story” out of it. You should continue to genuinely wish them to be happy, you must continue to carry out your duties to this person.
(Ex. You are a parent and and your neighbor comes to your door to inform you that your child was caught pushing someone over. So you apologize and decide to send your child to time-out as punishment. You are not super emotionally involved, you still love and care for your child and you also have a strong belief that changes can be made. You simply wish to correct this behaviour)
THE WRONG WAYS!
Discipline + Unkindness + no love = Cruelty
(Ex. If you always seems to pick on a certain person all the time, always searching and looking for mistakes in the other person and making sure you are the first to point it out)
Discipline + Anger = Venting of frustrations rather than changing behavior
(Ex. When a parent is tired after a long day at work and their child is driving them crazy, and they decide to punish them for being annoying)
Discipline + over sensitivity = Manipulation
(Ex. Crying hysterically, not telling him what exactly he did wrong, wanting him to “feel the way he made you feel”, giving him ultimatums, telling him to not contact you again when you don’t mean it.)
The woman’s right
The Vedas teach that a woman has the right to distance herself from the relationship in order to “lovingly discipline her husband.” This means that she can simply talk to him less etc to simply bring more distance into the relationship. Women are naturally very “involved” in their relationship, so when they step back, the change is usually noticed by her spouse big time.
But this right does not come cheap. In order for a woman to claim and exercise this right in her relationship she must be, with absolute confidence, fulfilling all her duties as a wife. If she is not a good wife, and then tries to distance herself from the relationship, it will have disastrous effects. There is no way she can have confidence in getting it back when she wants it back. The only way a woman can have this power is if she brings constant love and feminine value into their relationship.
How to bring distance correctly:
You can withdraw from elaborate conversations and from affection BUT…
You must still keep warmth in your heart. You must still think well of your husband.
You must still be kind.
You must still do all your duties.
How to know if you are doing it wrong:
If you try to take distance from your relationship and you notice that it is getting weaker and weaker. If you do it correctly, and if you do it at the appropriate time, and if you do this only when you can say with absolute confidence that you have been fullfilling all your duties in your relationship – then this should make your relationship come closer together, not weaker.
Or if you notice that your husband becomes happier when you are not around. If a woman leaves her home and her husband for a week and goes to stay somewhere else, how her husband reacts to this time apart can reveal a lot about his affections for his wife, and also reflects on how well she has been performing her duties as a wife. If he doesn’t really like her, if she isn’t a good friend to him, and if she doesn’t really do a good job of being there for him, then he will be happy and relieved when she leaves. He will make many jokes about how nice it is to have freedom. During the week that she is away, he will generate energy (energy that he never seemed to have when they were living together!) to make plans with his friends and carry them through in order to have fun. He will get by. He will cook if he can, or order take out if he prefers, but he won’t complain about not having to eat his wife’s food. Even if she is a good cook, if she does not have the ability to love him properly and put that love into all the food she makes for him, then he will not really miss the food when it is gone. He will welcome change. When she returns, he will be refreshed from having some time to himself, and a little disappointed that it has come to an end.
However, if she has been a good wife, if she has been there for him, become a good friend for him, supported him, loved him, and took care of him, when she leaves he will miss her. He will be waiting for her to return. He will not enjoy the food that she has not cooked, even though it tastes fine, he will miss her secret ingredient. He will keep her in his mind. He feels lonely without her beside him. He misses her needing him for things, even the simple things, like picking up the groceries for dinner etc. He’s a big boy so he will get by, he still has the ability to have fun and be happy without her and he will make such plans, but the fact that he misses her is very obvious. When she returns he will be very happy and relieved – finally things can go back to normal.
The man’s right
The man has the right to do what he decides to do.
But this right does not come cheap either. In order to claim this right the man has to have a clear conscience. He should know he is not doing anything that would hurt or bring suffering to his family. If his conscience is clear and strong, the vedas teach that the husband has the right to make decisions for himself and also for his family.
As always, I will not be writing a lot about a man’s duties or rights in a relationship due to the fact that I am not a man, so I am not the right person to write about that! Oleg Torsunov teaches that it is called “self” development not “other people” development. So we should try to only develop ourselves and not other people.
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As always, thank you for reading.
Malavika
