The night before I moved into my husband’s house, my mom came to my room with her last piece of advice. She said, “When you go, lie on the floor and let him walk over you if that’s what he wants. That’s the only way you can keep a marriage longer than your dad and I did.”

In the car on the way to my husband’s house, this advice kept ringing in my ears throughout the journey, and the question I kept asking myself was, “If he loves me this much, why would he want me on the floor simply so he could step on me?”

I knew my mom was talking about obedience and submission. I understood that, but I felt there should be a limit before you hit the floor to be stepped on.

Ten years later, I still haven’t been on the floor once. I speak my mind. I fight when I ought to. I support where I need to, and most importantly, I always love the man who made me his wife. But the funny thing is, anytime I argue with my husband, I hear my mom’s voice in my head telling me to lie down so I can be stepped on.

When the argument is over and my husband is giving me the silent treatment, I hear my mom’s voice in a different way: “You see what you’ve caused because you didn’t lie on the floor?”

My husband always comes around, no matter how long he stays angry. On our tenth anniversary, while we were reminiscing about where we came from and where we had been, he said, “You’re one strong woman. That’s the reason we are still here. If you had allowed me to do everything by myself, I would have made a lot of bad decisions. The arguments were often what we needed.”

My sister got married not long ago. My mom gave her the same advice and even used me as an example of a woman who would lie on the floor for her husband.

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I told my sister, “You don’t always win when you’re on the floor. Stand up. Fight respectfully. Speak your mind. It might take your marriage to a place where the two of you will look back and be proud of how far you’ve come.”

Mothers aren’t always right just because they’ve done it the longest. We can get it right in our own way too.

—Felicia 

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