Sacred Influence (27 page)
The problem is that once women
get
these quest-oriented men, they sometimes want them to become sedate shepherds who like to talk about their feelings.
My good friend Dr. Steve Wilke tells me that the very thing that draws most couples together actually drives them into marital counseling, and this principle certainly applies here. As singles, women tend to be drawn to high-achieving men, but as wives, women sometimes resent the schedules of accomplished men.
Be honest about what attracted you to your man, and about whether you now resent some of that. You have to carefully consider which impulses to challenge in your husband. He wants to succeed.If you impair his opportunity to succeed at work, he may throw himself into poker and gambling, risking your financial security;illicit relationships with women, risking your marriage; excessive sports participation (golfing or working out several hours a day, every day); or any number of activities that may, in the end, hurt your family. At the very least, you should feel thankful that your husband channels his focus in a way that complements your life rather than tears it apart.
Also, try to show some empathy. If your husband languishes in a boring or dead-end job but continues to hang in there because he knows it’s the responsible thing to do, he needs some other outlet where he can succeed and excel. Many females (not all!) can work eight hours in a job with little fulfillment and then come home and spend relational time and consider the day to have been OK. But most men aren’t like that. The psychological cost of a frustrating job debilitates them, and males tend to receive less from conversation or emotional relationships than do women.
I draw immense satisfaction from my work — and have for the past ten years. I get more positive feedback than I deserve and more sense of self-worth than warranted. But I remember those days when my job felt merely like a way to gain a meager paycheck — mundane work that didn’t challenge my mind and gave me little sense of accomplishment. I actually got chastised for setting goals and getting my route done too soon, because doing so made the “regulars” look bad. “Go slower,” they told me, “and take longer lunches; enjoy yourself more.”
That type of environment can destroy certain men — and if you’re married to someone who feels “chained” to his job, have some empathy. Reward his discipline and sacrifice by giving him space to pursue something satisfying. Many wives who see their husbands hurting over such a situation want to “talk it out,” to try to get them to “share their feelings.” With most males, this only makes the situation worse. The
last
thing they want to do is relive their day! They want to forget it ever happened.
So, having accepted your husband’s God-given determination to succeed, what can you do to keep him from living out this determination in such a way that he ignores his family responsibilities? The first thing you can do is what Luther hinted at: “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home.”
Becoming More Pleasant
Years ago, during a professional basketball game, Rudy Tomja-novich rushed toward a fight that had broken out on the court. Kermit Washington, then one of the NBA’s strongest men, “welcomed” Rudy with a punch that caught him just under his nose and shattered his face. The force of the punch snapped Rudy’s head back; his body hit the floor so hard it sounded like a hammer slamming into a tree trunk.
Rudy was out cold.
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Even the seasoned doctor who saw the X-rays felt nauseous. The entire posterior portion of Rudy’s face had been moved way out of alignment. Rudy’s eyes had swollen shut, and his brain had begun to leak spinal fluid. Three days later, Rudy’s face remained swollen to twice its normal size. When Rudy’s eyes finally opened up enough for him to get a peek in the mirror, he thought he looked like the Elephant Man.
On that day, Rudy’s wife, Sophie, flew in to see him. Rudy was nervous about what Sophie might say, and he searched her expression for clues about how hideous he looked.
After a very gentle hug, Sophie stepped back, took a good, hard look, and said, “You know something, Rudy? I think this is an improvement.”
Here’s a reliable truth about men: we love to laugh, and we love women who have a great, spontaneous sense of humor. Even more, we love to see our wives happy. My saying this might surprise some of you, since I wrote a book subtitled
What if God Designed Marriage
to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?
but valuing holiness over happiness doesn’t mean we must discount happiness. A well-placed smile and a pleasant demeanor can work spiritual wonders. We men love to hang around a woman who’s in a good mood.
One of the least quoted attributes of the Proverbs 31 woman is her sense of humor: “She can laugh at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25). When the Bible says that the Lord “was gracious to Sarah [Abraham’s wife]” (Genesis 21:1) by giving her a son in her old age, Sarah responded with the wonderful line, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me” (verse 6).
If you’re eager for your husband to be more involved at home, ponder these questions: Have you ever considered what you might do to make your husband’s life a little more enjoyable? Have you ever thought about what kind of climate you’re creating with your personality?
In their fine book
The Walk Out Woman
, Dr. Steve Stephens and Alice Gray offer two helpful questions for women who feel frustrated with their marriage. In such a situation, a woman’s eyes usually focus on her husband’s faults. These authors turn this around and urge women to ponder two questions:
What’s it like being married to me?
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I’d suggest a third question: “What’s it like living with my attitude?”
An overly serious attitude can really suck the joy out of life. One of the best gifts — and one of the best motivators — you can give your husband is the gift of laughter. Can
your
husband find this at home?
