Today we are covering chapters 9 (The Pushy Parent) and 10 (The Invasive In-Laws) as a combined lesson. I am planning to talk a little less than usual; and stop cheering in the peanut gallery! I want us to share a little more intimately about growing up in our family of origin, particularly focusing on our relationship with our parents, grandparents and stepparents. Later on we can look at and compare this with our interactions with our in-laws.
First though let us look at the definitive verse on dealing with our parents, which to me also includes grandparents and any stepparents we may have had. Can you guess what it is? Let’s all pick up our Bibles and head into Exodus 20, verse 12:
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. NASU
This verse is repeated by Moses in Dt 5:16 when he starts giving the Israelites the whole law, and Moses offers us a slightly expanded version.
Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you. NASU
Before I comment, I want to open it up for people’s views on what this means to them.
This verse has some unique characteristics.
· It is the fifth commandment, but the first with a personal promise. (Which is?) That your life will be prolonged, and that things will go well with you.
· It is the commandment God selected to come right after the first four, which deal with our relationship with Him. (What does that mean?) I think it signifies that is only just behind the first four in importance.
· It is the only “human relationship” commandment.
· God is specifically implying something here; the version in Dt will help the most. (Which is?) That honoring your parents is honoring God. (Why might that be true?)
· It also deals with other relationships, although they are not spelled out, what are they? The in-laws and grandparents of course, but also the judges, kings, prophets and teachers, these people were often called “father” in the Hebrew culture.
Another quick observation here from my second point about the fifth commandment being right behind the first four. Traditionally we are taught that the commandments are broken down into the four/six arrangement. I want us all to consider that God had something else in mind. Do you remember the scene in the original “Tem Commandments” where the stone tablets were etched by the fire of God? It is done as a five/five arrangement! This is what I think God intended for the Israelites, and now us, to understand. The first four mention His name, and are clearly about the God/Man relationship. The fifth does not mention His name, but it is implied that since He is our heavenly father, He regards this commandment as also being part of the God/Man relationship. The fifth commandment is a very unique instruction.
Now it is time to go back to when we were children. What happened to you in your home, that you are willing to talk about? Some example questions:
· Did your parents fight, and did you get included?
· Were you the family “clown”?
· Did your parents do drugs or alcohol, and how did that affect you?
· Were your Mom or Dad angry people?
· Did a big fat pink elephant reside in your living room, but nobody talked about it?
· Did you always have to comply?
· Did you have to constantly please others in the house?
As we talk about what happened in our lives, think about what kind of “automatic” behaviors you exhibit. Are you:
· Frequently depressed?
· Negative, when presented with something new or different?
· Avoiding change?
· Constantly “up”, but internally tired?
· The life and soul of every meeting?
· Always helping others, even to the point that your family is ignored?
(Spend some time on this, as much as the class wants)
Now we are going to go where the rubber meets the road. How are you as a parent?
· What would your spouse say?
· What would your kids say?
· What would your parents say?
· What would your close friends say?
Here are some interesting statements from others.
· Honey, don’t you think you are being a little too demanding of Johnny?
· Don’t you think you should let them play a little before homework?
· Son, when I was parenting, I would never let you do that!
· Sweetie, aren’t my granddaughter’s clothes too revealing?
· Mom, I can go forty here, you do.
· Dad, don’t tell me to quit smoking weed, I’ve seen you do it.
What are some things that came up as I read these statements? (Allow some time here)
The author does a terrific job here of helping how to deal with “pushy parents” and “invasive I-laws”. I am going to highlight some points, and we can discuss them briefly.
1. Put your self in their place. East to say, hard to do well. We have to make every attempt to understand where they are coming from. This is longer term activity because we need to be in an empathetic place as we consider our parents and in-laws life experiences. We ought to listen, with real interest, to their stories. So much can be found out this way. When we start to understand what they have been through, their behavior toward us will make more sense.
2. Find the good. Look for things that are positive, focus on them, talk about them. I’m not saying forget about the negative, but don’t dwell on it until it becomes impossible to handle with grace.
