Sacred Influence (20 page)

Even so, the rise of a mistress can never compare with the passion of holy marriage and absolute commitment. The author of Ecclesiastes wrote, “I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness” (2:13). Imagine putting the positive side of Jeanne-Antoinette’s actions into the healthy situation of a God-ordained marriage. No longer having to please out of fear but out of love, yet not trying any less! Consider what a rich relationship could result from such a passionate and persistent pursuit.

This isn’t about coddling a narcissistic man; it’s about fulfilling biblical commands. Jesus tells us to love each other as he has loved us (John 15:12). Jesus’ love is no less persistent, no less passionate, and no less extravagant with each passing day. To love biblically, we must not let our love grow cold. Paul describes persistent love as a “continuing debt” that we owe to one another (Romans 13:8); and if that is true of people in general, how much more so with regard to our spouse! In the great love chapter, Paul reminds us that love “always perseveres” (1 Co rinthi ans 13:7). It does not give up; in fact, it never fails (verse 8).

Do you love your husband with this kind of love? Are you faithfully building your marriage with the power of a persistent and passionate pursuit? When you give your marriage adequate time, when you work diligently to keep your man enthralled, when you seek to serve and to love and to become familiar with your husband’s rhythms of life — then he’ll honor you with all he has, just as Louis XV honored Madame de Pompadour.

When Lisa and I got married in 1984, my entire net worth wouldn’t buy a season ticket to the Seattle Mariners. For years, while I was working in ministry, we qualified for the earned income tax credit. We had our first parental argument over an eight-dollar toy that I impulsively bought for Allison. Lisa didn’t think we had the money to spare.

So much has changed. While we don’t live extravagantly, for the first time in our lives, money isn’t a big concern. When one of us needs an expensive crown at the dentist’s office, we don’t have to go without groceries for a week or go into debt; we just write the check. If one of the kids wants to take dancing lessons or guitar lessons or even requires a program that doubles the tuition at a private school, by God’s grace we can cover it without having to give up too much. We try hard to be good stewards of what we have, and God has provided a nice home, occasional vacations, and a comfortable living. And Lisa hasn’t had to work outside the home for more than fifteen years.

I want to say to young wives: this didn’t happen overnight! Lisa supported me emotionally during some rocky, barren times. During one stretch in my life, my writing
cost
us money (postage, paper, computer supplies, and so on) without earning anything. For years, Lisa had to put up with a husband who went to bed ridiculously early and who arose very early so that he could pursue a new occupation. She put up with my working on weekend mornings and throughout many a vacation. She juggled a budget that often ran in the red. I shudder when I think of the debt load we once carried.

But together — and that’s the key,
together
— we walked through it into some fertile fields. Should it all be taken away tomorrow, we’d still have each other and the loyalty of a firm partnership forged over two decades. Lisa has become irreplaceable in my life. She accepted the marriage proposal of a man who had no job, a ten-year-old Ford Maverick, and an offer to live for free in a mobile home park. Amazingly, she accepted. She tried to decorate the mobile home as best she could. Months later, she put up with a basement apartment that flooded every time it rained two days in a row (and we live in the Northwest, where two consecutive days of rain is the norm nine months of the year). She endured years of additional schooling that would take me away many evenings as I completed seminary. And then she watched me go into a ministry that snatched away many weekends.

She has proven her love for me over time — not just months, not even just years, but
decades
. And everything I now have is hers. I would spend my last penny to take care of her, and I would give my life to protect her.

Though I believe in spiritual headship, I’m very malleable in Lisa’s hands. From little things, like no longer drinking Pepsi every day, to bigger things, like major vocational choices, she has influ-enced me, moved me, and shaped me. She is no mistress; she’s much, much more. She is my
wife
, my sister in Christ, and the single most influential person in my life.

The Climate for Change

By now, I’m sure you see that motivating a man isn’t nearly as linear a process as programming a computer or fixing a car. People are shaped by degrees. You can’t force someone to change, but you can create a climate conducive to change.

I know almost nothing about gardening, but I do know that all the attention in the world won’t help a plant if it sits in poisoned soil. Think of the section that’s wrapping up here as pointing you to the proper soil mix in which your man can grow. I didn’t offer simplistic, 1 – 2 – 3 steps that will result in instant change; instead, I suggested basic ingredients that, over time, will foster maximum growth. Do you want to influence your man? Then put these suggestions to work to create a climate in your marriage in which positive change will most likely occur.

In part 3, we’re going to address some of the most common issues that women confront today: men who have fiery tempers; men who are so involved in their work or hobbies that they fail to be fully present in the home; men who struggle with pornography or Internet affairs; and men who are unbelievers.

I suspect this next section may be the biggest draw for many of you, but I also think it would be a big mistake to try to address spe-cific issues apart from the context of the overall relationship — and providing that context is what I’ve tried to do in the first two parts of this book.

Part 3: Confronting the Most
Common Concerns

Chapter 10: Ray and Jo: Taming the
Temper, Part 1

Self-Respect as a First Defense
against Your Husband’s Anger

D
id you marry an angry man?

Maybe you even married a violent man.

Perhaps you saw signs of this rage or violence before you married, but in your eagerness to become a bride, you chose to look past it or excuse it as a onetime occurrence. Maybe you thought you could control him. Maybe you thought marriage would make everything better. But now you’re stuck in a frightening situation. You want to do the right thing, for yourself and for your children, but fear and guilt and confusion so fill you that you don’t know what the right thing even
is
.

This may not be your situation, but I can assure you it’s the situation of someone who attends your church, lives in your neighborhood, or works in your office. So even if this chapter doesn’t describe your husband, you may want to read it anyway in your quest to become a woman God can use to reach out to others.

