Are you an alpha wife? Take this quiz to find out.
By Suzanne Venker (originally published here)
My mother was the quintessential alpha wife. When she wasn’t busy controlling something, she was busy controlling something.
To be honest, it’s hard to write about this aspect of my mother’s personality since in the last two years of her life, her brain had deteriorated to such a degree that it quelled her alpha-like ways and produced in its place something wholly unfamiliar.
She became compliant.
This juxtaposition—formerly controlling mother becomes easy as pie—had a huge effect on me. For one thing, I saw what I could have had had she not been such a difficult woman throughout her life. On the other hand, I saw a mirror image of what I could be if I let go of my own need to control. It was ironic indeed that this was my mother’s parting gift to me.
An alpha female is a woman who gets shit done. She’s a leader who doesn’t look to others for approval or direction. As a wife, you may find her at the office or you may find her at home with the kids. How the alpha wife spends her days doesn’t matter—what matters is how she behaves. She is, in a word, The Boss.
Alpha females aren’t new, but they were certainly rarer back in the day. They were the women who didn’t follow conventional paths. They became writers and politicians, or actresses and scientists, or doctors and artists. Or they did become traditional housewives but went into ‘mother mode’ and never came out. Their husbands became one more child to lead and instruct.
All alpha females are controlling for one reason or another. Maybe she’s a product of divorce and doesn’t trust love. Maybe her father was a cad, and she doesn’t trust men. Maybe her mother ruled the roost, and she doesn’t know any other way. Maybe she’s the child of an alcoholic—that would cause anyone to have their guard up.
But it doesn’t matter how the alpha female developed her tough exterior—the root of the problem is the same: she doesn’t trust anyone but herself.
Today, alpha females abound. Not surprisingly, since our culture grooms women to “never depend on a man” and to be independent at all costs, which in modern parlance means chucking the feminine and becoming more like men, who are alphas by nature.
That approach to life may get you ahead in the workplace; but when it comes to love, it’s a disaster. Why do you think so many highly successful women are single or divorced?
Every relationship requires a masculine and a feminine energy in order to thrive. The alpha needs a beta, and the beta needs an alpha. Two alphas are combustible, and two betas get nothing done. Which is not to say we’re all 100% beta or 100% alpha—like anything else, there’s a spectrum. But getting the balance right is key.
So, are you an alpha wife? To find out, take this quiz. If you’re not married, and you want to see where you fall on the alpha/beta spectrum, take this quiz.
If you discover you’re an alpha, stay tuned. I’m going to show you how to find the right balance your relationship!