3. Be Forgiving. Carry around an attitude of forgiveness. It will help you deal with the rough times.
4. Set Boundaries. This is a big thing. If you haven’t read the book “Boundaries”, buy it and take it to heart. Saying “no” to a parent or in-law is something you must be able to do. If you don’t, then they control your life!
5. Know Your Part. In a parent/child relationship when the parent is “doing their thing”, you have a part in it somewhere. For example, if the parent tells you how to do something, and you believe it to be wrong, what do you do? Do you go along with the bad decision to keep the peace? If you do, you are a “doormat person” and you have successfully laid down your own ability to choose, and let the parent walk all over it.
I’m going to close here with one last thought. You decide when you go on vacation, not your parents or your in-laws! Do not ever let them try to tell you any different, it is your life and you are in charge of it and responsible for your own choices. (For any reader of these notes, this is an example of a dilemma many of can face, how to honor parents and maintain our own boundaries and family integrity)
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The Supervising Spouse
Good morning and welcome to the fourth lesson in our “control freak series”, and this one may be the “gem” in the series. I don’t know how I got the short straw, but I’m here this morning to talk about, “Control Freak Spouses”, and as you can see, my lovely wife is right here next to me. This should be interesting!
I’m going to start our time with the little test laid out on page 89 of our book, it should only take a couple of minutes. (Test time) Did anybody experience an odd or difficult thought, or maybe some hesitation or discomfort over answering these questions? Would somebody like to share his or her favorite question, or maybe his or her favorite answer? I don’t think there is any need to go over the results of this test, in my opinion it is only designed to make us think about this issue.
Is everybody familiar with the expression, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”? What does this imply? What does this say about a household where this is the rule? BTW, this can equally apply to Dada!
· Mama controls the home.
· Every other person’s needs are subservient to Mama.
· Mama believes all is well, meaning that everybody is content.
· Every other person in the home is miserable.
· Secret rebellion exists; things are kept from Mama.
· As far as is possible, everybody avoids Mama.
What is always going to be true about a marriage where either Mama or Dada is the controller? (There can be many answers to this, they will always be some form of “it is dysfunctional and it is less than it could be”) Today we are going to explore what causes Mama or Dada to try to control the home.
Let us start with some Scripture. Gen 24:66-67:
Gen 24:66-67 - The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. NASU
You may be thinking, what has this got to do with “controlling spouses”? That is a good question. This is my answer; it is all about the attitude of a spouse after the marriage contract has been established. Let us dissect these verses:
First – This is an arranged marriage. In verse 66 the servant comes back from his “wife scouting trip” with the ideal candidate, Rebekah. He goes and tells Isaac all about it. Did you ever have the understanding that most marriages are arranged? (Ask the class “what does this mean”) Your marriage is either arranged by your family or it is self-arranged. I know that this may be a revelation to some, but it is still the truth. Do any of us know of a God arranged marriage? Remember that God gives us free will to choose; he might tell us that we ought to marry, or not, a certain person, but he still gives us the freedom to choose.
Second – Isaac married Rebekah, and then he loved her. This is the big one! Did you get this? It is marriage first, followed by the decision to love. The Hebrew word “ahab” used here is the same word that is found in Dt 6:5 (You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might) Loving your spouse is an act of your will, not a thought or a feeling! It is a conscious decision to love, which comes as a result of the decision to marry. Looking at marriage this way can change your whole approach to how you conduct yourself inside a marriage. To me the issue is, “What does it mean to love”? That is where we will start to look at the control freak inside a marriage.
I need to get a little off the control freak subject here to lay out the groundwork for how damaging controlling spouses can be. Let us look at Eph 5:25-33:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. NASU
Chapter 4, 5 and 6 of the book of Ephesians deals with living a victorious Christian life, and this part we have just heard is the section that deals with marriage. As you heard, most of it deals with God’s instruction to the man. I have often reflected that God knew how bone-headed us men can be about some things, and being the “man of the house” is one of them. The bottom line is this; God gives us the following simple instructions:
· The man is to “love” his wife.
· The woman is to “respect” her husband.
Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever heard why it is such a simple instruction, and yet so hard to do?
