Loving Him Well

If you suspect that’s what’s happening in your marriage, I urge you to check out Leslie Vernick’s The Emotionally Destructive Marriage for specific suggestions, and you’ll also find help in Chip Ingram’s Overcoming Emotions That Destroy.8

One husband told Shaunti Feldhahn, author of For Women Only

the midst of all this you can convince your husband that you’re on his side, committed to his welfare and well-being, then you’ll likely discover an intimacy and a loyalty that know no bounds. How you help your husband depends on your family’s situation, but the call to help your husband never goes away.

Whatever choices you and your husband make, I pray that your decisions will draw the two of you together. Working two jobs to provide a home and food for your children can become a cooperative effort when you support each other, show interest in each other, and make those occasional sacrifices that show you care.

the same way, you should expect God to call you from time to time to make some vocational sacrifices so you can help your husband

If you do that just once or twice a year, by the end of your third decade of marriage, you’ll have laid down a lifetime of practical care, removing maybe fifty or sixty things that have frustrated him. In the process, you will have built up an enormous amount of gratitude and corresponding intimacy.
If you want to truly influence your husband, I urge you to begin by praying this prayer: Lord, how can I help my husband today?

Wives, you can’t make your husbands serve you or care for you, but you can focus on helping them, and that action alone may prompt them to serve and to care. Even if it doesn’t, it will, in the words of one wife (whom you’ll read about later), unleash a great spiritual adventure in your own life.

He’s more likely to be moved by a wife who respects him and then helps him get where he wants to go.

Laura stopped nagging her husband, cut out the complaints and criticisms, and then started letting him lead in important decisions. She did what she could to help him, and she even—this really raised a controversy—started having sex whenever he wanted it. Treated this way, Laura’s man suddenly became a “fabulous” husband.

Lest you think I’m being unfair, please know that when I speak to men, I tell them we should entertain these daily thoughts: “How can I care for my wife today? How can I serve her? How can I lay down my life on her behalf, as Christ laid down his life for me?”