I Cheated on my Wife and She is the Cause

I am thanking God for another month ending on a praise note. With the gift of live comes also the gift of hope. So as long as we are still breathing God is not finished with us yet.

So tonight I will share another story and a very interesting one too. I pray that this story does not just bless us with information, but with lessons that will help us be better spouses in our marriage to the glory of God.

The Story

A wonderful young wife discovered after several years of waiting on God for the fruit of the womb that she cannot conceive due to some medical issues that has affected her womb. This devastated her a great deal but for whatever reason she chose not to share this with her husband of several years. Rather than open up to her husband, she concealed the information and recoiled to herself and became a zombie wife literarily. She would not communicate with her husband and always had several reasons and excuses to avoid sex with him. Though she became close to God, yet estranged from her husband. 

The husband on his part noticed the drastic change in his wife and several entreaties to make her open up on what was wrong with her fell on deaf ears. Soon they became two complete strangers living under the same roof with absolutely no attachment between them. And months after, the husband stopped eating at home and the wife just didn’t mind, yet she will cook his food and the husband will not eat and she won’t even persuade him to.

With days running into months and no light seem to be at the end of the tunnel of their marriage, the husband began an extra marital affair. Though he loved his wife very much and would want to know what was eating her up, yet he needed a companion; he needed to be loved too. So there was this lady offering herself to him effortlessly and even with his initial rejection, she wouldn't give up and there is his wife on whom he is hocked but who seem not to bother about his feeling at all. So he succumbed to pressure and started an affair with this lady and got all the attention he needed, but still his love remained with his wife.

On this faithful night the wife was out of the home on an outing they were supposed to be attending together but which the husband missed out on carelessly. Noting that he had hurt his wife’s feelings by not attending the function with her, he decided to impress her by cleaning the house in a manner he knew would impress her. In the course of his cleaning he discovered his wife’s medical report, read the doctor's diagnosis and then realized why she had been estranged from him for close to a year. Rather than get angry, he felt relieved that finally he knows what the big issue was.

On the wife’s return he sat her down and asked her why she kept such vital and sensitive information from him. It was a matter that concerns them both and it was a mutual problem that he should have been a part of from the onset. He made his wife realize that he didn’t marry her just for babies and there is still a God who make impossible possible. That night they made up and the husband began his search for a cure or any possible solutions to his wife’s ailment. He searched on the internet to know more on the diagnosis of his wife and it became more of his problem than that of his wife.

But there remains the outside mistress. Now that the internal problem between the husband and the wife has been resolved; the husband arranged a final meeting with the outside mistress to dissolve the relationship between them. But the mistress will hear nothing of such. She is now threatening to reveal their affair to the wife and later came up with pregnancy report stating that she is pregnant for the husband.

The dilemma in this story is that the husband does not want any shocks on his marriage again. He is scared to open up to his wife about his sins (his extra marital affair) to his wife knowing fully well that she will not be so forgiving. He is also aware that before he got married to his wife, she once had her heart broken by a guy she dated and that affected her health a great deal, so he is scared what effect this revelation might have on her. Now he does not know what to do.

My Take on This Story

In as much as I feel like excusing this husband for cheating on his wife, I will say that it’s unacceptable. Yes, he loves his wife and has tried so hard to understand the cause of the rift in their marriage and make amends, yet this story didn’t indicate that he prayed and fasted for God’s intervention in his dying marriage of which he didn’t even know its disease. Rather than pray he feel prey of the vultures in the desert waiting for a lifeless marriage to feast on.

Coming to the wife, I am still finding it hard to comprehend why she kept such information from her husband and then choose to react negatively to him instead. Was she blaming him for her predicament or was she trying to push him away? I still don’t get it. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one and if one should fall his friend will lift him up. In all of her going to church and serving God, didn’t she learn this? I understand that fear of the unknown and not being able to determine what the husband’s reaction can be might make her hold up such a thing to herself for some time, but that should not be for too long, and she should not have sent her husband packing out of her emotional life for a thing that isn’t his fault.