In his book “The Marriage Builder” Dr. Larry Crabb identifies two basic needs (aside from the simple physical needs like air, water and food) that every person is created with. God plants these into our soul; and ultimately they direct us back to Him. However He recognizes that they can also be met inside a marriage to a reasonable extent. (Ask if anybody already knows what these are) They are Security and Significance. Both men and women have these needs but they each have different priorities.
· The man’s greatest need is to feel significant, with a lesser need to be secure.
· The woman’s greatest need is to feel secure, with a lesser need to feel significant.
How does this tie into our Scripture? Like I said earlier, it is simple. To feel totally secure any person would need unending unconditional love. This is why the man is told to “love” his wife, even if she is unlovable! The woman is told to respect, meaning “to hold in high esteem”, her husband, which will allow him to feel important, even if he does not seem to deserve respect!
This is where the “Supervising Spouse” control freak can be born. Let me say right here that there are so many variables that go into a marital relationship that it is extraordinarily difficult to provide a general picture of what happens to bring out the control freak in us. Such things as the social culture we live in, how we were raised, what we learned in school and our personal character influence how we conduct ourselves in a marriage. In the next few minutes I am going to outline what, in my opinion, seems to go wrong.
Let us start with the guys. Think about the things little boys do and say to one another, let me give you some examples:
· Doing – They seem to always want to win at games.
· Doing – They don’t like to be picked last for a team.
· Doing – Fighting is “natural”; they want to be on top.
· Saying – My lizard is bigger than yours.
· Saying – My Dad can beat up your Dad.
· Saying – My bike is better then yours, it has got two bells.
You get the idea; the boy seems to always want to be the winner, number one or the most important. This is where we very obviously see the need for significance asserting itself in the life of this young male. This is then reinforced by the implied understanding that the one who wins is to be looked up to, or the kid with the best bike takes the lead. Then all the kids who were not number one now have a challenge to try to take over that slot. You can see it in the way they try to position themselves to win the next time. They may try harder, they may practice to get better, they may lie cheat and steal, and they may try to persuade, coerce or manipulate to get ahead of the other guy. The controlling habits have begun!
Now let us fast-forward to the day they are grown and married. They have been honing their controlling techniques for years. They have become much better at it; they are maybe master manipulators, or physical persuaders or perhaps cunning coercers. They have matured in their methods, become more sophisticated, but it is still the same need. The need to feel important.
Let us now introduce the unsuspecting wife. She marries this lovely guy, he has great prospects, is charming and very attentive, but he has this huge need! He wants to be fawned over, he wants to feel important, and this woman he married has given him lots of kudos during the dating and early years of marriage. Then life catches up, it could the household chores, some kids, the jobs, almost anything. The kudos levels go down, he unconsciously trips back into behaviors he used to use and that succeeded in the past. He puts himself into positions where his wife is in a position to praise him, and if this doesn’t work, he may ask her outright or start to demand some adulation. Can you see how it happens so easily?
This is a good time to go back to our scripture in Ephesians 5:33, where God instructs women to respect their husbands. The Greek word here is “phobos”, from which we get the term phobia, meaning “a fear of”. The use of this word here is as it is used elsewhere in the NT when talking about fearing God, it is a reverential fear. Just as we are to place God in a high place in our lives, the wife is instructed to place the husband in a high place in the marriage. This is not for the purpose of valuing the man above the woman; it is for making sure that the man’s need for significance is met. I think this is another example of God knowing what we need and trying to help us meet the need in an everyday practical way.
Here is a tough question. What do you think happens when the husband’s need to feel important goes unmet? There are several good answers:
· More controlling behavior.
· Less intimacy between the husband and wife.
· He starts looking elsewhere.
· Possibly even an affair.
The thing we have to remember is this, the husband will find a way to get his need met.
Now we can move to the wife. What do little girls do and say?
· Doing – They play with dolls.
· Doing – They like to curl up on their parents lap.
· Doing – They engage in co-operative play, sharing.
· Saying – They like to talk with each other.
· Saying – I like to read stories with you mommy.
· Saying – I like you to play horsy with me daddy.
