|
Page 1 of 3 BookTrends: How to Act Right When Your Spouse Acts Wrong
By Leslie Vernick|Published Date: October 14, 2009
David barely squeezed his large frame snugly between the arms of my chair in my office. His eyes brimming with tears, he poured out his pain.
 “I’ve tried every thing, Leslie. For the past two years, I’ve read books on how to be a good husband, a godly man, and an effective father. I’ve gone to Promise Keepers, Bible studies, and my pastor for help. But it isn’t working and I’m so tired. My wife, Julie, still doesn’t want anything to do with me. I feel like giving up. Nothing is happening.”
David’s heart is breaking. His marriage is in trouble, and he’s not sure if anything he can do will ever change it to be what he desires. David expresses the sorrow of many who see nothing in their marriage change even when they have tried to act right when their spouse acts wrong. They try hard, often with marathon efforts, but their spouse doesn’t respond the way they hope. Their marriage is still distant, painful, full of conflict, or superficially pleasant but emotionally cold. David believed God would change his spouse if only he learned to act right.
Isn’t that what we’ve been taught? If we do the right thing, then our marriage will get better. Carrie thought so. Her husband had an affair with a coworker. When Sam confessed it, she tried to respond in the right way. She went to counseling, expressed her feelings, forgave her husband, and in every way attempted to reconcile her marriage. Her husband even agreed to come home. Then they found out his coworker was pregnant. The bitter irony was that Carrie and Sam had tried unsuccessfully to have children. Sam divorced Carrie and married the other woman. Carrie was devastated. She had tried with all her heart to do it right. What happened? Hadn’t God promised to give her the desires of her heart? Carrie felt God had let her down.
Over the years I have heard variations of these stories again and again. We pray hard and read our Bible and other books, trying this or that, looking expectantly for our spouse to soften, change, forgive us, or repent. When that doesn’t happen, like David or Carrie, we can become angry, discouraged, and disillusioned. We are tempted to give up on our marriage—and sometimes on our faith—and conclude that God and his principles are impotent. We think, Why bother? It won’t do any good anyway!
Perhaps that’s why you’ve picked up this book. Perhaps you are still looking for the technique that will improve your marriage. You want something—anything—to make your spouse change or to turn your marriage into something more like what God says it should be. These desires are good and legitimate, and all of us who are married have them. Often as we grow and learn how to love our husband or wife in more Christlike ways, our spouse notices, responds positively, and our marriage does improve. But sometimes it doesn’t.
David’s comment rang true. Nothing significant was changing in his marriage. Julie was still angry with him over some old wounds he’d inflicted years earlier. She was still unresponsive sexually and not interested in working either on her own attitude or their marriage. So why continue trying? David wondered. And what am I trying for? Just like David, we might conclude nothing is happening.
Or is it?
Acting Right When Our Spouse Acts Wrong Is Good for Us
These painful kinds of experiences often cause us to begin asking God some important questions. Most of the time, we start by asking him a lot of why questions. Why is this happening to me? Why should I bother trying when there doesn’t seem to be any marital improvement or change in my spouse? Talking with God about our troubles is good, and he welcomes a heart that seeks to understand his purposes. Jesus always responded to others’ questions, especially those that came from people who were genuinely looking for truth. When God gives us his answers, however, we may not always like what he tells us.
As most children do, I often asked my father, “Why?” Why couldn’t I stay out until one o’clock in the morning? Why did I have to stay home and work around the house? His two favorite responses were “Because I said so” and “Because it’s good for you.” I never liked either one of those answers much. From my point of view, they were inadequate explanations. I always thought he said those things to get out of having to give me a real answer. Yet over the years (in part because I have become a parent myself ) I have found profound truths in each of my father’s short responses.
The first one, “Because I said so,” implies authority. Who is the “I” in that answer? It isn’t just anybody who said so. It was my father who said so. Imagine one of your friends asking you to do something. When you question her about it, she replies, “Because I said so.” What would be your reaction? I’d laugh aloud, or I might even be bold enough to say with a twinkle in my eye, “And who are you?” When my father said “Because I said so,” the statement assumed his authority and my need to trust and obey him, not because I understood him or agreed with him, but because he was my father. Perhaps he knew that I was too immature, too foolish, or too rebellious at the time to grasp the wisdom behind his decisions. I wasn’t going to get it just then. I would simply have to choose whether I would trust his judgment and obey him.
Throughout God’s Word, people ask God why, and sometimes he responds just as my father did—“Because I said so.” (See, for example, Isaiah 45:5-12.) This phrase is not the trite response of a God who has no better explanation. It is an answer overflowing with truth. It directs our attention away from our problem and toward the One who has the power and the authority to orchestrate the details of our lives. At times God uses our circumstances to make us more aware of him. Instead of asking why, we begin to ask, “Who is this One?” God understands our deeper need in the situation. It isn’t to know more of why; rather, it is to know more of him.