Escalating Anger

Like so many women who have walked down the marriage aisle, Jo Franz
¹
knew that her prospective bridegroom had bouts of “intensity and anger,” but she reasoned that, because Ray loved God, the two of them as a couple could overcome them. Not until they became married did Jo realize just
how
intense Ray could be.

“His voice intensified so dramatically that it felt like he could physically hurt me, even though I didn’t think he would,” Jo remembers. Ray sometimes unleashed his anger over seemingly small things, like when Jo would forget to buy something at the store.

“You can’t even run a house well enough so that we don’t run out of soap,” Ray yelled at her one time.

Jo was shocked. “I had no idea he would nitpick like that or be so attacking.”

In case I’m talking to an unmarried woman, let me pause to say I have never heard of a situation where marriage made a man
less
angry. You should assume you are seeing, at most, about 75 percent of your future husband’s temper while dating him; it’s virtually guaranteed that more temper will erupt after the wedding. If the man you are dating already seems too angry for your taste, he’ll be
much
too angry after the honeymoon.

Unfortunately, single women often make excuses for their angry boyfriends. If these women were abused by their fathers, they may even blame themselves for causing the anger. As long as a woman blames herself for causing her husband’s temper, she ignores the real problem: she’s the
target
, not the cause. As long as a woman thinks she causes the anger, she accepts blame for her husband’s problem. This allows her husband to keep hurting her, and the situation will never change. Of course, you could be making a bad situation worse; a little later I’ll talk about strategies to avoid this. But for now you need to know that it’s impossible to live with an angry man without making him angry. Make sure you catch that:
it’s impossible to live
with an angry man without making him angry
.

But you
can
remove yourself as the target.

“I Have Value”

Ray grew up with a very critical alcoholic father who taught him that relationships are built on extremely high expectations. Ray admits, “Sometimes I have little patience, and yes, I can be intolerant of other people’s patterns — like forgetting to buy more soap.”

At first, Jo responded to Ray’s angry tone with defensiveness and guilt, thinking she was most likely in the wrong. But after Jo analyzed several confrontations, she eventually decided Ray wasn’t always right, which led her to react with anger of her own — and that only made things worse. Ray would yell at her, and then Jo would yell back, “Don’t you
dare
speak to me like that!” and the anger soon spiraled out of control.

Proverbs 15:1 is key here: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” As I said before, you are most vulnerable to sin when you are sinned against. Your husband’s inappropriate expression of anger doesn’t excuse your inappropriate expression of anger: “He who loves a quarrel loves sin” (Proverbs 17:19). Become spiritually grounded so that you can respond out of reverence to Christ instead of “giving more of the same.” If you give more of the same, all you’ll get is more of the same.

That, at least, was Jo’s experience. One day, she finally said to herself, “Enough is enough. I can’t live like this.”

Jo took her dilemma to the Lord.

“As I prayed, I thought, ‘Do I deserve this?’ And I realized, ‘No, I don’t!’ As a Christian, I have value to God, and my husband should value me too, but I can’t force him to value me. How can I cause him to respect me and to show that to me in his communication?”

Over the next several weeks, Jo became convinced that God wanted her to learn how to communicate to Ray in such a way that he could hear her concern. As Jo reflected on her previous actions — responding to Ray’s temper by letting her own temper flare — she had to admit that she was making the situation worse. Then God led her to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes: “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools” (9:17).

Jo sought to use “the quiet words of the wise.” She explains, “What I sensed God saying to me was to use communication that was direct and nonattacking and that showed self-respect: ‘This is what I need from you,’ or, ‘Would you please communicate in a way that isn’t so frightening?’ ” Essentially, Jo heard God tell her to respond with a gentle and quiet spirit (see 1 Peter 3:4).

It would be an oversimplification to suggest that their disagreements changed immediately; however, over time, this quiet, gentle approach began to work. Note the spiritual foundation behind this transformation: Jo allowed God to change
her
, which resulted in her husband’s spiritual growth.

Ray explains, “Before, if I was condescending to her or demeaning or critical, then she would respond very quickly and very angrily back: ‘Don’t talk to me that way! Don’t use that tone of voice when you’re talking to me!’ Her face would get tight and tense, and I thought, ‘Boy, she’s really hurting. I’ve touched a deep nerve in there somewhere,’ but I didn’t understand why she was making such a big deal out of it.”

In the midst of subsequent blowups, Jo concentrated on being firm but gentle. “I need for you to reword that so I don’t feel so defensive.” Recognizing that Ray was raised in an alcoholic family, Jo decided she needed to tutor him on how to talk to a woman.

Ray reflects, “It’s so important for the woman to share that she’s been hurt, but to first take the intensity out of the response. Otherwise, we men tend to think you’re overreacting. Jo put it this way: ‘I care about you very much, and I need you to know that what you said was very hurtful.’ She dropped the sharp, ‘Don’t talk to me that way!’ ”

According to Ray, Jo’s previous method of communicating “just made me feel guilty. I already knew that I had screwed up, and here she was, piling it on, making it more of an issue than it was. And when you already feel low about yourself, and then you’re attacked, you’re more likely to strike back and escalate the intensity.”

Ray says that what made him the angriest was being misunderstood. He believes that Jo sometimes just looked at his behavior without giving him the benefit of the doubt. That perplexed and frustrated him, which would escalate into anger. In fact, Ray believes, on many occasions he had good intentions, but when Jo assumed the worst, he became frustrated, which in turn made him angry — and then he chose to lash out.