Do you get a sense that even at this young age the girl is connecting, relating, and achieving some level of intimacy with everybody around her? She is seeking to meet the love and security need that God wired her with. Then as they grow, these girls still like to talk and connect with everybody around them. They still like for dad to hug them, and for mom to be part of the growing up process, and for their friends to listen to their problems. They might even become part of a clique to get a deeper sense of belonging.
Let us fast-forward to the marriage. They married the great guy, you know, the charming one! They talked all the time when dating, she was in awe of him, a guy who actually listens! They get married, and then life happens. They start to have less connecting time; she feels a little panicked inside, feels a little unloved. So she quietly changes things so he has to talk to her, and give her hugs, slowly but surely drifting into mild manipulation. Then he starts to resent it, and makes his own changes to avoid this forced behavior. She feels even worse and does even more to get the love and security she desires. I’m sure we can all see this spiral down in the level of intimacy between husband and wife.
Alright, let us go back to our verses again. The husband is instructed by God to “love” his wife in verse 33, but we also must remember that in verses 25-32 God expands on it for the man. Us men are to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Which means that we must bear anything for our wives, even death. That is what I call a tough instruction. The Greek word here is “agapoa” which means, “Let love”, it is the same word found in the commandment to “Love the Lord your God”. It is the will-based love that Jesus showed us when he allowed himself to be killed for us. We have to willfully and totally love our wives. That is the standard!
OK, tough question time. What can happen if our wives need for secure love goes unmet in the marriage?
· She won’t want to hold you in high regard.
· Less intimacy, emotional and physical.
· She goes elsewhere for intimacy.
· Possibly has an affair.
Husbands, your wife will find a way to get her security needs met.
I want to take us back to a question I asked earlier. In the context of a marriage, “What does it mean to love?” We had just looked at the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, where Isaac had married her, and then loved her. How would you answer the question now?
For me it is this; we all ought to heed God’s word. The man must do his honest best to “love” his wife. The wife must do her honest best to “revere” her husband. Tough talk, tough to do, tough to keep up, but God says that it is the way He designed things. Who are we to tell Him He is wrong, or say you haven’t met my spouse, he is a jerk or she is a whiner. God made your spouse too, He knows what will work.
I want to conclude today by tying this lesson into what the book talks about. We have seen how not getting our basic needs met can cause us to slip into some form of controlling behavior. Our author talks about this on pages 91 and 92 of the book. He explains it in terms of us developing a level of anxiety about not getting our needs met and so slipping into a controlling mode. This is followed by even more dysfunctional behavior, deeper anxiety and higher levels of controlling activity.
Our book does a terrific job in how it lays out things to do that will help to cope with controlling spouses, which is why I chose not to cover this today.
Next week, it is parents and in-laws!
I’m going to start our time with the little test laid out on page 89 of our book, it should only take a couple of minutes. (Test time) Did anybody experience an odd or difficult thought, or maybe some hesitation or discomfort over answering these questions? Would somebody like to share his or her favorite question, or maybe his or her favorite answer? I don’t think there is any need to go over the results of this test, in my opinion it is only designed to make us think about this issue.
Is everybody familiar with the expression, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”? What does this imply? What does this say about a household where this is the rule? BTW, this can equally apply to Dada!
· Mama controls the home.
· Every other person’s needs are subservient to Mama.
· Mama believes all is well, meaning that everybody is content.
· Every other person in the home is miserable.
· Secret rebellion exists; things are kept from Mama.
· As far as is possible, everybody avoids Mama.
What is always going to be true about a marriage where either Mama or Dada is the controller? (There can be many answers to this, they will always be some form of “it is dysfunctional and it is less than it could be”) Today we are going to explore what causes Mama or Dada to try to control the home.
Let us start with some Scripture. Gen 24:66-67:
Gen 24:66-67 - The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. NASU
You may be thinking, what has this got to do with “controlling spouses”? That is a good question. This is my answer; it is all about the attitude of a spouse after the marriage contract has been established. Let us dissect these verses:
First – This is an arranged marriage. In verse 66 the servant comes back from his “wife scouting trip” with the ideal candidate, Rebekah. He goes and tells Isaac all about it. Did you ever have the understanding that most marriages are arranged? (Ask the class “what does this mean”) Your marriage is either arranged by your family or it is self-arranged. I know that this may be a revelation to some, but it is still the truth. Do any of us know of a God arranged marriage? Remember that God gives us free will to choose; he might tell us that we ought to marry, or not, a certain person, but he still gives us the freedom to choose.