But after all said and done, the first solution to the matter at hand is for both of them to go back to God in prayer. Forgive each other on misjudgment they have made and sins committed. The husband needs to prayer and seek God as he makes up his mind to approach his wife. We learned in Proverbs 21:1 that the hearts of kings and princes are in the hands of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases. So the Lord will direct the heart of your wife to forgive you when you have pray to God about this situation. You then take the next important step of telling your wife about your sins yourself. Trust me, it safer she hears from you in a sober mood and with a repentant presentation than for her to hear it from someone else. When you quickly cross that huddle you can face the major task ahead which is the diagnosis of the doctors on your wife's fertility.

I strongly believe in the recovery of this marriage and I pray that the enemy will not have room to steal their joy again. 

Answering a Question on Submission

Hello people, its another week, and another fruitful and satisfactory week it will be for us in Jesus name. I want to address a question from a friend on today’s post and pray that it will make loads of meaning in the lives of those who read it.

Her Question:

Hello Derin dear, may grace be on the increase in your life daily. Please, I would like you to give an insight on marital submission in the home. Does the command to wives to submit to their husbands in all things mean the wives should be doormat to their husbands or dumb? Does it mean a wife should earn salary and give it to her husband?

Response

In order to have clarity on this issue, we need to go back to those Bible scriptures were the command to submit are found and try to really understand what it is all about. Even though we have gone over this several times, we will continue to go over it until proper clarity is achieved.

Ephesians 5:22-24

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

1 Peter 3:1-2

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 

So we will look at this command bit by bit and understand the mind of God on this issue of submission. And the very first thing I want the wives to understand is that it is not the husband that requested for the submission that you are giving, but God; it is not your husband that gave the command to submit, but God. And obedience to God’s word is what we are considering now. There is no point affiliating yourself to Christ or calling yourself a child of God when you cannot obey His word because you have concluded within you that such a command does not make sense to you or it does not suit you. Just like God commands us not to tell lies, and not to cheat, and not to murder and to honor our father and mother, and to keep the Sabbath day holy, so also did God command us wives to submit to our husbands as to the Lord. If you can hold all the other laws and commands of God sacrosanct, so also should you hold the submission law sacrosanct.

When you faithfully obey God and do His will and commands for your life, then you can be sure that He (the Lord) will faithfully grant you the desires of your heart because He is a faithful God who keeps His promises. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” So when you obey God in your marital life by submitting to your husband as God has commanded you to do, He will grant you the desires of your heart by blessing you with a beautifully joyful marriage.

The problem with a lot of wives is that they focus more on their husbands when it comes to the issue of submission in marriage rather than focusing on God as though it's their husbands they are accountable to in this matter. They then hold on to the negative attitude of their husbands as an excuse to disobey the word of God. It's not your husband that you will give account to when it comes to obedience to the word of God; you are accountable to God. And for these wives, when things are not working well in their homes, they either claim that God is unfair or take the law into their hands in some cases and walk out of the marriage forgetting that the answer to prayers for a loving marriage resides in their obedience to God’s word.

Paul said in Romans 12:19 that “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord.’” It is only an ignorant husband that will turn his wife into a doormat, because any wrong done against you will be avenged by God if you are patient enough to let God’s process take its course in your situation. 1 Peter 3:7 and Malachi 2:16 tells us that a husband who does not treat his wife properly risk his prayers not answered by God. Now in your own understanding, can any man escape the wrath of God? If your husband wrongs you, he will pay for whatever he has done against you and if you disobey God’s word by not submitting to your husband, then you are an offender yourself and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Another problem that wives have is that rather than obey their husbands to a point where such husband is drawn to God in full repentance, they harbor hatred for him. They curse their husbands in their minds and with their mouths, yet they want God’s intervention in a case where they are just as guilty as the husband. And then we wonder how God will judge such a matter without the two being punished.

Romans 12:14, 17-18, 21

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

If God will give you this command concerning those who are just meant to be your neighbors with no peculiar attachment between you and them, then how much more will God require a double effort from you when it comes to your husband? Remember 1 Peter 3:1-2 says that it is through the purity and reverence of your life that springs from your submission to your husband that your unbelieving husband will be won over to God. So your submission to your husband is a tool in the hands of God to bring to repentance and holiness your unbelieving husband. If your husband is the only soul you win for Jesus through your submissive lifestyle, I am confident that God will reward you richly.

