The majority of this newsletter speaks to men. It’s purposefully focused that way because I am, in fact, a man and I try to relate through my experiences, whether they be direct or adjacent, to these men. Based on the feedback and emails and comments I’ve gotten in person, I’m hovering somewhere around the mark I’m aiming for.

But, more than men read and subscribe to Fightin’ Poseidon.

There are wives, mothers, and daughters reading.

So, with a change of tone, let’s have a warm word.

I saw this meme a while ago.

I see the chaos you have to deal with. The droning monotony of the same tasks every day that never seem to end. The work, the care, the fatigue. I hope it’s not all thankless. Your work may feel like two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and five steps back, whether you’re a homemaker or working full or part time. I see your efforts.

For all the wives and mothers and daughters out there who are still pressing on even in the days, or weeks, or months, or years that feel like your constantly swimming against a riptide, if no one has told you lately, you’re doing a good job. Not all women are doing a good job, but if you’ve got your focus on the Lord and your husband and your children and haven’t given up despite the overwhelming ocean swells that life crashes over onto the deck of your ship, you’re doing a good job. This is the same message I would say to the husbands and fathers and sons who read this. We’re talking about grit, resilience, and persevering in hope that the Lord is holding our tomorrows as we get drenched today.

It takes a will to persevere amidst the gale of lost shoes, spills, questions, sibling bickering, and activities started as you’re trying to walk out the door. I know what you’re up against. It’s no small task.

I’m part of a group of men going through a book called The Titus Ten by J. Josh Smith. I’m not able to make every week and have been struggling to keep up with my own reading, so I’ve been listening to the audiobook on my commutes. Some of it is really good, some of it, meh. That’s the case with any book or author. As I listened to a chapter on identity that talked about what a man needs from his father (acceptance, affection, and affirmation), a thought began to form.

(Side note: don’t give consideration to the adage about how a man doesn’t need those things, because “what he needs is the gospel.” The gospel IS those things because that’s what the heart of God is for His Son, and that is what we’re given in the good news that Jesus died for our sins. When a man gives those things to his son, the gospel flows through him and echoes the father heart of God. End rant.)

As I posted recently, men have to develop the thick skin to accept that no one cares how they feel. We must shoulder on, and we will. As part of our soldiering on, we must also learn to do so with joy. That’s the tough part, because how do you have joy when no one cares about how you feel?

That can be like fighting to sail against the current and headwinds. It’s resistance. In a similar outcome with a different path, he is facing the resistance of one foot forward and five feet back parallel to ways you are. Again, thoughts started taking shape.

What was that thought that began to form? It’s the question, “What resistance is your man facing?”

For a momentary theme change, I’m an automotive technician and instructor by trade, so let’s take a second to talk about a component that’s not thought about until it fails: the torque converter. This marvel of mechanical engineering is found in vehicles equipped with an automatic transmission, and located between the engine and transmission. The torque converter is a fluid coupling created by essentially two fans, an impeller and a turbine, where one powers the other by slinging fluid at it. If torque isn’t multiplied by a device between these two fans called the stator, it works against the impeller. The turning force of engine power is limited. If that force can’t be generated, it can’t be transferred to the wheels through the gear train of the transmission and the whole vehicle bogs down. It’s also worth noting that the greatest amount of torque is required when getting moving from a standstill and then at lower speeds.

So, ladies, what does all of this have to do with you and why am I bringing it up? You already have so many demands on your time, focus, and energy. You’re low on bandwidth and bottlenecked with overstimulation. Everyone needs something from you and it’s all piling up. You’re trying to leave in five minutes and hurricane kids are flooding the house. In the midst of all this… you have your own fight with Poseidon. You will be tempted to damage your post, and tear down the vessel you’re floating on. Chaos is not strength or resilience.

Wife, mother… you can be the torque multiplier for your husband and son, or you can limit his turning force and traction. He’ll still carry on, and it’s 100% his responsibility to do so, but you need to make the decision right here and right now - as you read this sentence - what kind of influence you’re going to be to him. Will you multiply his impact, or will you make it all about you and demand he make you feel better? Will you say you love them but your emotions are what’s piloting you? Would you rather give ride-or-die loyalty or offense led mutiny?

I know it’s hard. As men are called to rise to the occasion, I would be amiss if I did not ask you as a woman to do the same thing. When men feel like giving up and quitting, it’s because they just can’t keep up with the resistance any more. They lose their purpose when they feel useless, even as they know they ought not give into their feelings. They lose momentum as they slow down and eventually stop, worn out from going nowhere. Princessing and nagging and keeping up with your bougie lifestyle or walking on the eggshells of not knowing what’s going to elicit the silent treatment isn’t going to fill his bones with the fire he needs to face the world another day.

You need him to get out there and face the world, and he needs you to believe in him.

What could be accomplished if you were the wind in your man’s sails and not the cross-current that forces him to slow down? Will you be the white whale or kraken in his own home that attacks him for not being good enough for you? There’s a bombardment of apathy, temptation, and fear that assaults him daily. The sirens sing sweet songs that call him to look their way, get distracted, steer off course and wreck his ship. Self-serving but think about it: if it’s his ship, it’s also the ship you’re on. Weak men will immediately cave. Some men will wear down and break over time, hollowing out into a self-loathing husk of who they know they’re supposed to be but failed at becoming. Some men will stay the course every day of their life, but only with a single paddle struggling to make progress instead of a strong wind propelling him. Either one is a destiny, and he knows he can’t give up.

This is a tall order, ladies. You have a lot on your plate spread across all of your responsibilities. You’re carrying a load for some mixture of your children, your home, your work, your schooling, your profession, your church. You’ve been called to something higher than you can fathom, something that will require more strength than you can muster on your own but the Lord is there to provide you with the strength to fulfill your calling.

