Is it Wrong to Depend on a Man?

Guest post by Laurie Nevermen

Common Sense Homesteading

Growing up, I saw first my father and then my stepfather treat my mother, myself, and my siblings poorly. I vowed at that time that I would never be dependent on any man. I went off to college, and was swept up in the lifestyle. I studied in male dominated fields (first math/physics, then engineering), and was often treated as “one of the guys”. Paying your own way was expected on dates. I was confident I could do anything a man could do.

Then my husband-to-be entered my life. First, we met as friends. I asked a mutual friend to tell me more about my not-yet-husband before we went on our first date. He said, “August would help anyone in need, even down to giving them the shirt off his back. Actually, he’d probably give them that, too, if they really needed it.”

When we went out on that date, he insisted on paying for dinner. Even after knowing about him and being friends, I was still surprised, and pleased. We continued to see each other over the course of the summer while he worked in the Air Force National Guard and I acted as a Teacher’s Assistant and Youth Counselor.

The turning point in our relationship came when I was helping another friend work on repainting a house, and was bitten by the neighbor’s dog. That friend dropped me back at the dorms, and didn’t call to check on me until several days later.

August came back to the dorms from Guard duty, stopped in to visit me, and found me crying in my room in extreme pain with my wrist swelling up horribly. He insisted I go to the ER – he wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was so nice to just be able to depend on someone when I really needed them. He won a piece of my heart that day.

When summer ended, he left town to work at his new job and I completed my final undergraduate year. We would see each other once a month, when he visited the area for Guard duty. Towards the end of the school year when my workstudy money ran out, he helped with expenses so I wouldn’t have to try and find another job before graduation.

We continued our long distance relationship while I finished graduate school. He proposed shortly after I received my diploma. I hunted for work, and we talked about what kind of wedding we’d like to have.

That fall, I was finally hired by a local solar contractor. He called me the same day I got the news that I was hired, and told me he wanted to get married. I laughed, and agreed that we had decided to do exactly that months earlier. He said he wanted to get married right away, because he was concerned that I didn’t have health insurance and he wanted to be able to take care of me.

I called my boss, called the Justice of the Peace, called friends and family, and a week later we were married in a small ceremony on a snippet of lawn with tape-recorded bagpipes and jackhammers in the background. (We had a renewal of our vows two years later.)

Now, nearly sixteen years after that “jackhammer wedding”, I am certain that I am married to a man who values me “far above rubies”. I know that if absolutely necessary, I could do things on my own, but I feel so blessed to have a real partner in my life, who honors me above all others, and I him.

In submission, there is strength, because together we are more than each of us is alone. I believe the concept of the “liberated woman not depending on a man” is a fallacy and a misdirection that disrupts the family unit and our society as a whole.

We depend on each other. He is a good husband and father to my boys, and has helped me to learn what a real man should be, and heal some of the wounds from my father and stepfather.

I hope all women may have the joy of having a truly loving man in their lives to depend on, whether he is their husband, father, son or brother.

God bless them all on this Father’s Day.

When Laurie's first son arrived, she decided to shift focus to homemaking and homesteading. She is now an eclectic homeschool mom raising two boys with her husband.


They live at their energy-efficient Green Built home in the country with a monster garden and an assortment of cats. (The cats just showed up – what could we do?)

Laurie’s journey has brought her to learn more about natural health and wellness, including herbcrafting, wildcrafting, homebrew probiotics and ferments, year-round harvesting and all things garden related.

She blogs at Common Sense Homesteading, and writes a green living column for a local TV station at Green Sense.