Job experienced this transformation. After Job lost his children, his wealth, and his health, he asked God why. He didn’t understand. What had he done to deserve this kind of hardship, this kind of hurt? Throughout Job’s ordeal, he never lost his faith, but he did get more and more insistent upon an answer to his question. After a very long silence, God answered Job—but not with the answer Job wanted. God replied to Job with a long series of his own questions, in essence asking Job, “Are you God? Can you know all things? Do all things? Be all things?” (See Job 38-41.) God finally cornered Job: “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” (Job 40:2). Job began to grasp the moment. Instead of looking for answers, he was now looking at God. In stunned silence he covered his mouth with his hand. Job’s transformation began, and instead of demanding answers from God, Job worshiped him.
Sometimes in the midst of our marital pain and confusion, God moves us toward a greater knowledge and a deeper experience of him. It is often in the middle of our search for the answer to why that he begins to redirect our attention. Instead of asking why, we turn and start asking God what. What can we learn about God and our life from this experience? We ask God for a stronger faith to believe him and to trust and obey him even when we don’t understand. We also begin to ask if there is a greater purpose for our life other than marital bliss and a happy family life. We want to understand what God might be doing in us through our difficult marital relationship.
This leads us to the second answer my father gave: “Because it’s good for you.” Whenever I heard this I would cringe. I looked on this explanation with great suspicion, because what was good for me was usually unpleasant. I remember my own children kicking and screaming when they had to go to the pediatrician’s office for their checkups, because the visits often involved getting some sort of shot. Equally distasteful was the dentist. Yet I would have been an irresponsible parent if I had neglected medical and dental care just because my children couldn’t grasp that regular visits were good for them. Contrary to what they believed at the time, I found no pleasure in torturing them. I knew my children would never volunteer to go to the doctor or dentist. I made them go. Why? It was good for them.
When God says something is for our good, what does this mean? Often we hope it means that God will eventually bring happiness or pleasure out of a difficult situation. But just as my children never had any pleasure or happiness in their visits to the dentist, sometimes we do not experience any happiness or pleasure in the things God says are good for us. Many things that we instinctively find unappealing are indeed good for us. Hebrews 12 says that discipline seems unpleasant for the moment, but when we have been trained by it, it will yield the fruit of righteousness. So what does God mean when he says he uses and sometimes even causes difficult situations for our good?
Some of you might be thinking, Wait a minute! Are you saying that when my spouse acts wrong, God uses that for my good? Surely God didn’t want Julie to act that way toward her husband, David. You are right. Julie definitely could have made better choices when she became hurt early in her marriage. Julie could have chosen to act right when David acted wrong. She didn’t. Instead, she allowed her anger to fester until it eventually hardened into a solid rock of bitterness, indifference, and apathy toward David. Now the tables were turned, and Julie was acting wrong. She was not loving. She was not forgiving. How could God use that for good in David’s life?
As sinful human beings, we are always tempted to first point the finger at our spouse when we think he or she is acting wrong. David tried that. He told Julie she was bitter. She needed to forgive him. He wanted her to feel bad, guilty, embarrassed—anything but this cold indifference that he could not penetrate. It didn’t work. That’s when he began trying to change himself into a more loving husband. He bought her flowers, cleaned up the dishes, invited her out for romantic dinners, and bought her some special jewelry that she had admired. David’s approach to Julie had changed, but his motives hadn’t. David’s new behaviors may have looked more loving, but his heart was still motivated by his own desire to see Julie change. We might fool others with that kind of outward change, but we will never fool our spouse. David’s selfishness came out in a hundred less obvious, less demanding ways than it had in the past. Even so, he was only acting more loving so that Julie would change. He wanted her to love him.
David’s agenda from the beginning of his marriage was the selfish desire to turn Julie into the wife he wanted. Many of their early problems were rooted in this mind-set. He wanted her to love him, meet his needs, care for him. When she failed he scolded her. He withdrew from her. He often sulked and pouted. Finally Julie had enough and became angry. This startled David. While dating, Julie accommodated his every wish and desire. Her primary concern was his happiness. Now she ignored him. First David tried waiting for her to get over her anger. That didn’t happen. Next he tried asserting his authority as her husband and ordered her to meet his needs, which only fueled Julie’s hurt and resentment. Finally, in desperation, he tried the loving approach, attempting to rewin her heart. Still Julie didn’t respond as he wanted. Although things were less hostile between them, nothing was changing in their marital relationship. Well, almost nothing. Something was very definitely happening in these difficult years, but it wasn’t in David’s marriage.
It was happening in him.
|
