In Western social culture, regardless of religion or lack thereof, the children are taught The Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated. That sure sounds nice, but in the adult world, is that the rule we follow in practice in our homes and encourage publicly? I’m not seeing it. I see adults tell children to follow The Golden Rule, but then turn around and make all manner of excuses for treating other adults deceitfully to gain financial or physical advantage or to get revenge excessively harshly for their bad or boring behavior.
I could talk about how the adults in the West are pushing hard for most girls and women to be used instead of loved with honor, like reverse feminism by accident (or secretly on purpose?), but this blog is about being a Winsome Wife or preparing to be a Winsome Wife, or being the kind of friend to others that would encourage them to become a Winsome Wives now or in their future marriage.
This post is particularly about how a wife treats her very imperfect husband, from a Jesus-following Christian perspective. Jesus says in John 15:12 “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” Most professing Christians, even pastors say that this commandment doesn’t apply in marriage. Actually, they won’t come out and say that openly, but their allowances for divorce in cases of abuse and adultery and the husband moving out, are their way of telling the wife she does not have to love her husband as Jesus loves her. These misinformed advice givers totally ignore Jesus’ example of dealing with a cheating and disinterested abandoner possibly unbelieving spouse, as Hosea who represented God and Jesus is God, continued to be devoted to his wife who left him for a boyfriend and was totally unrepentant and worse, even got into temple prostitution after that, but Hosea all along kept his commitment to her, provided food & clothing to her while she shacked up with a boyfriend, and even was there to rescue her from the slave auction. No indication of her repentance or interest in him or thankfulness for all he continued to do for her. Hosea only divorced her to save her from being stoned to death by the bloodthirsty Jews who didn’t see God’s allowance for stoning for adultery as an opportunity to show great mercy. You simply can’t show mercy unless you have the legal right to punish, and the greater the legal punishment allowable, the greater the mercy shown, and thus the possibility of greater appreciation for that mercy, and greater motivation to repent and be rehabilitated.
Spouses today are as bloodthirsty as the Jews of old, but only Western law and fear of jail prevents many of them from killing their cheating spouse and their illicit lover. Sometimes that is not enough. Divorce and replacement, and also child custody uncooperation are the revenges of choice for those who don’t want to be in jail. But they think legal separation of money makes them no longer obligated to loving their husband. What does God have to say about this? 1 Cor 7:10-11……And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
So there you have God telling divorced couples to try to get back together again, that legal separation or divorce does NOTHING to cancel the obligation to the lifelong unconditional love wedding vows. Emotions don’t matter. Court documents don’t matter. Promises matter. Our God is a God of promises made and promises kept. Do you really think God always FEELS close and loving towards us? Not from what I’ve been reading. He CAN and does feel very very angry at sinful behavior. He literally can take us to Heaven early, or make our lives more difficult to punish us or motivate better behavior, like any good parent disciplines their child instead of gives only privileges no matter how the child behaves.
In 1 Cor 7:10-11, it is clear that God understands the need for separation for safety at times, even permanent separation if it’s that serious, but our devotion to our spouse shouldn’t be affected by that need for separation. There are ways to continue loving our husband as we try to help him seek enough help to be safe to live with, if that’s possible. I will probably get into that in another post. I do not believe divorce documents are necessary in such situations. You don’t want to give your difficult husband the impression that you are done with him. That isn’t loving. And your example of love should never look like permanent abandonment of the relationship, which is what divorce does in most people’s eyes, and you also don’t want to give your spouse the impression that they should replace you, which ruins your ability to pursue him as you originally promised you would never stop doing. You don’t want to be a liar by choice or by spousal force. There is no Biblical permission to give up on a difficult spouse just because they are an unbeliever. But there is that one verse that gives you an option to let them go if they truly hate Jesus and it’s not at all about you personally, but ONLY about Jesus Himself, which is truly rare in the West, but I imagine it was quite common in New Testament times for Jews to hate their Jewish spouse’s new Christianity, and later you have Muslims super angry that their spouse became a follower of Jesus, even trying to kill the new Christian, Islam apostate. Most cases in the West of an unbeliever leaving a Christian spouse, is because that Christian spouse was not treating their spouse as Jesus taught them to…..not following Ephesians 5, not doing the Fruits of the Spirit, but often the Works of the Flesh, which is really annoying and hurtful to an unbelieving spouse, making them feel disrespected and unwanted and lonely. It really is difficult to be a Winsome Wife. It’s a TON of work. But it’s what I promised. There are no excuses. His behavior is no excuse for me to not do as I promised. I didn’t promise earned love. That would be a business deal. We both promised unconditional love. We had no idea what that meant, although the pastor tried hard to make us understand. But we were not born again Christians at the time, so the default is earned love……I’ll be nice if you are first. Or I’ll try to be nice first, but you better respond quickly enough or I’ll give up. That is the default mentality of all people ever born, except Jesus. Conditional love is all anyone on their own can do. BUT, we CAN allow Jesus to love unconditionally through us. That is what I asked God to do with me in 2007, and it worked…..I have permanent commitment to my husband in my heart now, and he knows it and is inspired very much by it.
