me to listen to what you were saying about respect. My husband and I have gone to numerous marriage conferences and read many books together but nothing remotely like this has ever been mentioned. I think this is the key to understanding my husband and to a joyful marriage. It is amazing what God does when you obey Him.
All these wives have “gotten it.” They have decoded the messages their husbands were sending. They have learned how vulnerable a man can be to a wife’s anger and contempt. Best of all, they have adjusted their pink sunglasses and pink hearing aids and are aware that when a wife respects her husband she does not become a doormat. In fact, he starts rolling out the red carpet for her!
But what about husbands who need to adjust their blue sunglasses and blue hearing aids and do their part to make the Love and Respect Connection? I have talked to many men who would be willing to try, but they feel clueless about how to begin. We’ll look at their problems below.
HUSBANDS, REMEMBER ONLY ONE IDEA—LOVE
In the last few years, I have counseled with not a few men who say they are tired of hearing the relentless mantra, “You men just don’t get it. You’re stupid.” They admit they don’t grasp certain things, but being labeled “neanderthal” and “caveman” is demeaning and discouraging. If the cave existed, these men would favor going there to hide! They would agree with the biblical proverbs that say it is better for a disrespected man to live in a corner of the roof or in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman (see Proverbs 21:9, 19). As one husband plaintively but aptly put it: “I have spent the last twenty years literally consumed with trying to figure out what is going on in our marriage.”
I sympathize with these husbands because there were plenty of times in the last thirty years when I felt the same way! But I want to remind all husbands that their wives are basically goodwilled women. They are only acting critical, contentious, and disrespectful because they are crying out for love. The honorable husband who is man enough to try to turn things yaround must learn how to respond when he’s feeling disrespected and offended. He must learn what to do in the face of his wife’s negative reactions and accusations that he is unloving.
No matter how hard it gets, “husbands, love your wives” (Colossians 3:19).
The good news is that the husband need only focus on two questions. First, he must ask, “Is my wife coming across to me disrespectfully because she is feeling unloved?” Good things are in store when he learns to decode his wife’s deepest cry: “Please love me!” To do this decoding, a husband must ask himself what his wife has against him— why she feels rejected and even abandoned. The husband may or may not completely decode the wife’s message, but the point is he will be trying to understand her, not attack her back. Second, a husband must ask, “Will what I say or do next come across as loving or unloving to my wife?”
In Genesis 29 and 30 we read of the marriage of Jacob and Rachel. First, they were madly in love. He was willing to work seven years for her, and it only seemed as if it were a “few days.” Then, after being tricked by his uncle Laban into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, Jacob was required to work seven more years before Rachel could become his wife. But when Leah had children and Rachel didn’t, Rachel became jealous and confronted Jacob, pleading, “Give me children, or else I die” (Genesis 30:1). Instead of comforting Rachel, Jacob got angry and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (v. 2) Instead of getting angry, Jacob could have tried to decode Rachel’s demand. Was she really expecting him to be in the place of God? Or was she ventilating her inner pain over her barrenness and the social struggle she was having with her sister to be closest to Jacob’s heart?
As a
All these wives have “gotten it.” They have decoded the messages their husbands were sending. They have learned how vulnerable a man can be to a wife’s anger and contempt. Best of all, they have adjusted their pink sunglasses and pink hearing aids and are aware that when a wife respects her husband she does not become a doormat. In fact, he starts rolling out the red carpet for her!
But what about husbands who need to adjust their blue sunglasses and blue hearing aids and do their part to make the Love and Respect Connection? I have talked to many men who would be willing to try, but they feel clueless about how to begin. We’ll look at their problems below.
HUSBANDS, REMEMBER ONLY ONE IDEA—LOVE
In the last few years, I have counseled with not a few men who say they are tired of hearing the relentless mantra, “You men just don’t get it. You’re stupid.” They admit they don’t grasp certain things, but being labeled “neanderthal” and “caveman” is demeaning and discouraging. If the cave existed, these men would favor going there to hide! They would agree with the biblical proverbs that say it is better for a disrespected man to live in a corner of the roof or in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman (see Proverbs 21:9, 19). As one husband plaintively but aptly put it: “I have spent the last twenty years literally consumed with trying to figure out what is going on in our marriage.”
I sympathize with these husbands because there were plenty of times in the last thirty years when I felt the same way! But I want to remind all husbands that their wives are basically goodwilled women. They are only acting critical, contentious, and disrespectful because they are crying out for love. The honorable husband who is man enough to try to turn things yaround must learn how to respond when he’s feeling disrespected and offended. He must learn what to do in the face of his wife’s negative reactions and accusations that he is unloving.
No matter how hard it gets, “husbands, love your wives” (Colossians 3:19).
The good news is that the husband need only focus on two questions. First, he must ask, “Is my wife coming across to me disrespectfully because she is feeling unloved?” Good things are in store when he learns to decode his wife’s deepest cry: “Please love me!” To do this decoding, a husband must ask himself what his wife has against him— why she feels rejected and even abandoned. The husband may or may not completely decode the wife’s message, but the point is he will be trying to understand her, not attack her back. Second, a husband must ask, “Will what I say or do next come across as loving or unloving to my wife?”
In Genesis 29 and 30 we read of the marriage of Jacob and Rachel. First, they were madly in love. He was willing to work seven years for her, and it only seemed as if it were a “few days.” Then, after being tricked by his uncle Laban into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, Jacob was required to work seven more years before Rachel could become his wife. But when Leah had children and Rachel didn’t, Rachel became jealous and confronted Jacob, pleading, “Give me children, or else I die” (Genesis 30:1). Instead of comforting Rachel, Jacob got angry and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (v. 2) Instead of getting angry, Jacob could have tried to decode Rachel’s demand. Was she really expecting him to be in the place of God? Or was she ventilating her inner pain over her barrenness and the social struggle she was having with her sister to be closest to Jacob’s heart?
As a
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