rant/opinion - The Generous Husband

FF: Remembering the Longing for a Wife: A Call to Appreciation and Gratitude

by The Generous Husband | Mar 8, 2024 | Your Needs

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“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ … But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’” [Portions of Gen 2:18-24 ESV]

I doubt God was surprised that Adam was alone and needed someone, and I don’t think God expected Adam to find what he needed among the animals. I think God did what He did, the way He did it, so Adam would realise how much he needed Eve. God made Adam long for a partner, made him really want it, so he would properly appreciate Eve.

Imagine what it was like for Adam. Here was someone who was like him; not like the animals who could not communicate with him, and not like God, who was beyond his understanding. Here was someone with whom he could share his curiosity and wonder, someone who could appreciate the adventure of life. Here was someone Adam could help and protect, and someone who could love and care for him in return. She was similar but different, she had things Adam did not; she filled him out, and she made him more complete. What about sex? I don’t know if Adam had any drive or awareness of sexuality before Eve. But imagine the words of praise he must have had for God after he experienced the great joy and pleasure of becoming physically one with Eve!

So, what about you – have you forgotten how much you wanted a wife? Do you remember the emptiness, the ache of being alone even when you were with people? Do you recall how much you wanted a woman you could call your own who would share life with you?

A couple of years before I got married, when I was deep into wanting to be married, I went with a group of men from my church to an Ed Cole Christian Men’s Network meeting. The meeting was four hours away, and we drove back after it was over Saturday evening. I was in a car with three men who were married, and as it got late they started to discuss how they were going to get home late and tired, and have to get up for church in the morning; and their wives were going to want to talk about the meeting. I listened to them complain about this until I could hold back no longer. I blasted them for not caring about their wives, for missing what Ed had said about how important it was to share their life and their experiences with their wives, and I ended with how much I wished I had a woman waiting at home for me, keeping me awake because she deeply desired to share my life. We then drove in silence for quite a while. I wonder if any of those men went home and gave their wife an extra-long hug and some words of appreciation.

I know your wife isn’t perfect. I know she has failed you. I know she doesn’t meet all your needs, and that she frustrates you at times. Please try to remember when you were single, and why you longed to be married. Don’t focus on the parts that are imperfect; look at all the parts that bless you. Then give your wife an extra-long hug and a few words of appreciation.

[This post first appeared Aug 05, 2012.]

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey Carlisle | When self-help doesn’t help ◄ You have to know who you are before you can become your best self.

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FF: If I Could Upload Being In A Great Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Jan 5, 2024 | Audio, Change, Friday Flashback, Good Marriage, ZIMAGE

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I saw a movie promo the other day for a remake of “Total Recall”. The premise is that it’s possible to record a person’s memories and inject them into others, resulting in the person thinking they have actually lived those things.

I wish I could do this with marriage; inject into every husband and wife what it is like to be in a truly great marriage. Imagine feeling and knowing what it’s like to trust and be trusted, to be best friends, to have an awesome sex life, to want and need to be together. If I could give that to people, I think the vast majority of them would do everything in their power to change their marriage. I think most would find they could do things they now feel are beyond their ability. If they understood what they could have, I know most people would be willing to do a lot and sacrifice a great deal.

Of course, I can’t do this. However, I can tell you how powerful it would be. I had the marriage full of pain and suffering, and now I have a marriage full of love, and joy, and plenty of mutually enjoyed sex. I’ve known both sides, and I would half kill myself to have what I have now if I lost it.

Please don’t take the sour grapes approach and tell yourself a good marriage really is not so great. Please don’t think there is anything else that will make up for not having a great marriage, because there isn’t. My suggestion is to go all out, don’t hold back. A great marriage is a prize worth any cost, fight for it with all you have.

And, yes, I know you think she won’t change, and most of it is her fault anyway. I’m sure there is some truth in that, but not as much as you tell yourself. Even if you’re right, you can fight for a better marriage. I’m sure there are women who are so far gone nothing will make a difference, but I am convinced those women are very few.

