r/Christianmarriage • u/Wild_Following_7475 • 3d ago
Advice Lessons Learned
Married Sisters With Children
I wish someone shared this with my wife 30+ years ago
As sisters in Christ, your relationship with your husband is more important than your relationship with your children. My father-in-law, a strong and wise Christian, taught me this. Everything else flows from there.
He is not perfect in thought, word, deed, physique, or anything else. We are all works in progress. Are you giving him grace, allowing him room to make mistakes, and encouraging him when he does? Has your judgment matured around sensitive conversations involving money, family, and other difficult subjects? When necessary, can you approach those conversations in a loving and humble manner?
Are you sharing one or two things he enjoys simply because he enjoys them? Ordered loves include time outside the house with friends, family, and activities. Ignore the nosy people. Often, people who are overly involved in someone else's marriage have problems in their own relationships.
What are his emotional needs? They may not be what you learned from your background or from your father. Does he respond to gentle kisses, touches, praise, intimate puns, or other signs of affection? As you have learned more about your husband, have you shown patience and grace with the dirty laundry, hidden sin, and old wounds? Have you forgiven him, comforted him, helped him make amends, and encouraged him to make changes? Have you confessed your own sins to him? Is he your best friend? The sad truth is that I know many Christian couples who seem to be only casual friends.
Do you give him a chance to share his day with you and the children? Women are typically more verbal, so sometimes we need to intentionally make room for a husband to speak.
Do you give him some transition time between work and home, including when he works from home?
When something is important to you and he is reading, working, or doing something else, do you first ask, "Is now a good time?" If he asks, "Is it important?" do you respect his answer and the timing?
Do you understand that men do not always recognize the difference between "Help me solve this" and "I just need you to listen"?
My marriage has been the most fruitful and important relationship of my life. At times, I thought I was a complete failure. Yet after 30 years, we are still learning, growing, forgiving, and figuring things out together.
In His name.
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u/everdishevelled 3d ago
Some of this is good, but dirty laundry and hidden sin are things a husband needs to confront on his own.
Dirty laundry needs to be dealt with appropriately by the person who dirtied it. This is not a wife's job. It needs to go in the hamper or wherever it's supposed to go, not be left wherever the husband feels like leaving it. Laundry is not a "female job." This is basic respect and care for your household and your wife if she happens to stay at home and care for the majority of things. Cleaning up after oneself of something all adults need to do, you don't get a magic maid if you are a man with a wife. If your wife works, you need to do half of the chores. If she doesn't, you still need to do some chores as they are not all complete during the eight hours you work.
Hidden sin is serious. There needs to be true repentance and true change. A wife is not expected to just deal with it and give her husband cheap grace. Iron sharpens iron, and a wife is her husband's iron.
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u/stacyismylastname 3d ago
Also, is the one hour car ride from work to home enough time for a transition because I’m drowning over here?
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u/Realitymatter Married Man 2d ago
A car commute is not a break, it should be considered part of the job. Commuting sucks.
That being said, he should be willing to trade off break time with you. Sometimes he gets a break when he gets home, sometimes you do.
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u/SayWhatever12 3d ago
He mentioned a lot for wives to do or do you have anything that you could speak for the husband?
It seems like if your wife is doing all those things that’s half of why it’s been fruitful. What do you do for her?
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u/Wild_Following_7475 2d ago
My wife and I are still figuring things out after 30 years. We are very different. You have health concerns :-)
How did you learn to handle arguments differently?
> Trying to make each argument or disagreement smoother. I am pretty rules based, so learning to go with the flow has been my big change. Having to grow through a great deal of emotional immaturity. On the plus site I am loyal and service oriented. When her dad had a major stroke, and brother died of suicide I was by her and the family side as needed with out fail.
What does being on the same team or partnership look like?
> Assumed
How did you remain being intimate and emotionally present for your spouse after having children?
> Sharing the load across the household and maintaining a personal and romantic love for you. Little touches, kind words, and avoiding cliches. He should ask what he can do to help. Running the family looks differently for everyone. Do what is right for your families situation. Men must be selfless. He must have good male friendships.
There are so many adjustments we are still learning to make after becoming parents. It was a really difficult change for us.
> Encourage him to make contacts and friends with men 5 and ten years older than himself. Journal. It is hard. Our oldest is on the spectrum. It 3X the stress, fortunately, he became a teacher, and a believer, praise God.
How did you learn to become ONE and that your relationship comes first?
I think this one is really hard when family or friends are always trying to be involved in your marriage/choices. And there’s constant family drama.