Second – Isaac married Rebekah, and then he loved her. This is the big one! Did you get this? It is marriage first, followed by the decision to love. The Hebrew word “ahab” used here is the same word that is found in Dt 6:5 (You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might) Loving your spouse is an act of your will, not a thought or a feeling! It is a conscious decision to love, which comes as a result of the decision to marry. Looking at marriage this way can change your whole approach to how you conduct yourself inside a marriage. To me the issue is, “What does it mean to love”? That is where we will start to look at the control freak inside a marriage.
I need to get a little off the control freak subject here to lay out the groundwork for how damaging controlling spouses can be. Let us look at Eph 5:25-33:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. NASU
Chapter 4, 5 and 6 of the book of Ephesians deals with living a victorious Christian life, and this part we have just heard is the section that deals with marriage. As you heard, most of it deals with God’s instruction to the man. I have often reflected that God knew how bone-headed us men can be about some things, and being the “man of the house” is one of them. The bottom line is this; God gives us the following simple instructions:
· The man is to “love” his wife.
· The woman is to “respect” her husband.
Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever heard why it is such a simple instruction, and yet so hard to do?
In his book “The Marriage Builder” Dr. Larry Crabb identifies two basic needs (aside from the simple physical needs like air, water and food) that every person is created with. God plants these into our soul; and ultimately they direct us back to Him. However He recognizes that they can also be met inside a marriage to a reasonable extent. (Ask if anybody already knows what these are) They are Security and Significance. Both men and women have these needs but they each have different priorities.
· The man’s greatest need is to feel significant, with a lesser need to be secure.
· The woman’s greatest need is to feel secure, with a lesser need to feel significant.
How does this tie into our Scripture? Like I said earlier, it is simple. To feel totally secure any person would need unending unconditional love. This is why the man is told to “love” his wife, even if she is unlovable! The woman is told to respect, meaning “to hold in high esteem”, her husband, which will allow him to feel important, even if he does not seem to deserve respect!
This is where the “Supervising Spouse” control freak can be born. Let me say right here that there are so many variables that go into a marital relationship that it is extraordinarily difficult to provide a general picture of what happens to bring out the control freak in us. Such things as the social culture we live in, how we were raised, what we learned in school and our personal character influence how we conduct ourselves in a marriage. In the next few minutes I am going to outline what, in my opinion, seems to go wrong.
Let us start with the guys. Think about the things little boys do and say to one another, let me give you some examples:
· Doing – They seem to always want to win at games.
· Doing – They don’t like to be picked last for a team.
· Doing – Fighting is “natural”; they want to be on top.
· Saying – My lizard is bigger than yours.
· Saying – My Dad can beat up your Dad.
· Saying – My bike is better then yours, it has got two bells.
You get the idea; the boy seems to always want to be the winner, number one or the most important. This is where we very obviously see the need for significance asserting itself in the life of this young male. This is then reinforced by the implied understanding that the one who wins is to be looked up to, or the kid with the best bike takes the lead. Then all the kids who were not number one now have a challenge to try to take over that slot. You can see it in the way they try to position themselves to win the next time. They may try harder, they may practice to get better, they may lie cheat and steal, and they may try to persuade, coerce or manipulate to get ahead of the other guy. The controlling habits have begun!
Now let us fast-forward to the day they are grown and married. They have been honing their controlling techniques for years. They have become much better at it; they are maybe master manipulators, or physical persuaders or perhaps cunning coercers. They have matured in their methods, become more sophisticated, but it is still the same need. The need to feel important.
Let us now introduce the unsuspecting wife. She marries this lovely guy, he has great prospects, is charming and very attentive, but he has this huge need! He wants to be fawned over, he wants to feel important, and this woman he married has given him lots of kudos during the dating and early years of marriage. Then life catches up, it could the household chores, some kids, the jobs, almost anything. The kudos levels go down, he unconsciously trips back into behaviors he used to use and that succeeded in the past. He puts himself into positions where his wife is in a position to praise him, and if this doesn’t work, he may ask her outright or start to demand some adulation. Can you see how it happens so easily?
