What to do if the manly intentionality that has won women in the dating stage has dwindled in marriage?
Wives of various ages complain about their husbands' lack of passion for anything except the TV screen and the couch. These women long to know how they can get their husbands to do something other than stare at the TV, laptop, or phone and initiate something other than sex. These women long for the men they've fallen in love with to plan dates, start conversations, play with the kids, stand up for themselves at work and for their wives against the in-laws, or at least rise up in making daily decisions.
Their complaints are nothing new, of course.
Remember that story in Genesis? The serpent hissed and lied to Adam, and instead of fighting, he "stood silently by," allowing and watching his wife to take a bite and then following exactly what she did, despite knowing it was wrong.
"Paradise was lost when the first man took the easy path of appeasement in his marriage. And we see Adam's passivity echoed in countless marriages today. The temptation to be emotionally and spiritually absent, when physically present, has merely changed hairstyles over time. The same unmanly repose still beckons men to recline in the passenger's seat," Greg Morse, a staff writer of Desiring.Org, proclaimed.
He further stated that God is calling out to husbands today with the same question he shouted in the garden of Eden, "Adam, where are you?"
Happy Wife, Happy Life
Could it be that men and young husbands are given and embracing misleading advice?
Morse is sharing some of the "mantras" given to him as a newly married man that has hurt, instead of helping, his "enlistment" into the Christlike active duty of husbandry, and they even came from well-meaning brothers from church.
1. Happy Wife, Happy Life.
Disclaimer: It does not mean that it is wrong for a husband to make his wife happy. A husband should lavish his wife with love to make her happy.
However, the misconception of this phrase lies in the temptation that no conflict would mean no unhappy wife, so just say yes. When a wife gets her way, a man's life becomes less miserable.
This could be so true - a life less miserable and much more comfortable. But is this the healthy way to be for marriage when a man's purpose isn't fulfilled?
A husband is created by God to become a leader - to lead his wife and his family, to initiate and bear responsibility, and to protect his marriage and family. A "happy wife, easier life" does not lead to happiness but ultimately to a marriage full of regret, bitterness, and selfishness.
The beauty of dance is found in the man leading with loving assertion, thoughtfulness, grace, and selflessness, and the woman assertively, lovingly, following without fear, with great willingness and confidence, and with deep joy and trust. The dance becomes improper when the husband attempts to follow just for the sake of it.
2. Your spouse is your best friend.
First things first, husband and wife is not a friendship. Marriage is so much more than friendship. Thus, the wife is not merely a best friend but one's "suitable partner," "helpmate," "ideal partner," and one's "appropriate match" - created "according to the opposite of him."
A wife must be treated so much more special than a husband's best friend. She must be treated as a reward that will lead a man to glorify God all the more.
3. Be a servant leader.
This is great advice when both words are intentionally and consistently kept together.
However, sometimes the word "leader" is set aside and merely becomes only servant. Once again, turning to the path of a "Happy Wife, Happy Life."
When a husband sacrifices one's convictions for any and all of his wife's ambitions, that becomes blind servanthood.
Again, a husband should not step down to a kind of service that diminishes his call and responsibility as a husband.
Sacrificial leadership instead of servant leadership because the former is a leadership that does not apologize for its authority but calls to inconvenience the self first for the good of his wife and family.
4. Marriage is 50/50.
Marriage is not 50/50 because marriage is not about keeping score. Manhood isn't about "scratch my back first before I scratch yours."
A husband does not limit his patience, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, and goodness until the wife can match his. A husband's love doesn't "bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things," only half of the time because the wife should do the other half. A husband doesn't wait for his wife to reciprocate before he initiates.
Marriage is always described as how Jesus loves his bride - the sinners. Jesus did not wait for his bride to meet him halfway. He didn't ask his bride to take half of the scourging and the cross. He sacrificed it all to save his bride. He gave all his life for hers. He loved her fully even when she wasn't "holding up her end of things."
There is nothing 50/50 about that.
