None, as far as I can tell.
Someone posted this ‘wish list‘ (or this one, or this one) of the good things about having a CD for a husband, and I mentioned how it was this kind of article that bothered me so much way back when. Ironic or not, I was about 300% more positive about having a CD for a husband than most of the women I met online too.
But this list, I suspect, was written by a CD, not a wife, or maybe it was written by a very cheerlead-y wife in an optimistic mood. (If anyone has any info on the actual origin/writer of this piece, I’d love to hear it.)
While I think it’s an advantage to have a considerate, gentle, domesticated husband, conflating one with the other is a mistake. I know considerate, gentle, domesticated men who are husbands who are not CDs. I have met CDs who are insensitive, beer-cracking, remote-stealing boors. And while I know that many CDs feel that their desire to be feminine makes them – well, more feminine – I’m not sure that CDing has anything whatsoever with how nice a man is, or how nurturing he is.
What I think CDing *can* do for a man is bring along the kind of crisis that forces a man to dig deeper into himself, to think hard about difficult issues of identity, and to think about who he wants to be, and how. Likewise, for a couple, that same kind of crisis can open new pathways: to conversation, to the meaning of trust, and to a reconsideration of expected gender roles and even sexuality.
But it doesn’t do any of those things automatically, by any stretch. It requires a great deal of integrity, responsibility and sheer nerve to face this stuff and deal with it in a way that isn’t destructive to self or family. And someone capable of that is not a “good man” nor a “good CD” but really just a good partner, spouse, parent, or child.