Unfortunately, permanent commitment is the easy part. The daily moment by moment interactions are the hard part. I’ll write another post about that. This post is about the commitment part mainly.
Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
The Golden Rule. But a lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) We can ask, is a husband a qualifying “neighbor” that we have to love just as much as ourself? Keep in mind that God defines love not by thoughts alone, but by actions. 1 Cor 13:4-8 & Fruits of the Spirit define love in a way that just can’t allow for giving up on a difficult spouse. That verse selection was read at our little white church wedding. We weren’t even Christians. I just thought a court wedding was lame. I had been raised Catholic, but they wanted us to do 6 months of classes first, and I was in a hurry to stop feeling like a used girlfriend, I wanted to feel secure in love finally, wanted to trust him more, so I wanted to get married quickly, and the nearby Presbyterian church was pretty. We had never even been to a church service as adults or as a couple. It just felt right to get married and get married there.
So is a husband a neighbor, too? Well, let’s see what Jesus’ parable in Luke 10 says about who we should help. The injured person was not a believer like the first 2 people who saw him, was attacked by violent dishonest cold hearted thieves who left him to die, and was too injured to help himself. Is a very bad husband anything like this robbery victim? Well, the average husband is not a believer like us, but is he a victim? Is there an enemy attacking our husband? What does the Bible say about why people act bad? Free will yes, but are there any other factors into their behavior?
1 Peter 5 Be sober, be vigiliant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:…
Ephesians 6:12-13 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
The devil is the attacker of all people, to get them to act more sinful than their free will in a world without fallen angel influence would have them do. If our husband is an unbeliever, he does not have access yet to the Armor of God that we do. He is vulnerable to attack in ways that we are not. We have no way of knowing the Heaven status of any person, so even a “Christian” husband might not have access to the Armor of God yet, and it’s clear from Ephesians 6 that even the true Christian person must do something to use the armor to full effect. Let’s not just judge our spouse’s spirituality, but just know that they are not acting on only their own, but there is an evil influence on them that they may not be aware of, and even if they are and cooperate, our job is to love our neighbor as our self, and our husband is our closest neighbor, by adoption rather than birth. We give birth to children so they get automatic unconditional love, but when we marry, we adopt our man as permanent family too. I’ve never met a woman who didn’t consider her ex husband as still family. I’ve also noticed that God never refers to a divorced husband as the wife’s ex husband, but still her husband, even if she’s had 5 husbands and the man she is with now is not her husband. But according to Genesis, marriage is between only 1 man and 1 woman, and the Old Testament only shows polygamy being between 1 man and more than 1 wife as bad for everyone but still it happened and it’s not ok, but the man is still obligated to care for all his wives & children equally (but he never does and they always get neglected to various degrees). But permanent polygamy of 1 woman and several men is never even remotely condoned in Scripture nor any culture I know of yet. My point is that if someone has remarried someone other than their first spouse, with lifelong unconditional love promises, they are now obligated to love their current spouse as Jesus loves them, no giving up. A spouse does best, the relationship does best, the children if any do best, society does best, if the romance is from free will adult choice and lifelong unconditional commitment and loving each other as Jesus loves us. There is no better way. A divorce in the past must be repented of, and apologies made in thought if not in person, for the current remarriage to thrive best, for the current marriage to feel 100% secure, even if past marriage(s) were not 100% secure. We don’t need to hang on to divorce beliefs to help a new spouse feel wanted. It’s true that the remarriage shouldn’t have happened, but like a crisis pregnancy, it happened, and you can’t undo it. The child can be made to feel wanted even if the circumstances surrounding their conception were not good. In fact, I am all for current remarriages to feel 100% secure, for them to fully enjoy each other, to be excited that they are together. But they can only enjoy each other best, if there is no option for them to give up on each other. They have to stop believing their divorces were good, in order to give each other the security of love they truly need. The new spouse should get to feel that their love isn’t based on their performance or health, but based on their spouse’s belief in absolute unconditional love. Nothing they can do or not do would cause another end of a romance. Conditional love in 2nd+ marriage might be tolerable for many, but that doesn’t make it the most wonderful romance possible. The best is the best, and nothing else less than best can also be best. The Olympic Gold Medal will always be the pinnacle of physical athletic competition achievement, and nothing else will equal it. I’m not sure anyone has yet equaled or topped Mother Theresa’s charitable achievements.