[This post first appeared July 20, 2012.]

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Modern Marriage: More Work, But Also More Rewarding

by The Generous Husband | Dec 21, 2023 | Audio, Good Marriage, Seeing Clearly, ThePast, ZIMAGE

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Over on Quora, someone asked why so many men don’t want to get married today. Most of the early answers were from guys who seem to want the kind of marriage they think their grandfathers or great-grandfathers had. Their answers were actually a good explanation for why so many women don’t want to get married today.

Some guys have this idea that in the past, the wife took care of the home and the kids, had sex on demand, and only expected hubby to bring home the bacon and give them occasional kind words. To be fair, it’s how media often portrays marriages in days gone by. But this isn’t how it was. Women worked their butts off, and they were not always cheerful about it. As for sex, plenty of women said no, and those who never did provided hurry-up-and-get-it-over sex.

As I’ve said before, women used to put up with bad marriages because they didn’t have any good options. They were living the best of the bad choices available to them.

I doubt the guys who want that kind of marriage follow a blog called The Generous Husband. But how much are we effected by the false claims of what marriage used to be? Do we wonder if perhaps we could have had it better in the past? Do we think modern marriage means we’re getting cheated?

Yes, a modern marriage demands more of the husband than was the case in the past. But on the flip side, what a modern marriage can be is so much better than anything our grandfathers ever had. It’s more work to keep a wife who has options, but what we gain from a woman who wants to be with us is so much better.

The next time someone tells you modern ideas have destroyed marriage, or that feminists have made it difficult to be a man, stop and think. Ask yourself if what is being presented is based on a false understanding of the past. I’m not denying marriage is under attack, but some of what we think “they” have done comes from a false narrative about how thing were in the past.

The truth is, there’s never been a better time to be married. The marriage you can have is far better than what any of your forefathers had. If you’re willing to put in a bit more effort than they did, you can have so much more.

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Friday Flashback: Challenging the One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Jun 23, 2023 | Audio, Friday Flashback, Reader Requested/Inspired, Seeing Clearly, Understanding Her, ZIMAGE

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I had an email recently thanking me for not having the common “marriage ministry philosophy” that the man is wrong because he is a beast who needs to be tamed. The specific comment was about sex, but it made me think of a bigger problem I see in parts of the marriage ministry world; the idea the man is always wrong and if he would just get it right, his marriage would be fine. The corollary to this is anything a wife is doing wrong is his fault, and as soon as he gets it together, she will immediately change.

I know it sounds crazy, and anything but biblical, but it’s out there. I went several rounds with a fellow who teaches this, and has a book which says the same thing. The reason this couple teaches this is their marriage was this way; his changing did fix everything. The thing is, not every marriage is like their marriage. In fact, I would say very few are. Occasionally it’s almost entirely the man, occasionally it’s almost entirely the woman. Most of the time, they each have things that need to be dealt with. Any change either spouse makes may precipitate change by the other, but it does not guarantee the spouse will change. What’s more, if they do change, it may not be for the better. If the husband is the vast majority of the problem, a book about the husband being the problem will help. If both have things to deal with, a book that blames all marriage issues on him won’t help, and will likely make things worse. If the wife is the vast majority of the problem, a book that puts it all on him will make things much worse!

The “it’s always the man’s fault” approach is a result of the “one size fits all” method of dealing with things. I’ve seen well-meaning people do a lot of harm because they assume everyone is like they are, or were, and everyone’s problems are the same as theirs. It would make things easy, but it’s not true! Stay away from anyone who has one size fits all answers for marriage difficulties. Same for anyone who has a “guaranteed fix”. These things will work for some, but not for all, and they will make things worse for many.

By the way, this applies to anything I say. Often I give a bit of advice that will work for most, but very few things are universally true in the area of marriage. I’d say 10% to 20% of what I share here I don’t do in my own marriage because it wouldn’t work or isn’t the best option. My wife is unique, as am I, which makes our marriage unique. In many areas, we are “average” and common solutions work well. However, like all couples, there are places where we’re not normal, and the normal solutions won’t work, or won’t work well.

