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Will Knowland

@beherleader

Apr 1

Being a wife is hard.

Harder than social media 'trad wife' fantasies make it out to be.

Harder than being a nun, according to St. Alphonsus Ligouri.

After a lifetime of hearing the confessions of wives, often for ten hours a day, he said:

'The married woman has to think of providing her family with food and raiment. She has to think of rearing her children, of pleasing her husband and her husband’s relatives ; whence, as the apostle says, her heart is divided between God and her husband, and children. Her husband must be attended to; the children cry and scream, and are continually asking for a thousand things. What time can she have to attend to mental prayer, who can scarce attend to all the business of the house? how can she pray amid so many distracting thoughts and disturbances ? Scarcely can she go to church, to recollect herself, and communicate upon the Sunday. She may have the good desire, but it will be difficult for her to attend to the things of God as she ought. It is true, that in this want of opportunities, she may gain merit, by resignation to the will of God, who requires of her in that state, chiefly patience and resignation; but in the midst of so many distractions and annoyances, without prayer, without meditation, without frequenting the sacraments, it will be morally impossible for her to have that holy patience and resignation.

But, would to God, that married women had no other evil to contend with besides that of not always being able to attend to their sanctification as much as they should; the greater evil is the danger to which they are continually exposed of losing the grace of God, by reason of the intercourse which they must continually have with the relations and friends of their husband, as well in their own houses, as in the houses of others. Unmarried women do not understand this, but married women and those who have to hear their confessions know it well. Let us, however, now have done with the unhappy life which is led by married women, the ill treatment they receive from their husband, the disobedience of children, the wants of the family, the annoyance of mothers-in-law and relatives, the throes of childbirth, always accompanied by danger of death, not to mention the afflictions of jealousy, and scruples of conscience, with regard to the rearing up of their children, all which breed a tempest under which poor married women have continually to groan, and God grant that in this tempest they may not lose themselves, so as to meet with hell in the other world, after having suffered a hell in this.'

- Discourse to Pious Maidens

How to help your wife suffer well

You need to do 3 things:

1. See what your wife carries
2. Remove avoidable burdens
3. Help her carry the unavoidable Cross with faith, hope, and love without pretending it’s easy.

Marriage and a large family feel heavy because they are heavy. So don’t treat strain as a diagnosis. Treat it as a normal load that needs leadership, structure, and virtue.

You can’t “tell” your wife she’s valued; you must build it into her week. Your words matter. Your calendar matters more.

Never spiritualize your laziness. Don’t say “offer it up” while you avoid work, sleep, planning, or hard conversations. Remove what you can. Then help her sanctify what remains.

Distinguish two kinds of suffering:
- Unavoidable Cross: sickness, newborn seasons, pregnancy limits, special needs, tight finances, normal fatigue.
- Avoidable chaos: unclear roles, poor routines, screens at night, messy money, unresolved conflict, bad boundaries, your passivity.

Learn to see your wife’s invisible work

Most wives don’t feel unseen because you never speak; they feel unseen because you never notice specifics.

The daily “name it” habit

Say one concrete thing you saw:

“You kept the kids calm at breakfast when they were melting down.”
“You carried the emotional load with your mum today.”
“You solved three problems before lunch.”

Then add one concrete thanks:

“Thank you for doing that. It helped our family.”

Do this even when she seems fine. Appreciation is maintenance, not emergency medicine.

The “load inventory” question (2×/week)

Ask:

“What’s the heaviest thing on your mind this week?”
“What’s one task you want off your plate—fully off?”

Then take ownership instead of offering “help.”

Ownership means: you plan it, you execute it, you remember it.

Read 8 tweets

Will Knowland

@beherleader

Mar 13

Vacations don’t magically “fix” your sex life.
They remove the things that quietly kill it at home.

A guy in my coaching community was telling me how, on trips, his wife feels sexier and they connect more easily.

That's very common because of what actually blocks desire in wives.

Here’s what tends to change on vacation:

1) Her cognitive load drops.

At home, many women run a constant background program: planning, remembering, tracking, anticipating, coordinating.

Even when she’s “resting,” her brain often stays on duty.

On a trip, the number of variables shrinks: fewer chores, fewer decisions, fewer “shoulds,” fewer reminders that life needs managing.

Desire needs bandwidth. When the mind stops sprinting, the body can finally show up.

2) The context switches from “task mode” to “connection mode.”

Home becomes associated with roles: manager, caregiver, organiser, the person who remembers everything. Those roles don’t feel erotic.

Vacation gives a simpler script: relax, enjoy, be together, play, explore.

When intimacy doesn’t compete with duty, it feels more accessible.

Read 10 tweets

Will Knowland

@beherleader

Dec 12, 2025

The Freezing of Men’s Hearts
How the fire of the family went out – and how to relight it

A lot of men today don’t describe themselves as “angry” or “abusive”.

