Have you ever felt good when you were angry? Anger is the primary “negative” emotion for many men – and the primary emotion of any kind for some of us! Many of us were taught emotions are weak, and we learned from experience emotions could hurt us or make us vulnerable. These lessons can lead to trying to control emotions and limit the emotions we show and feel. Anger is a popular negative emotion because it seems powerful. Anger gets things done, and we don’t see angry people as weak.
This might be valid when anger is rare, but when anger becomes common, something is wrong. Frequent anger is bad for our bodies, and our minds, and very bad for our marriages. It may feel safe to be angry, but that is a lie. Ongoing anger limits, distances, and destroys. If anger is your “go to” emotion, it’s time to rethink things. You can choose to change how you react, but it will take work. Most of us will never be free of anger, but we can learn to react in anger less often, and we can learn to make our anger short-lived when it does happen. Your wife will be blessed by any effort you make.
Do you have a handle on your past, and what it can cause you to do or not do? When you feel the urge to react out of your past, are able to choose not to follow those urges. And if you can usually do that, do you maintain control under stress?
What we learn early in life becomes deeply rooted in our minds. These “early lessons” tend to surface when we’re stressed, or tired, or we feel out of control or threatened. When circumstances push us to our limit, self-control weakens, and we may react out of our oldest fears. This can cause us to feel threatened when there’s no real threat, or see disrespect when there’s no disrespect. We may not feel the love and concern of others, even though they are trying to express those things.
Over the next weeks, I’ll talk more about this, and what we can do about it. The first step is to own it when we slip into the past and say or do something unwarranted. Don’t excuse or blame, just admit you let the stress get to you and you did something you wish you hadn’t done. Honestly, owning it when you blow it can make your wife feel better. It’s not a solution, and you need to deal with any fallout from what you said or did, but owning your stuff shows you’re a grown up whose trying to improve.
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I came across The ‘Busy’ Trap on the opinion pages of the on-line NY times. Since I just wrote on this, I took the time to see what the fellow had to say. The whole thing is good, but one pull quote really jumped out at me:
It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this; it’s something we collectively force one another to do.
That’s the real issue: busyness is a disease, a social disease spread by repeated contact with carriers. This means getting free of busyness may be difficult or impossible if you stay immersed in a busy culture. And even if you do get free, you could be reinfected. This is part of a bigger issue I’ve mentionedmorethan once – we tend to mirror the folks we hang with. You shape your friends, and they shape you. Individuality within groups is not nearly as great as we like to think. This is true of busyness, how we spend our money, how much we exercise, the kind of sex we have, and how we treat our spouse.
The hard fact is, our friends can anchor us to things we don’t like, things we would like to remove from our lives. What’s more, if you’re strong enough to change despite your friends, they may drop you because of the changes. Most groups expect certain behaviours and beliefs, and those who stray too far are marginalised or outright excommunicated.
Does all of this mean you have to choose between your friends and making changes in your life? Sometimes it really does come down to that, or at least to being willing to lose friends if that’s what it takes. The question then is what’s more important to you, your friends or being healthy; your friends or doing what’s right; your friends or your marriage? Are you ready to declare independence from the crowd and do what is right?
In a recent Doing Marriage Well post, my wonderful wife suggested that being faithful means doing what you should as well as not doing what you should not! Her example was:
Certainly, I want to be faithful sexually to my sweetie (not cheat on him), but am I faithful to take care of his sexual needs and wants. There’s faithful to not do and faithful to do.
While we often think first of sex when discussing faithfulness, there are a lot of other areas where we need to be faithful to our wives.
Being faithful with money is about not spending it on things we should not, but it’s also about paying the bills and having insurance.
Being faithful with our time is not just about spending it where we should, but also not spending huge amounts of it in fruitless pursuits.
Being faithful with her heart is about not doing what would hurt her, and doing what blesses her.
Are you doing both sides of faithful in your marriage?
Most of us have had some problem with our in-laws, and most wives have had some problems with their husband’s family of origin. A certain amount of friction is to be expected – and to be tolerated. However, when the issues are significant, it can harm your marriage.
First, let me suggest you not downplay your wife’s complaints about your family – especially your parents. Unless you know she is negative by nature about the vast majority of people, assume her perspective is valid. Also assume her hurt feelings are not hyped up. Realise you have a couple of decades of dealing with your family, and she doesn’t. You understand them better, and if they are difficult you learned to cope and ignore because you had no choice. Even if your dad was abusive, or your mom was controlling, as a child you had to find a way to get along as best you could. Now, however, you’re an adult, as is your wife and it’s wrong to expect her to put up with bad behaviour from anyone, including especially your family.
If it got so horrible you had to either leave your family or your wife, which would you choose? Easy choice, right? What’s difficult is seeing how bad it is, and how close it is to where you should make that choice. It’s easier to downplay, excuse, ignore, and try to get your wife to do the same than to stand up for your wife like a man. Yes, there is a challenge in there – or an insult. A real man doesn’t allow his anyone to abuse his wife. What’s more, every woman understands this, and if her husband won’t stand up to his family on her behalf it substantially hurts his image in her eyes.