The bottom line: You must be a student of your wife. If you’re not sure about something, try it gently, and see how it goes. Just because something worked for another couple doesn’t mean it will work for you. Even more importantly, just because something did not work for you does not mean there’s no solution.

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[This post first appeared May 8, 2012.]

Breaking Free from Man-Made Sex Rules and Embracing God’s Freedom in Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Jun 17, 2023 | Audio, Rethinking Sex, Sex Positive, ZIMAGE

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Last Sunday, the elder doing the sermon at our church made a couple of interesting points:

Pharisees make rules differing from those established by God, and consider themselves righteous when they follow their self-made rules.
Christ-followers know that a faith based on rules portrays a false Jesus, and therefore becomes a false religion.

I immediately saw how these explain something I’ve faced repeatedly during my years of ministering about sexuality.

I’ve spent way too much time arguing with folks who want to add to what the Bible says about sex. They want to make all masturbation sin. They call oral sex sin. Some toss sex toys into the sin bin. Others actually suggest some sex positions, or anything other than missionary, are wrong. There are even those who say it’s a sin for anyone to have an orgasm in any way other than vaginal intercourse. (I guess the majority of women who can’t do that are just out of luck!)

If you believe any of those things, that’s just fine with me. Don’t do them. If you want to put your man-made rules on others, I’m going to call you out. I’ve always blamed this on Gnosticism, and I think that’s a factor. But feeling righteous or superior for following your own rules seems like a big part of it, too. Pick something you don’t like, call it sin, don’t do it, and boom, you’re such a good Christian! Or even more impressive, pick something you do enjoy, make it sin, don’t do it, and you’re a super Christian!

Of course, the truth is you’re really just adding to God’s Word, which is a big no-no. God didn’t miss anything, and doesn’t need our help. A rules based faith is not what Jesus called us to. If rules could save us, Jesus would not have had to die for us.

God gave us a great deal of freedom in our married sex lives. If it doesn’t involve anyone other than our spouse, which would include porn, you’re both okay with it, and it’s not causing harm, then it’s okay with God. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to inject themselves into your sex life, and that’s wrong.

So get in there and enjoy sex the way God intended!

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Finding a Balance Between Personal Freedom and Responsibility

by The Generous Husband | May 18, 2023 | Aff Link, Mentor/Brother, ZIMAGE

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I have a friend whose parents escaped the genocide of Christians in Persia (now Iran) almost a hundred years ago. He was born and grew up in Chicago in a community of others who escaped. So while he is American, he grew up with a very different culture.

Recently, he told me that when he was young, he often heard, “What will man say?” (He said it in Arabic, and translated it for me.) This was what was said when anyone did anything bad or unusual. In his culture, everything you did made your family look either good or bad. And everyone was watching everyone to see if they got out of line.

If you grew up in a typical American community, you experienced something very different. We are all about personal freedom, and it’s rare that people put your actions onto your family. That’s how I grew up, and I like it. But I can see the downside to it, and the upside to what my friend experienced. In a culture that doesn’t allow you to get too far away from the norm, there is less “bad behaviour”. There are fewer problems, and there is less divorce.

That doesn’t mean I want to live like that. My friend is glad he’s not living that way any more. But the Bible does say we are our brother’s keeper, and that means some degree of setting and trying to maintain standards. As much as I like the freedom to be and do what I want, I see how we have paid a high price for that. Perhaps there is some middle ground that lets us be ourselves, but also protects us and others from taking that too far. I think it would benefit our marriages and our children if we could find a balance between the two extremes.