This is a good time to go back to our scripture in Ephesians 5:33, where God instructs women to respect their husbands. The Greek word here is “phobos”, from which we get the term phobia, meaning “a fear of”. The use of this word here is as it is used elsewhere in the NT when talking about fearing God, it is a reverential fear. Just as we are to place God in a high place in our lives, the wife is instructed to place the husband in a high place in the marriage. This is not for the purpose of valuing the man above the woman; it is for making sure that the man’s need for significance is met. I think this is another example of God knowing what we need and trying to help us meet the need in an everyday practical way.
Here is a tough question. What do you think happens when the husband’s need to feel important goes unmet? There are several good answers:
· More controlling behavior.
· Less intimacy between the husband and wife.
· He starts looking elsewhere.
· Possibly even an affair.
The thing we have to remember is this, the husband will find a way to get his need met.
Now we can move to the wife. What do little girls do and say?
· Doing – They play with dolls.
· Doing – They like to curl up on their parents lap.
· Doing – They engage in co-operative play, sharing.
· Saying – They like to talk with each other.
· Saying – I like to read stories with you mommy.
· Saying – I like you to play horsy with me daddy.
Do you get a sense that even at this young age the girl is connecting, relating, and achieving some level of intimacy with everybody around her? She is seeking to meet the love and security need that God wired her with. Then as they grow, these girls still like to talk and connect with everybody around them. They still like for dad to hug them, and for mom to be part of the growing up process, and for their friends to listen to their problems. They might even become part of a clique to get a deeper sense of belonging.
Let us fast-forward to the marriage. They married the great guy, you know, the charming one! They talked all the time when dating, she was in awe of him, a guy who actually listens! They get married, and then life happens. They start to have less connecting time; she feels a little panicked inside, feels a little unloved. So she quietly changes things so he has to talk to her, and give her hugs, slowly but surely drifting into mild manipulation. Then he starts to resent it, and makes his own changes to avoid this forced behavior. She feels even worse and does even more to get the love and security she desires. I’m sure we can all see this spiral down in the level of intimacy between husband and wife.
Alright, let us go back to our verses again. The husband is instructed by God to “love” his wife in verse 33, but we also must remember that in verses 25-32 God expands on it for the man. Us men are to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Which means that we must bear anything for our wives, even death. That is what I call a tough instruction. The Greek word here is “agapoa” which means, “Let love”, it is the same word found in the commandment to “Love the Lord your God”. It is the will-based love that Jesus showed us when he allowed himself to be killed for us. We have to willfully and totally love our wives. That is the standard!
OK, tough question time. What can happen if our wives need for secure love goes unmet in the marriage?
· She won’t want to hold you in high regard.
· Less intimacy, emotional and physical.
· She goes elsewhere for intimacy.
· Possibly has an affair.
Husbands, your wife will find a way to get her security needs met.
I want to take us back to a question I asked earlier. In the context of a marriage, “What does it mean to love?” We had just looked at the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, where Isaac had married her, and then loved her. How would you answer the question now?
For me it is this; we all ought to heed God’s word. The man must do his honest best to “love” his wife. The wife must do her honest best to “revere” her husband. Tough talk, tough to do, tough to keep up, but God says that it is the way He designed things. Who are we to tell Him He is wrong, or say you haven’t met my spouse, he is a jerk or she is a whiner. God made your spouse too, He knows what will work.
I want to conclude today by tying this lesson into what the book talks about. We have seen how not getting our basic needs met can cause us to slip into some form of controlling behavior. Our author talks about this on pages 91 and 92 of the book. He explains it in terms of us developing a level of anxiety about not getting our needs met and so slipping into a controlling mode. This is followed by even more dysfunctional behavior, deeper anxiety and higher levels of controlling activity.
Our book does a terrific job in how it lays out things to do that will help to cope with controlling spouses, which is why I chose not to cover this today.
Next week, it is parents and in-laws!
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