On the issue of submitting your income, I will say this: If God should ask for your money and you can give Him willingly; then if your husband should ask for your income/money, you should not hold back. The instruction from the Lord says submit to your husband as to the Lord.

If your husband did not ask for your income, please keep your money to yourself and spend it as you wish because you worked for it. But if he demands it of you, the word of God says submit to your husband in everything.

When you are a Christian and you are aligned with God and obeying His words, your words are law, because you will declare a thing and it will come to pass. This is a powerful weapon that is useful in your marriage. When you are doing the will of God, you will command peace, joy, love and abundance into your marriage and you will see it manifest. When you declare increase in the life of your husband and you serve a God who fulfills the words of your mouth, then you can be sure of increase in the life of your husband that will make your own income be like peanuts to him; he will have more than enough that he won’t need your income not to talk of demanding of it.

I believe this post has revealed a lot to us, enough to help a lot of troubled marriages and I pray that the Lord will heal many homes and joy, peace and love will return into many marriages in Jesus name.  

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.  

I am Caught Between My Mother and My Husband

Its another story time and I am just enjoying this few days of learning from other people’s experiences. That's what's called wisdom. These stories are shared for us to learn from; they are true life stories that we can relate to so we don’t wait to make our own mistakes. So today we share another story.

Issue

I have been married for about 15months and my husband can’t seem to make love to me because he can’t seem to get it up. I love him and I don’t want to leave him. We have been managing this situation between us but then my mum called me one day expressing concern over the fact that I'm not pregnant yet and it's been over a year that I got married. In tears I confided in her and told her the challenge in my marriage. And lo and behold the issue was blown out of proportion with my husband’s parents invited into the situation. My husband tried explaining to my mum that he is more worried and concerned about his predicament as he is looking forward to starting his own family more than my mother is looking forward to having another grandchild. But my mum would not hear any of such explanations. She has forced me out of my marriage against my will and I just don’t know how to handle this? I am caught between my mother who does not see any reason why I should remain married to a man who cannot give me a child and my husband that I love dearly.

Response

Honestly my heart goes out to you as I'm almost in tears as I pen down a response to this issue. But first, where are your praying knees? You have not mentioned anything about prayers. Have you prayed to God to know your purpose in that marriage and in the life of that husband of yours? Do you know whether its for this problem that the Lord made you a wife and a suitable helper to this man; that you might be the answer to the prayer that he has been seeking the face of God for? Proverbs 18:22 says “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives the favor of God.” Why would you allow your mother remove you from under the authority of the head that the Lord has placed over your life and from the assignment that the Lord has handed over to you?

In as much as I appreciate the enormity of the problem at hand, I also appreciate the Mightiness of God who is able to solve all problems and I do not appreciate you being a wimp who would allow her mother interfere with her marriage. Genesis 2:24 says, “For this reason a man will leave father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” So where is the place of your mother in your marriage equation based on God's design that she should come and pull you out of your marriage? I still can’t seem to understand this.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says “Two are better than one, because they will have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up.” Based on this scripture, you have just shown that you are not a friend to be relied on not to talk of being a wife to depend on by your actions of allowing your mother interfere in the affairs of your home. You are a wife who has left her husband on the floor rather than help him up when he needs you the most. Permit me for being hard.

As far as I know the only humane thing for you to do is to go back to your husband and hold his hands through the storm of his life. You are his suitable helper, assigned to him by God to help him in every area where he needs help. Now is the time for you to fulfill God’s calling upon your life in the life of your husband. Do not let anyone (not even your mother) make you fail God in this. You are not accountable to your mother in the matters of your marriage, you are accountable to God. 

It's Hard to Forgive But Forgiveness is the Best Way to Go

In yesterday’s post, I shared a real life story and I believe it was helpful to so many people with challenges in their marriages. So today, I will share another real life story and I pray it will make an impact in your marriages and homes in Jesus name.