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Friday Flashback: Stop Settling! You Can Have A Great Marriage!

by The Generous Husband | Apr 28, 2023 | Audio, Change, Encouragement, Good Marriage, Hope, Links to good stuff, Seeing Clearly, ZIMAGE

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I get deeply frustrated at all the couples who are settling for a bad marriage; or a poor marriage, or even an okay marriage. Why would people do this? Why would they accept a shadow of what they could have?

My conclusion is people settle for one or both of two reasons: fear and ignorance.

Ignorance: I don’t mean stupidity, I mean just not knowing it can be better. When I was growing up, my parents had a fair marriage; not great, but not bad. Most others I saw were worse off than my parents, some much worse. For some reason (I blame God), I felt there had to be something better. I had no example, but I believed it. When our marriage had problems, I didn’t accept them as inevitable or unsolvable; I was sure we could work through them and come out the other end with a better marriage. And you know what? It happened! We lived what I believed was possible.

The point here is you’re not going to have a better marriage if you don’t think you can have a better marriage. Take my word for it, or ask God to put it in your heart as He did with me, but find a way to believe it can be better – far, far better.

Fear: I think some people would rather succeed at poor than risk failing at great. I think others want deniability – if they try to make the marriage better and fail, they worry they will be blamed for a divorce. Even if they’re sure doing nothing will end in divorce, they would rather wait for the divorce than try to make it better and risk blame. I don’t know how to help someone overcome such fears, other than maybe helping them see it’s possible, and thus changing the odds in their mind.

A friend of mine often quotes President Harry S Truman, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Let me change that to “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care if you get the blame.”

Bottom line: PLEASE stop settling! I’m begging you, there is so much more. Marriage need not be a battleground, or boring, or just barely better than being single. Marriage can be deeply enjoyable and satisfying, a source of comfort and joy. Even if things are ugly now, it can change, and a change in your attitude and belief will start that process.

[This post first appeared Apr 23, 2012.]

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Hot, Holy & Humorous | Why a Husband Helping Around the House Makes a Wife More Open to Sex ◄ It’s complicated, but sometimes it is a fact.

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Sex, Intelligent Design, and Evolution

by The Generous Husband | Mar 25, 2023 | Audio, Seeing Clearly, Sexuality, XY link, ZIMAGE

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Yesterday over on The XY Code I said that if you believe in Intelligent Design, the clitoris is proof that God wanted women to enjoy sex.

When I read science based information on human sexuality, it’s common to see the conclusions shaped by the idea that everything is driven by and must be explained by evolution. The clitoris has caused these folks a lot of trouble. It comes from the same embryonic tissue that becomes the head of the penis in men, but why is it so developed and more pleasurably sensitive than the penis? Why do women have the capacity for stronger, longer, and multiple orgasms? In fact, why do women orgasm at all? Despite various attempts, no one has shown orgasm helps women evolutionarily speaking.

I am of the mind that God didn’t just throw our bodies together. He didn’t just create us, He created us with great attention to detail.

So that means the fact that women can want, have, and enjoy sex when they’re not fertile is not an accident. God made women that way because He wanted sex to be mutually enjoyable.

The most common sex positions, which are comfortable and give her the best chance of orgasm, puts us face to face. That suggests to me that God intends sex to be intimate.

How about the fact that human female breasts are prominent all the time, not just when a woman is nursing? God wanted men to be aware of women’s sexuality, and to be enticed by their wife.

Then there’s the fact that men are easily aroused, while women often take some effort. If women had our sex drive, we’d all have a lot of sex, but would it be really good sex? Our wives’ need for love before sex makes sex more intimate. And, her need for foreplay makes sex last longer and also make it much better when we climax.

I would also note that we are not mindless animals, driven by our sex drive. We have the ability to think and reason. If the condom box is empty, and we are not ready for another baby, we have the ability to do something that won’t result in pregnancy. We are not driven by evolutionary pressure to “spread our seed”, which means we can have way better sex and avoid the pitfalls of mindless mating.

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey Carlisle | The road less traveled ◄ “The road less traveled is keeping God at the center of our everyday life and decisions and not merely as an afterthought.”

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