I fear that too many women may look for a serious psychological diagnosis as to why their husband seems to be avoiding home. Others search for some deep spiritual reason, a biblical verse that will unlock their husband’s mystery. Some may become obsessed with their husband’s past, trying to uncover some personal hurt that they think needs to be identified, repented of, and healed so that things can change. Maybe the issue is simply that home has stopped being any fun, and the husband is reluctant to return to a place of stress, tension, and conflict!
There might be yet another reason: maybe your husband stays away from home because he’s been embarrassed there too many times.
Cover for Him
At a large banquet held in London, Queen Victoria shocked her subjects when she lifted her finger bowl and drank all the water. Many marveled at Her Majesty’s committing such a gross breach of etiquette. Later, the guests learned that the queen’s guest of honor — the Shah of Persia — had done it first, and the queen didn’t want him to feel embarrassed.
President Grover Cleveland’s wife was cut from the same cloth. A guest visiting the White House felt visibly nervous about the grandeur that surrounded him. Mrs. Cleveland did her best to make the man feel comfortable, initiating small talk about an antique cup made of very thin china.
“We’re very pleased to have these,” the president’s wife said. “They’re quite rare, and we’re using them for the first time today.”
The guest picked one up, said, “Really?” and crushed it in his hand.
The man, clearly mortified at his clumsiness, didn’t know what to do. Mrs. Cleveland immediately rushed to his rescue. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said. “They’re terribly fragile. See?” And then she proceeded to break her own cup.
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At times, your husband will embarrass himself — and you. These moments create wonderful opportunities for you to develop a lot of “capital.” If you support your husband, if you step in to cover for him, he’ll feel nurtured and cared for and will walk across the desert to get you an iced tea. But if you ridicule him to cover your own embarrassment — if you point out his faux pas and laugh with everyone else about it — you’ll crush him.
Every husband has his flaws. Maybe he mispronounces words. Maybe he has limited knowledge of world geography and says something really stupid, like asking an acquaintance if they visited the Eiffel Tower when they went to New York. Maybe he’s clumsy or socially insecure. It could be any number of things. These embarrassing moments are your time to shine. Solomon tells us that it is a person’s “glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).
Ridicule, jokes at his expense, looks of disgust — these all create emotional distance in a man. Some men even give up and start hiding.
If your man feels incompetent and senses he’s being ridiculed or humiliated by you and your family, eventually he’s going to find ways to avoid being with you. You may not realize it, but there’s often an astonishingly high level of insecurity buried underneath your husband’s seeming air of confidence.
The Secret Insecurity
Because success and achievement play such a vital role in a man’s sense of well-being, we men tend to have a greater fear of failure, and even insecurity, than most women would ever guess. We may cover up our feelings with an attitude of certainty or even bravado, but many of us live with the sense that we are about to be “found out,” that our limitations will be exposed — and this can create a secret insecurity.
If your husband works eighty hours a week, he may feel terrified at the thought of losing his job; and if he were to lose that job, he’s terrified that he won’t be able to find another one, or at least a respectful one; and if he can’t find another respectable job, he’s terrified that you won’t love him as much. You may look at his schedule and accuse him of “neglecting the family,” while all the time he’s fighting for psychological survival because he fears you’ll leave him.
Think of it from his perspective: Your husband may be doing his best to get a job done, even while feeling he’s in over his head. He probably doesn’t share this feeling with you because he doesn’t want you to think of him as incompetent. Yet all the while you’re indirectly telling him he’s not good enough because he’s not home enough — which, in the end, only reinforces his determination to succeed at work (since you keep telling him he’s failing at home).
The answer? Become more sensitive to your husband’s insecurity. If his job seems truly on the line, the best thing you can do is say, “I understand you have to put more time in at work; I’ll take up as much slack as I can at home and even explain it to the kids. I know you’re doing this because you love us.”
This line of approach won’t fly when the overinvolvement becomes a lifestyle instead of a season, but if it’s truly a season, you can make some tremendous deposits in your husband’s “gratitude bank” by supporting him verbally and emotionally instead of attacking him. As Solomon writes, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). Think of it this way: if your husband truly fears losing his job, and he comes home and hears that he’s also failing at home, you’ve just about buried this man with disappointment. Adding to his insecurity will never cure the problem; it’ll just tear apart your marriage at the same time he’s losing his way at work.
In addition to his insecurity, your husband feels a compelling need to provide. You may inadvertently contribute to your husband’s overinvolvement at work. Are you making it more difficult for him to provide by making unnecessary purchases while at the same time complaining about how long he works? He may think he
has
to work extra hard to pay for those purchases! Or are you indirectly telling him he’s not earning enough by comparing his paycheck to yours, as you speak enviously of the vacations your friends get to enjoy or the new house or car they bought or the restaurants they visit? If your husband hears this, he may think, “I need to work longer and harder so my wife can have that too.”