I strive to be a Gold Medal wife….and that means doing my wedding vows…..at least as far as the lifelong loyalty. There should be two medals for marriage….the commitment part, and the daily interactions part. I’ll get a Gold for lifelong commitment, but I’m still working on the Gold for the moment by moment interactions part. To get that Gold Medal, that part needs to be inspirational to my husband, and our children, and others that see our marriage. It’s about as much work as preparing for the Olympics and competing. Really. I’m not kidding. Self-control, and learning and practicing new communication, homemaking, parenting, shopping, farming, & job skills, learning to be healthier and working out to look good, and new skills for reacting to stressors are all a TON of work!!! We even home educate, adding to my burdens for learning skills of several kinds. But #1 is my relationship with my husband. He was there before the kids. They need to see me be who I promised him I’d be for him. They don’t benefit from me lying about my wedding vows of commitment as well as the daily moments of interaction and unnecessary negative comments about him when he’s not around either. There are times when things need said, and most of the time not. We battle not only our emotions, “but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world….”
I truly believe that the Christian divorce epidemic is because the devil has been successful in influencing women to ignore Ephesians 5….unconditional reverence of her husband. You can reverence a horrible man, while simultaneously protecting the children and not enabling his bad behavior. It’s a tricky thing to do, most often done wrong, but learning to do reverence without enabling is crucial. Rare is this taught. Mostly what is taught is giving up and not even trying much reverence or any. The church today seems ill equipped to support wives of difficult husbands in God’s command for them to reverence their husbands without enabling verbal or physical abuse or other crime. The easy way out is to twist the Bible to allow for her to abandon the marriage. But in Matthew 5 and 19, Jesus was listing all the ways people commit adultery and ALL are guilty, not just physically cheating spouses. In Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, Jesus was talking about WHO committed adultery WHEN and HOW. They are not divorce allowance verses. Not at all. No verse stands alone. The Bible in full context does not allow for giving up on a spouse based on their physical cheating and lack of repentance. That’s not even logical as an only out of a marriage. A spouse can do a whole lot worse than sex outside of marriage to hurt a spouse. Jesus did not list wife beating as a reason for divorce, but supposedly only fornication. Come ON. Really? That would be cruel of Jesus to allow divorce for only cheating. So what do people do? They twist Matthew 19:9 to end up approving divorce for ALL reasons, like verbal abuse (which is every marriage where regular arguments occur and continued disagreements about how to spend money or where to live, or career schedules, or parenting styles……it feels like abuse to refuse to learn to agree on such things, to insist on one’s way without compromise for years on end, to refuse to permanently end temper flare ups, which is most marriages). According to Jesus, all spouses have cheated on their spouse…..he says all thoughts count. Really. Loyalty to spouse includes thoughts, and some thought cheaters do it so very obviously…very hurtful to their spouse. If they know their obvious thought only cheating is hurting their spouse, and continue anyway, that is abuse. Many spouses consider addictions as a form of adultery….putting another thing over the needs of the marriage relationship. It does feel like they are being cheated on when their spouse spends more free time with a bottle than their wife, and they’ll stop at nothing to protect their addiction, but won’t protect their romance at the same level. Ouch. Oh, those unconditional love wedding vows are so pesky. I think people really ought to say conditional love wedding vows instead, if that is their true heart belief about romance. But then again, if that is the case, there is no need for a wedding. Conditional love is the default belief system of all people ever born….you don’t need to promise conditional love. It’s automatic. But unconditional love, that is what promises are needed for, because it’s not natural. It’s more than the standard. It’s not obvious just because people are together in a romance. The couple will need to tell each other and their family and friends and society if they plan on doing something more than what is natural.