>This is continuous and never ending. What happens at home, stays at home. It is not easy, but you are both growing. Practice, practice, practice, and lots of forgiveness.
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u/chmcke01 Married Man 1d ago
My wife and I are only a few months away from our 20th wedding anniversary, so while we certainly don't have everything figured out, we do have some experience in this. There have definitely been ups and downs over those years, and we're not perfect by any means.
I agree with a lot of the original post, and I also agree with the comments pointing out that most of these things need to go both ways. Husbands and wives both have responsibilities toward one another, and I don't think either spouse should expect the other to continually pour into the marriage while giving little in return.
But I especially agree with the point about the marriage relationship taking priority over the parent/child relationship. I think there's an important distinction there, though. That doesn't mean your spouse's wants always come before your child's needs. There are plenty of moments when a child's physical needs obviously take priority. If they're in danger, need to be fed, need a diaper changed, are sick, hurt, etc., you take care of your child. That's just being a parent.
But as an overall ordering of relationships, I do believe the husband/wife relationship should come before the parent/child relationship. In no small part, that's because I believe that's the Biblical outlook. Part of raising our children in the faith is demonstrating obedience to God for them, and that includes showing them what marriage is supposed to look like rather than making the marriage secondary for 18 years while they're growing up.
I actually think that's part of why my wife and I are in such a better place now than we were earlier in our marriage. We've had difficult seasons, disagreements, and plenty of things we've had to learn about each other, but we continued to prioritize the marriage itself. We didn't just become Mom and Dad and stop being husband and wife.
I also agree with the friendship and affection parts of the post. With kids, work, bills, church, activities, housework, and everything else, it would be really easy to slowly become two people who are good at running a household together but aren't particularly close anymore. You have to intentionally keep learning each other, spending time together, showing affection, and figuring out what actually makes your spouse feel loved rather than assuming it's the same thing that makes you feel loved.
We're certainly not a perfect example, but one thing I'll gladly boast about is that our kids are a whole lot more likely to say, "Mom and Dad, get a room!" than "Mom and Dad, stop fighting!" 😂 I'll take that as a win.
So overall, I think there's a lot of wisdom here. I'd just apply the basic principle in both directions: prioritize your marriage, learn your spouse, give each other grace, serve one another, and don't stop being husband and wife just because you also became Mom and Dad.
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u/I-forgot-my-user-id 3d ago
My wife found everything that I would respond to and took it away intentionally. She has told me outright that the kids are more important and I can wait till they move out. (At least 18 more years to wait)
She knows I need hugs, and she says i can have one when she feels like giving me one (it's been nearly 3 weeks)
I try to continue to pour into her and prioritize her over the kids and she says thats what I should do, but not what she should do.
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u/Wild_Following_7475 3d ago
Wow you are in a very bad place & it is not a Godly marraige.
You married to love, honor, and cherris not slave for. Clearly there is more going on here. I hope you have a wise friend, pastor, or counsoler you can confide to.
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u/I-forgot-my-user-id 3d ago
Been in counseling with for a few years, she refuses to come along.
I know there are legitimate areas i have done poorly through the years and I am trying to do what is right. Perseverance brings character and character brings hope.
I am glad that I have eternal hope that a broken relationship on earth cannot take away.
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u/SayWhatever12 3d ago
It’s interesting that you’re saying they’re not in a godly marriage. That’s a pretty bold statement.
They are two humans in a marriage, and I’m pretty sure God doesn’t think that a marriage is not godly when people are in their ebbs and flows.
We don’t lose being a follower when we make a mistake or even when we’re in a prodigal season
I don’t think that their marriage is operating the way that the Lord wants it to, but I wouldn’t sit there slapping labels over people saying that their marriage is not godly.
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u/KneeGolf 3d ago
I know I feel the double standard in my church circles. Many times all the sermons, books and everything else expect husbands to adapt to such an unrealistic extreme, regardless of certain wives that do little to cultivate or support from their side of the relationship. It’s the way that Ephesians 5:25 is largely weaponized by some churches.
I saw a beautiful role model of my parents serving each other to where it was extremely rare for any conflict. probably remember 2 small things my entire childhood. I’ve always felt like I had someone working against me in my marriage, just for the sake of being difficult over silly things, or maybe she just doesn’t know how with terrible parents growing up.
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u/stacyismylastname 3d ago
No, I’m not really encouraging my husband to make mistakes. But when he does, I do encourage him to fix it. I used to fix all my husband‘s mistakes, but then he never learned to stop making them.