They say things like:

- “I’m just numb.”
- “I don’t feel that much.”
- “I’m there, but I’m not really there.”

They assume this is just their personality, or their trauma, or “how men are”.

But over a century ago, a Catholic political economist called Charles Stanton Devas saw exactly this coming. In his 1886 book Studies of Family Life, he described how a long, slow attack on the family would produce a new kind of man: externally functional, internally frozen – what St Paul called men “without affection” in the “dangerous times” of the last days (2 Tim 3:3).

Devas studied at Eton – the school where I later taught before being fired for a lecture on masculinity he’d probably have applauded. He married at 26, raised nine children, and spent his career analysing how changes in economics, politics and religion were cutting the heart out of family life.

What he saw explains:

- why your father may have felt distant

- why your mother may have felt overburdened

- and why you may struggle to feel warmth at home even when you want to.

Let’s walk through how men’s hearts were frozen – and how to thaw yours...

(This pic is of me from when I got fired.)

How Industry Pulled Fathers Out of the Home

Before industrialisation, most families lived and worked together:

on farms
in small workshops
in tight-knit villages

Father, mother, and children shared their days and their labour. Work and home were not separate worlds.

With the factory system, Devas notes, something new happens:

men leave at dawn, return late
work moves far from home
wages are low, hours are long

The result:

the father becomes physically absent
exhausted when present
and emotionally unavailable even when he’s in the room

If you grew up with a dad who:

“provided”
but didn’t talk much
didn’t play
didn’t instruct
and always seemed tired or elsewhere

…you’ve tasted the after-effects of this shift.

The father is reduced to a walking wallet, not the warm centre of the home.

How Women Became Overburdened and Masculinised

Because industrial wages were low, men had to work more to keep food on the table.

The result:

wives were left to handle the home alone
they took on tasks their husbands would once have done
they became both emotional centre and practical organiser

Devas saw that the wife’s role as “heart of the home” was distorted. She remained the heart – but was also forced to be half the backbone.

If you had a mother who:

“did everything”
seemed permanently stressed
quietly resented your father’s absence or passivity

…you’ve seen what Devas warned about.

When the man is reduced to a distant provider, the woman is forced into partial masculinity. The family runs, but it runs hot, strained, and fragile.

Read 10 tweets

Will Knowland

@beherleader

Aug 9, 2025

10 Simple Ways to Be a More Attractive Husband
(in order of importance)

Don't tell your wife you're doing these -- just do them.

1. Get your teeth straightened and whitened.

A lot of studies show your teeth symmetry and whiteness has a big impact on your attractiveness.

It also boosts your salary and improves your general health.

2. Train and diet so your waist is 70% of your chest and your BMI is around 25.

Being skinny with a 0.7WCR is no good.

Muscle is an indicator of genetic quality and makes everyone — men and women — take you more seriously.

3. Be clean and smart:

- regular hair cuts

- short and clean nails

- moisturised skin that isn’t dry or red

- no body odour.

You’re not a teenager anymore, right?

Read 10 tweets

Will Knowland

@beherleader

Oct 29, 2024

5 essential marriage skills:

- How to argue well
- How to set boundaries
- How to give consequences
- How to lead without words
- How to provide beyond money

Masculine men have ALL these

You can't lead well without them

If you don't know how to argue well, you'll end up entering her verbal vortex

Then you'll become the second woman

You're not equals, so don't talk like you are

It only reinforces a feminist frame

Unless you know how to set boundaries, you can't give her clarity or consistency

You won't be able to build respect or trust

Instead of the order she craves for you to inject into her life, she'll feel only inconsistency and chaos

Read 6 tweets

Will Knowland

@beherleader

Jul 28, 2024

10 reasons I'm not a Protestant:

1. Since God can’t lie or make a mistake, Revelation gives us infallible knowledge of revealed truth. And since God can’t leave Revelation to an uncertain fate, it requires a promulgating body. But that promulgating body must also be infallible; otherwise, it couldn’t transmit Revelation or demand the same submission of the intellect as the truth it teaches does.

2. Accordingly, Christ established a Church, presided over by one Head, to propagate revealed truth through the world until the end of time. And He promised His Church not only His presence but the help of the Holy Spirit to guarantee infallibility. Indeed, because Christ’s Church cannot possibly teach error and thereby lead souls to hell, infallibility is logically necessary.

3. All Protestant sects, however, admit they can teach error. In fact, Protestants have no safeguard against error at all, and there is strictly speaking no such thing as the Protestant faith. That is why no two Protestant sects among the 39,000+ agree on everything. In many Protestant churches, you can listen to a female “priest” tell you that abortion is morally acceptable. And although other Protestant sects disagree, the most they can do, by their own admission, is offer another opinion.

Read 12 tweets

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