It is natural to skip payments on a house if we’d rather spend the money on something else, but the bank expects spoken and written promises to commit to the loan, so they get their money back with interest, or they won’t lend the mortgage at all. I think people ought to stop lying to people at weddings. If they don’t believe in unconditional lifelong loyalty, they ought to not get married, and just say they believe in business deal romance….earned love, and there is no security of love beyond mutual hobbies & good behavior & agreeing to their career choices, which could change any day now, and they can enjoy the relationship while it lasts, but it most likely won’t last a lifetime. Just be honest. Stop lying. If we made lifelong marriage promises, stick with it even if we were lying in the beginning. Don’t start being a liar now. Or if they decide to be a liar anyway, and divorce, and get someone new……don’t lie to the next one as if their love is unconditional. That’s not nice. Skip the wedding if you believe in divorce for a spouse’s bad behavior or major career differences.
Maybe there ought to be two types of weddings…….conditional love unions, and covenant love that will never fail. Is marriage really just a piece of paper? In some circles yes. In my circle….marriage means two adults, one born man one born woman, adopting each other as permanent family, permanently devoted to the best interests of the other, monogamous, not enabling bad behavior, but never giving up on the romance either. You CAN visit your husband in jail even after you put him there, and love on him as best as the circumstances allow. It’s better to choose a husband wisely from the start, with much wise counsel from before the first date, but there is no guarantees in life besides death & taxes. Mental illness can strike you or anyone at any time, by accident or injury or disease. Bad friends can influence a weak spouse. Death or abduction of a child can throw a spouse’s mind off and the other hurting parent can’t be enough to cheer them up. You never know. If people REALLY knew what marriage was all about, few would get married. But our world needs children, healthy children, well raised children, and marriage is the best way to repopulate the earth. If we don’t have enough children, our society could collapse, unless we import immigrants, but then again, that could bring very different values to society, like rampant dishonesty & violent theft, rape culture, wife beating culture, child marriage culture, lazy work ethic culture, sex slavery culture, drug addiction culture, etc.
So we better figure out how to stay married in the best way, or go extinct as a culture. The first step is loyalty to our spouse. The next step is minimizing conflicts, of which minimizing financial conflicts is the easy part, I have found. Minimizing parenting conflicts is much much harder. Bedroom conflicts is also difficult, but I would say that parenting conflicts are the hardest to reduce, because we as women are super concerned about our children’s safety, happiness, our relationship with them, their relationship with each other and their father, and concerned about their future happiness & safety & success too.
But I have recently figured out how to greatly reduce the parenting conflicts, and wish I had realized this much sooner. But that is for another post. This one is about lifelong commitment as best for us, for our children, for society. Conditional love has been destroying our world for so long. We must rise up against superficial love, and do what works better for our world……true friendship, like Hosea did with his nightmare wife. Most of us have it far better than Hosea did in marriage. Seriously. Most of us barely have anything to complain about in comparison. Check out this lady’s marriage difficulties and the results of her sticking by her criminal cheating addicted mentally ill terrible father husband…..
http://aboverubies.org/index.php/2013-11-12-17-55-51/english-language/marriage/262-marriage-bring-him-home
If you’d like to chat, you can reach me at WinsomeWife@aol.com
The rewards are many, and enough, keep on loving him anyway,
In Christ alone,
Amy West
Winsome Wife 