My Pains in Marriage

So we continue in our review of some true life stories, and I pray that we are learning valuable lessons from them to the glory of God.

Issue

I am not the first wife married to my husband. I met and married him as a widower taking care of three children all by himself. We began a relationship and I loved this man and cared for his children like my own. After a couple of months into the relationship I discovered that I was pregnant and we got engaged. The pregnancy fast-tracked our relationship and we got married. I have endured a lot in my marriage to this man but the big issue is that I don’t feel loved by him, neither does he show any respect for my person as his wife. It’s quite frustrating when you are invisible to the man to whom you should matter the most.

Another issue of contention between us is that I have only two children of my own for him and I want more children. Every attempt to talk him into us having more children falls on deaf hears. He just doesn’t want to hear any talk about more children and believe me I want more than two children in my life. I can tell you for free that its just a thin line holding this marriage together. This is not what I bargained for in marriage.

Response

I am yet to see someone who says she got it all together in marriage without a single hitch. There are a lot to endure, a lot to learn, a lot to give and a lot to sacrifice to get to the point of rest in marriage. The first question I would love to ask is: what have you invested in that marriage so far, and what are you praying to God for in your marriage? There are a lot of times that what we are praying for will only happen when we re-engineer our actions and do what we should do, the way we should do them.  

The simple tricks to earning the respect of your husband are as follows:

1)      Reduce your dependence on him. Read Proverbs 31:10-31 and learn the values of a wife of noble character and you will learn about how industrious an entrepreneur a wife of noble character is. Then she is full of wisdom and kindness and on accord of her, her husband is respected at the city gate. When you reduce your dependence on your husband, he stops to see you as a burden or liability and he'll appreciate your contributions to his life more. 

2)      The second secret to earning your husband’s respect is to submit to him. The word of God says wives should submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. If everything else fails, the word of God never fails. When you prayerfully submit to your husband, you obey God's word for your life and obeying God's word results in God taking everything that concerns you more seriously.

3)      Refuse to be a nagging wife. When things are not going the way you want them to go in your marriage, pray about it well rather than take laws into your own hands or fight your own battles. Whatever you commit into the hands of God you should know that He is faithful to handle it perfectly in the perfect timing. Also it is the Lord who holds the heart of your husband in His hands, and He can direct it as He pleases (Proverb 26:1). He has the ability to direct your husband's heart to favor you when your ways are pleasing to Him. Always understand that you cannot make your husband do anything outside his will; any attempt to force anything on your husband will be met with a resistance which mostly results in fights

4)  Don’t let emotions blur your sense of reasoning in marriage. You need to be wise, understanding and objective. Your way might not be the ideal or best way so be ready to listen and do things the way your husband wants it done when the pendulum doesn’t swing in your direction.

5)   And lastly, show respect to your husband. Whatever you want from him, give him that. Respect in life is earned and not forced, so you can’t compel your husband to respect you when you have not first respected him.

And on the issue of having more children, I choose to reason with your husband and my reason is this: You have two children, but your husband has five children; three from his late wife and two from you. So while you see two children, he sees five. And in this economy that we are all trying to survive in, having to financially support five children where he has to feed them, shelter them, cloth them and pay for their education and give them all round best that a father can give, you will agree that five is more than enough.

You have embraced the three children your husband had before you married him as your own, so continue to embrace and love them as your own. See yourself also as a mother of five and not just two because it’s not just the biological mother that can mother children. A care giver whose has loved and cared for children as her own is also a mother to those children in her own capacity. So the work you have done in the lives of your stepchildren and the quality seed you have sown in their lives qualifies you as a mother to them and that settles it.

So I pray that the Lord will honor you and bless your home in Jesus Mighty name.