Issue

I got married to this lovely young lady; prior to our marriage, in the course of our courtship, I noticed some unacceptable behavioral traits in her and confided in my parents about my observations. At that point of making my discoveries I wanted to call-off the engagement but my mother talked me out of it. She knew my wife’s mother well, and knew her to be a responsible woman. Her thought then was that since her mother was a responsible and respected woman in the society the daughter will not be too bad a wife. She convinced me that everybody had a past and so I can’t condemn my fiancée based on her past. We had several prayers sessions concerning my choice of wife before I finally agreed to proceed with the wedding. But lo and behold my fears were confirmed a couple of months after our wedding when I discovered my wife was having extra-marital affairs. This broke my heart and I could not help but take it out on my mother who convinced me to marry her. I presented my parents with the various undeniable evidences that I had gathered concerning my wife's adulterous lifestyle, and called the marriage quit. I have since relocated to start a new life elsewhere waiting for the divorce proceedings to take its course. This time around I will look well before I jump into any marriage. And I will ensure that I listen to my inner mind and not allow anyone convince me otherwise.

Response

To say that I understand your anger is to put it mildly, but I thank God that you mentioned the phrase sessions of prayers before the wedding took place and your marriage finalized. The fact that you prayed makes all the difference, and if the Lord knew that He was unable to repair and redeem that situation, He would definitely prevent the marriage from taking place.

I am sure you have read about the story of Hosea in the Bible; this tells you that there is nothing new under the sun and the fact that Hosea married an unfaithful wife didn’t mean the marriage was doomed. As a matter of fact God was in it from the beginning. He instructed Hosea to go take an unfaithful woman as his wife and he loved her still. Would you dare to go back to God in prayer to ask Him to intervene in this matter like the story shared in the last post? Would you dare to pray and ask the Lord to take the wheels of this situation off your hands and direct the course of your life and marriage the best way He alone can?

If you get a divorce like you are already trying to, you are justified; but then the fact still remains that you cannot take another wife (1 Corinthians 7:10-11); you are allowed a divorce on the grounds of marital unfaithfulness by the standard of God, but by that same standard of God you have to remain single for the rest of your life or be reconciled to your wife.

Please let your anger burn, but not for too long. And don’t let that anger burn so high that it makes you lose consciousness of God and His will for your life. Don’t let that anger burn to the point that you will lose all the God given favor that is residing in the life of your wife for you. She holds some treasures in her life that belongs to you; God put those treasures there for your life and I beg you not to let the devil rob you clean of God’s treasure due to your anger against your wife.

Prayer for grace to forgive, pray for her to change her ways and be all that God has called her to be in your life and pray that God will open your spirit eye to see the good in your wife outside of her shortfalls. God is still in the business of answering prayers. Love her to repentance and watch God make her into all that He has called her to be in your life.

You are hurting, I know, and it takes great grace to walk through this period in your life, but with God all things are possible. His grace is available for you if you are willing to embrace it. That marriage will rise again in Jesus name. 

How She Erased Infidelity from Her Marriage for Good

I want to welcome you all to another week and I bless God because I am positive that it will be a very productive week in Jesus name.

I am not sure if I have shared this story before, but I wish to share it again. And if this is the first time of it coming on this blog, I am positive this story will bless a soul and heal a marriage in Jesus name.

There is this lady who had been married for over 10yrs, and her marriage had been characterized by various challenges from very frequent quarrels and arguments to absolute lack of love in the marriage. On face value, everyone who sees these couples will conclude that all was well between them, but within them it was just a very thin line that held the marriage together. It was a marriage of no trust, no love, no care, no respect and every good thing that makes a beautiful home was lacking in this one. But of all the problems that had overwhelmed this marriage, the big of them all was infidelity. The husband had transferred all the love he should have invested in his wife and children on strange women outside his marriage.

He would smile and play with strange women, exchange love messages to them, care for their feelings and well-being, but for his wife, it was constant war. Nothing she did seemed good enough and whenever she complained, it was another round of insults and quarrels.

In the middle of all her marital woes, this wife developed a relationship with God and she began to pray. She also resolved to reading and her Bible and in no time began to unfold the secret to a successful marriage. She learned to submit to her husband; and you will agree with me that submission to a husband who loves and cares for you is quite easy, but when you have to submit to a husband who disdains you, it’s a very big challenge. She literarily had to depend on God to help her through with submitting to her mean husband.

