Honestly, this is where most of us find ourselves at the beginning of this journey. I know I did. When I began my journey, my husband was completely shut down and he didn’t care about my feelings or happiness anymore. Or so I thought. He didn’t want to look at me, be in the same room with me, listen to me, or talk to me.
I concluded he didn’t love me at all. But I was wrong. He was just hurting. A lot. We both were.
1. For example, some men act like this because they have felt disrespected for a long time. That was my situation. My husband had shut me out of his heart because I was (unknowingly) bossy, rude, condescending, controlling, prideful, self-righteous, and disrespectful. It took over 5 years into my journey of asking God to change me for him to soften and begin to feel safe with me again. As he felt more and more safe and respected – and less like I was going to bite his head off – he began to really show that he cared about my happiness.
There is also the issue of idolizing our husbands or becoming codependent where we depend on them to “make us happy” rather than finding our joy and happiness in Christ alone. We can become black holes of deep neediness that no human man could ever satisfy sometimes.
2. Of course, there are other men who are narcissistic or emotionally/verbally abusive or so extremely wounded from their own past that this is the reason why they act this way. Their unloving behavior may be completely independent of their wives.
Other times there is a culture of emotional and verbal abuse that can begin to be corrected when one spouse begins to change and heal in Christ.
3. Another problem is – if the wife doesn’t know how to properly “respect herself” (or, think rightly about herself according to Scripture) if she acts subservient, like a doormat, or weak and disrespects herself, a husband may begin to see her that way, and there are some husbands (especially with more dominating personalities) who may run over a wife like that. She may think that to respect her husband, she has to demean herself. Thankfully, this is not true!
4. There are also men who have mental health issues, very serious unrepentant sin, major addictions, who are very abusive, or who have such severe spiritual oppression that they may not care about their wives or act in loving ways.
Even in really tough situations, we can focus on ourselves and how we can grow in Christ as women. But we may also need outside help to deal with the crisis in the marriage.
I’d like to provide wives with some resources that may help you be able to prayerfully determine which dynamic is going on and work on your end with the Lord and invite His wisdom, discernment, and healing into your life and your marriage.
I also need to keep in mind that if my happiness is my greatest goal in life, I am in trouble. Sometimes husbands don’t seem to be excited about making their wives happy because what their wives want go against God’s Word or seem dangerous to their husbands. If I am more concerned about what will make me happy than I am about what will honor the Lord in our family, my husband is wise not to seek the thing I think will make me so happy. It would be ungodly leadership on his part to try to placate me if what I want is sinful or would clearly dishonor God.
In a similar vein, sometimes our husbands do what to do things that will bless us, but we may want them NOW and our husbands need a bit of time to think through and get things ready. So sometimes, we just need a bit of patience.
if you do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, the first step to see healing in your marriage is for you to experience the spiritual healing Jesus has for you. Having a relationship with Him includes deciding to set Him on the throne of your life so that He is LORD of every area of your life. Then He can empower you to become more and more the godly wife He calls you to be.
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