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Please Take the Lead
By Pam Redline

I was certain my husband didn't know how to dance at all. But there he was demonstrating new steps with the instructor!

y husband and I just celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. The volumes I could write about our experiences are many. I am certain the same is true for any married couple.

I am thankful I am still able to learn some new tricks.
I have always had an independent spirit. This meant that the biggest problem I had coming into my marriage is that I was certain I had all the answers and, in my pride, I would not even think of letting my husband lead some areas of my life. Yes, it was fine for him to guide the areas I doled out to him, but to surrender totally? No way.

Dance class

One such experience we learned from was when we enrolled in a ballroom dance class three years ago. All the time we had been married, I was certain my husband did not know how to dance at all, let alone ballroom dance.

Quickly my husband became the teacher's pet. Every time she wanted a partner to show the intricacies of a step, she would ask my husband if he would oblige. Together they would waltz, foxtrot or swing around the floor in perfect harmony. I had to ask myself how that could have happened. It must have been some dormant DNA or something.

The hilarious part of this story is that I finally realized that, in all the years of our marriage, I had never fully let him take the lead when we were dancing. In fact, I never fully let him take the lead in anything. Wow! I have learned some interesting things about him and me. He is an excellent dancer and always has been. Once I let him truly lead, we moved much more smoothly through our dances, and now we have a lot of fun with a lot less struggle. Our marriage has benefited from that lesson as well.

The one piece of advice I would give anyone, whether married or seeking to be married, is to work as a team by allowing one of the team members to really take the lead. (The Bible assigns this role to the husband, as described in Ephesians 5:22-33.) This has been a struggle for millennia, as divorce and broken homes are a witness to the pride and arrogance of our species. However, when two people really love one another and want to make a relationship work, the key is really quite amazing.

The best way I can think of wording it is not my own speech but that of a man named Pierre Dulaine.

Pierre Dulaine's story

Once I let him truly lead, we moved much more smoothly through our dances, and now we have a lot of fun with a lot less struggle.
Recently my family and I watched a movie called Take the Lead. It is based on the true story of Pierre Dulaine, a ballroom dance instructor in New York City. Inspired by an incident in his life, the idea was born to take ballroom dance lessons into a local high school. The principal of the high school was so desperate for a teacher to watch the students in detention, she let him take the class. She definitely had doubts about his ability to succeed.

He enthusiastically began by trying to instruct the students in the fine art of ballroom dance. At first there was much resistance and ridicule but, over time, he won the students' trust and a class was truly born. As the story unfolded, Pierre even gained support from the school's PTA. The principal then went so far as to hire him to continue with his classes.

At a point later in the story, he paired up a young black man with a young black girl. These two had family rivalry between them and were very upset and refused to work together at first. However, because he had gained the principal's support and the students' knew they needed to attend his class in order to graduate from high school, they acquiesced and agreed to work together.

The one piece of advice I would give anyone, whether married or seeking to be married, is to work as a team by allowing one of the team members to really take the lead.
When they began to dance the first time, the girl pushed at the young man, trying to make him dance the proper way. Pierre then told the girl to follow the boy's lead. The girl became very upset because she believed it gave the boy the permission to "push her around." Pierre's comeback was, "The man proposes the step. It is up to the woman to choose to accept the step and then to follow."

When the young man tried to lead, she continued to resist. Pierre told the young man, "Don't dominate her; take her on a journey."

The girl, still fuming, continued to resist until Pierre said, "It takes as much strength to follow as it does to lead."

I know if someone had revealed these fine points to me when I was first married, my husband would have had an easier time over these 22 years. I am thankful I am still able to learn some new tricks.

Inside the card I gave him for our anniversary this year I wrote, "Thank you for proposing the step. I accept and will follow."

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Copyright 2008 by United Church of God, an International Association All rights reserved.


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Other Articles by Pam Redline
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Keywords: dance class leadership marriage relationship 

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