Her marriage began to improve as she continued to lean on God to submit to her husband. She had to learn submission for about two years before her marriage started having the slightest feel of a normal marriage. But there still remained the issue of strange women in the life of her husband which she dears not mention or the peace that had begun to find its way into her marriage would fade away again. So in tears she began to pray.

Anytime she had an argument with her husband over the issue of the strange women in his life and her husband responded harshly she would cry to God. And on one occasion she had argued with her husband over the issue of a particular female friend of his of which she felt the friendship between him and the lady was a little closer than normal. After her husband left the house, she laid on her bed and again began to cry and pray. On this one occasion the Lord visited her and promised her that, that will be the last time she would ever have to cry over the infidelity of her husband.

Soon after that, she noticed that her husband was always home early and was becoming very loving towards her and their children. He wouldn’t honor his friend’s invitation for hang-outs and he would always just want to be close to his wife. The wife found this strange but she was enjoying what her marriage was turning out to be. She had totally forgotten about her prayers to God of months back and even forgotten God’s promise to her. All she knew was that her husband loved her much more than before, and she was enjoying every bit of it.

Then one night her husband made a confession to her that he had a one-fight sex affair with a woman he met for the first time several months ago. Strangely though, the wife was not offended, neither was she troubled. She simply asked her husband if he wore a protective rubber while at it and when he answered in the affirmative, she also asked if he was still seeing the lady after the one-night event and he responded that he never saw the lady again after that night. That was all that was said on the issue and the both them continued their marriage as though nothing ever happened.

The calmness of the wife over this confession initially made the husband sober and scared. He had expected a worse reaction but when he waited a couple of days and no issue was raised on the matter again by the wife, that made him love and respect her the more. And gradually the husband began to adore his wife; everyday was a new and beautiful day in their marriage.

After months, the husband called the wife and told her he had more confessions to make. Still the wife was calm and asked what it was. The husband told her he didn’t reveal the whole truth in his first confession and that in truth the rubber he wore in the course of the intercourse busted and it was as though he didn’t use any protection.

Still being calm, the wife asked if the lady in question was pregnant for him, but he responded to the negative and said he had not seen or heard from her since the incident happened. It was then that the wife realized that her husband was afraid that he might have contacted some deadly diseases from his one night show and the fear of the possibility of that had made him stay away from strange women. For months the husband could not bring himself to go for a medical check-up for fear of what the result would be and still the wife loved him like nothing ever happened. The thought of the possibility of dying had humbled him and made him change from his wayward ways.

After a while the husband went for a comprehensive medical check-up and was given a clean bill. But that served as a lesson for him and ever since then he was faithful to his wife alone. The calmness and support this wife gave to her husband during the period of his self-torture from his wayward life style made him love and respect her like he had never before. And since then he adored his wife like he should. 

One afternoon, while the wife was cleaning the house, she heard the voice of God speak to her reminding her of God’s promise to erase infidelity in her marriage for good. She laughed within her and praised God knowing that there was nothing she did or could have done that would have made her husband change from his sinful ways safe of God’s intervention. It was only God that could put the fear of sin of adultery in his life and sustain it there. Today their marriage is at peace and there is so much love between them like it had never existed before.

I would say that it takes great grace to do what this wife did and endure what she endured. But God’s grace is available to us all if we are willing to hand our issues over to God and leave it dear. God will not just solve the problem, He will also will also give you the calmness of spirit to sustain you while He takes care of the issue. It’s just like having the doctor administer anesthetics on a patient to calm the patient and ease the pain while he carries out a surgery on the patient to cure an ailment. This is what God is all about when we let Him take care of our issues for us. It always does not have to end in a divorce and your marriage was never designed to break. It just needs you to connect with God and it will all be sorted out if you'll let go and let God. 

I just love stories like this, and I hope you have learned from it. 

She is Really Angry

Hello beautiful people, I believe we all had a great week and looking forward to a restful weekend and by the special grace of God we will all have a beautiful weekend to the glory of God.