Will you step into a greater glory?

Ladies, be the wind. Out-siren the sirens. Take genuine interest in your man because you want to know him and not fake interest because you’re supposed to. Seek to know him, who he is, what his mission is. Amplify the impact he feels the responsibility to make.

Let’s be realistic. Husbands fail their wives, wives fail their husbands, parents fail their children and children fail their parents. What can we do in light of all this failure and sin and betrayal and disappointment? Ask for forgiveness, extend forgiveness, cover it all in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and then put it all behind you. Move on.

What woman would NOT want to be described in such a way as Solomon describes his bride? That’s an assumption. Some women would rather nurse their offenses with ingrown and infected resentments than to step into the fearful unknown of being as beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, and awe-inspiring as an army with banners. There are those who would call the disease the remedy.

In the midst of all the demands on your life, the clamors for your time, and the cries for your attention, do not forget your man. The world is not worthy of the glory of a wife loving her husband. It shudders at the thought, gnashing its teeth from the shadows. All the forces of hell will lie to you and fight against you tooth and nail with every temptation to laziness, contempt, indifference, bitterness, comparison, and offense in the book.

Today is the day to sail ahead in newness of life.

Ladies, I’m also not advocating you make the first move. However, you may be in a circumstance where you have to. That’s not the way it should be, but it is the way it is. Maybe contempt has entered your relationship, rendering the very things you desire to be impossible. If things are going badly, self-reflection could uncover you’ve slipped into transactional living.

It will be your temptation to take the helm.

Fight this with all you’ve got.

As Thomas Brooks said in Chapter 2, Device 3, of Precious Remedies, it’s a small sin that will lead to greater sins. Like when King Saul was impatient for Samuel to come to offer the sacrifice, don’t be tempted to start trying to steer the ship if your husband will not. Two wrongs do not make a right and no good comes from impatience. It’s far better to trust in the Lord and wait on Him. Instead of asking him to lead, instead of telling him what to do, especially instead of waiting for and expecting him to read your mind, ask this question: “How can I help?”

I dare you. “How can I help?” has the power to crumble the cyclopean walls of fortresses bolstered by years of defensive decisions and interactions. You have to mean it. It can’t be fake.

How will you choose to go forward, ladies?

Not to be a doormat. Not to shut up and sit down. Not to be under the thumb of a man. Your trust is to be in the Lord and that He’s guiding the man He’s assigned to the helm of the ship you’re on. Rise to something greater, by prayers and the study of the Word and with the power of the Holy Spirit as the wind in your sails, a glory the world cannot comprehend. You will be the glory of the glory. Your love will fly like banners of a mighty army, and the world will not understand your glory. What more ominous spiritual attack could you face than when you are told it’s weak to lay your glory down when in reality it’s raising your banner high? The enemy craves your failure with a hunger that wants to see your banner trampled down in the mud and blood of daily life battle, not raising above it as you claim the victory is already won. In the power of God, in this upside-down kingdom where the cross proceeds the crown which will be cast at Jesus’ feet anyway, make the effort and spend the energy you do not have and extend the patience that’s been drained from you. If you do, you will shine in radiant glory like the sun, reflecting all the light of our Almighty Creator.

Your work, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is an act of war against the darkness. May your bones be filled with the fire to carry on.

Don’t trade your glory for a lesser one, ladies. Who you are is too important.

You can be the river of life that brings fertility and fruitfulness to barren lands. Your love and affection and respect and admiration can cut down jungles and irrigate deserts.

You are God’s chosen vessels to be the life givers of all creation, and I am not merely talking about your babies. You are fearfully and wonderfully made in such a way that your words have the power to give as much life as your bodies do.

You could also jump ship, but where’s the glory in that?

A man I know recently made the statement that his family members were all individually trying to crawl out of the crater that is his mother.

Can you imagine this being your feminine legacy?

Lay down your fear. Lay down your princessing.

Lay down your pride. Lay down your appearances.

Lay down your offenses and resentments.

Lay down the quid-pro-quo of transactional living and the debtor’s ethic of who owes you what for what you gave.

Dare I say, lay down your lesser glory, for there are greater glories to be had by you that do not come with taking the crown for yourself.

You have the power to influence your man’s ship greater than any helm or sail. You can propel him on to greater glories of destiny, or you can steer him right into the rocks to shipwreck him. He is responsible to stay at the helm, and he must not abandon his post. No man who is a coward would have taken hold of it to begin with. A captain goes down with the ship, and even if it’s with those who spite him, if he has any fight left, he will still say as he lays down his life for those he loves, “Women and children first.”

We bear the weight of glory for one another and the backs of the proud will be broken. With that, I leave you with a question:

Will you amplify the fear your man is trying to fight or the faith your man is trying to lay hold of?

Stay Anchored and keep fighting the good fight,

~ J.P. Simons ⚓️

PS: If you haven’t already ordered it, please check out my first book, Pray Then Plow: Practical Steps For Men Who Won’t Give Up.

In 2025, a book came out by Tilly Dillehay called My Dear Hemlock. The rough description of the book is what if Screwtape was tempting a woman? How will the unique temptations differ?

I was following Will Spencer on X and though I wasn’t a regular listener of his podcast, I did pull up the episode where he interviewed Tilly about My Dear Hemlock.

The caption is clickbait trying to bait you into finding out “what women hide from men” because the conversation doesn’t take that route, unless it’s in reference to the unique battles and temptations that women face but we as men don’t. Ladies, I know you’re fighting, too. Hopefully this resource is one more in your arsenal to fight the principalities and powers that would wage war against you, your family, your glory, your good, and your God.