It’s rare for a conflict between wife and family to be horrible at first. Both are trying to make it work, and both are willing to ignore certain things at first. Usually it grows worse bit-by-bit, slowing going from uncomfortable to horrible one inch at a time. The wife often doesn’t say anything to her husband for too long, and he is typically turning a blind eye. Sometimes when a man does realise there’s a problem, his decision is to hold the line where things stand when he sees the problem. This is rarely enough, because by the time he admits the truth, things are often worse than he should have allowed in the first place. The only right thing is to reclaim ground that should not have been given up.
Dealing with this is never fun, and usually heart-wrenching. It’s not going to be easy, so accept the challenge and do what needs to be done. If you catch it early enough, you might be able to change things with a few well-chosen comments, and by coming to your wife’s defence quickly and strongly when you should. If it’s gone too far, or you have a family member who is stubborn, you’ll have to confront them. DO NOT drag your wife into this; this is not about her and your family, this is about how your family treats her. Including her makes it look like her actions are up for discussion, which should not be the case. You need to make it clear that you are with her, and if forced to choose, she wins. Be ready to follow up by limiting contact as necessary. Don’t solve this by spending time with your family without your wife – this is still picking them over her.
I know this is difficult – I had to go through it with my mother after my father died. She didn’t dislike my Lori, but she didn’t treat her as she should. I was unwilling for either of us to put up with some of the things I had put up with when I was younger. Fortunately, mom was smart enough to catch on before I had to spell it out for her. She figured out where the line was and stayed just the other side of it for the rest of her life.
Recently, over on Quora, someone did a drive by shooting on an answer I made about Christians and masturbation. Rather than dealing with the facts, they told everyone I was just justifying my sin.
Not the case. In thirty-eight years of marriage, I’ve done it less than 38 times. This decade, once. Always with Lori’s awareness, and usually at her suggestion. When I travelled more, and we were apart for more than a night or two, she would encourage it, and sometimes suggest how she could be in my mind as I did.
But this post is not about defending my doing something I think is perfectly acceptable to God. This is about truth. I’ve received the same accusation after defending sex acts I’ve never done. Folks who want to tell everyone that certain sex acts are wrong are often more interested in attacking those who oppose them than presenting scriptural evidence. Or they talk about lust and self-control without showing how what they oppose is either of those things.
God told us not to have sex with those who have the same plumbing we have. He told us not to have sex with animals. And when He told us not to have sex with relatives, He gave us a list, so there would be no doubt. Clearly, God is willing and able to tell us what we should not do sexually. So if you or anyone else feels a need to add to that list, my question is why? Did God miss something? Does He need us to help Him out?
If you personally feel some sex act is not good, don’t do it. If you feel a need to tell other it’s bad when God didn’t, don’t do it! God told us to approach sex with intoxicated abandon. (cf Proverbs 5:18-19 & SS 5:1)
Another suggestion from ChatGPT on being a good husband. Today, “Building Trust in Your Marriage: Simple Habits That Go a Long Way”.
This one kind of stumped me. I suppose the idea is doing little things that create trust. But much of what I would say builds trust doesn’t seem like simple habits to me.
Trust is difficult to gain, and easily lost. If trust has been violated, it’s going to take way more than simple habits to fix that. It’s going to take time, and very possibly professional help.
One habit that I would suggest is making sure your wife has access to your phone, computer, and email. This suggests you have nothing to hide, and that’s a good thing. Anyone who demands their privacy in marriage is in for a bad time. Secrets and trust mix like oil and water.
Have you ever let something go because you just didn’t want to argue about it? Your wife upset you, or hurt you, or did something you think was wrong, but you say nothing. Maybe you just feel too tired or stressed to deal with it. Perhaps you choose keeping the peace over your needs. Or maybe you want sex later, and you’re pretty sure an argument will mean that won’t happen.
I get it. I’ve ignored wrongs for all of those reasons and others. Sometimes it seemed to work out, sometimes I’ve paid a price later. I now realise it’s wrong regardless of how it ends.
If you fail to tell your wife something upsets or annoys you, you can expect her to do it again. If she keeps doing it, and you eventually get upset enough to say something, you will probably come across angry. And your wife will rightly wonder why you are “suddenly” so upset about something she has done many times without you saying a word.
Sometimes this isn’t as much about a specific action as an attitude or behaviour. That’s even more difficult, and she may feel attacked. When you have discussions about such things, talk more about your feelings than her actions. If it’s not a moral issue of right and wrong, then don’t call it wrong. Let her know it bothers, hurts, or upsets you, and try to explain that to her. If you can say “It’s not you, it’s me” that may help a great deal.
No one enjoys hard discussions, but in the long run they make for a better marriage.