So we will be looking at a real life issue on marriage, a story that I believe we will be able to learn a thing or two from. This is a story that is just as real as you and I and so we can relate to it.

Issue

I have been married for about 5yrs, and it has been a mixed experience for me. I won’t say that I am a happily married woman, but at least I have a good job as a hairdresser and that keeps me busy and distracted from my marriage issues. I spend the large chunk of my time in my hairdressing salon and I am there with my children so that keeps me from the misery of my husband coming home late or not paying attention to me as his wife. But what I won’t tolerate is my husband relegating his financial responsibility to me because he thinks I have money to bear the burden. He won’t pay the children’s school fees because he knows that if he doesn't, I will pay up the fees to avoid embarrassment, and now he is avoiding paying for the remaining part of the required school wears for the children because he feels also that I will pay it. I have reminded him on the demand from the school to get the prescribed school uniform for the children on the set days that they need to wear these uniforms but he just keeps avoiding that discussion with the mindset that over time I will go and pay for those school wears for the children to avoid embarrassment as it's always the case. We have quarreled severally on this attitude of his but he just won't change. But on this particular school wear issue I have made up my mind that I won’t pay for the remaining set of uniforms for the children and will continue to wear the wrong set of uniforms for them to school unless their father does his responsibility and buy it for them. My husband works and makes money and I have no idea what he uses his money for if he can’t even take care of his own children’s need.

Response

I thank God that in His design for human kind every child has two parents. This is to ensure that the child has all the adequate care that he/she needs. So if a parent is failing in his/her responsibility, the other parent can fill in. In all, the child should have adequate care and support till he/she stops to be a child. Although I do not excuse what your husband is doing by not providing for his family, but two wrongs has never been known to make a right. And when you get to give God the report of your stewardship here on earth, your husband is not a good enough excuse for failing.

If you are not making enough or you genuinely don’t have to give for the upkeep of your children, that will be another issue entirely. But God who is mindful of your situation, and knows what lies ahead of you, has provided a way of escape by giving you work to do and enabling you to earn good income to sustain you while He handles the situation of your husband so that you don’t live in lack. What message are you then sending to God if you insist that you won’t take care of the needs of your children because it is your husband’s responsibility and you shouldn’t be the one handling his responsibility for him? Have you considered the fact that it could be that it’s because you have become the burden bearer in the home that the Lord is blessing you and prospering the works of your hands.

Deuteronomy 8:18 says, it is the Lord who gives us the ability to make wealth; it’s not your power nor your ability that has helped you this far, so honor God with what He has blessed your life with and take care of the children He has kept under your watch to care for without waiting on any one to do what God has blessed you to do. Your children do not have to suffer for the sins of their father.

The hard truth in this matter is that there is no amount of rebellion and fight that can make your husband own up to his responsibility as the breadwinner of his family unless the Lord touches his heart to do what he is suppose to do. Trying to force your husband to perform his responsibility might only destroy the peace of your marriage. If you have complained about his negligence to the financial needs of the home and he has not made any effort to adjust, then more complain will not make him change. If you’ve applied an approach and it has not yielded the desired result, then change your approach.

Since you have spoken to your husband and nothing has change, then cease to speak to him on the issue anymore and go on your knees. Fight this battle on your knees in prayers to God. Proverbs 26:2 says the heart of kings and princes are in the hands of the Lord, and like a water course He directs them as He wishes, this includes the heart of your husband. So what you can’t do, God can do and so please let Him.

The secret about this is that when your husband abandons his responsibility, then he is risking the fact that God will stop listening to his prayers (Malachi 2:13-14); and when God stops to hear his prayers, it’s just a matter of time for things to starts falling apart for him and I am sure you are not looking forward to that. The Bible says a man who does not provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever. And then we can ask ourselves, what has God got to do with an unbeliever; the prayers of a sinner is an abomination to God.

But when you join your husband in abandoning your responsibility of caring for your children, you are also as guilty as your husband. So you should not be surprised when God stops to listen to your prayers too. But by the special grace of God, the Lord will uphold you to do what is right before Him always in Jesus name.