A Husband Finds the Log in His Own Eye

This testimony prompted deep gratefulness in my heart! 

My wife and I were born into families that did not necessarily set us up for success. We married in between our junior and senior year of undergrad (college). 

I loved my wife dearly, but by far spent more of my time thinking about the “husband is the head of the home” scriptures. The first several months of my marriage I think I spent a lot more time “beating my chest” about those scriptures than thinking in particular about Heather’s concerns or my responsibility to her as a husband, even after she became pregnant a few months after marriage.  

Sometime around our 5th month of marriage or so I got it in my head that I was going to be a real spiritual husband and begin praying regularly for my wife. I would wait for Heather to go to bed and wait until she was asleep, then I would go in and pray. My prayers were usually along the lines of “Dear God, please make Heather a woman of prayer. Please make her a wise woman, and a good mother. Please make her a woman of your word.” Etc.  

One night about two weeks after I started doing this I went in to pray. I went to open my mouth and the Lord dropped a sentence in my mind and a revelation in my heart. The sentence was the verse, “Husbands, LOVE YOUR WIVES AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH.” I had read this several times before but had glossed completely over it because of my lack of understanding, selfishness, etc. The Lord drilled it into my mind.  

At the same time He dropped a revelation into my heart, which occurred amazingly fast but essentially took me back through my married life with Heather and showed me just how much I had been putting conditions on Heather as to whether I would love her or not.  

Even the “praying” I had been doing was really my bringing to God a list of the things I wanted in a wife, more conditions to love her by. I was thinking “I will love her if…” I had never seen it, and I was floored, really speechless.  

When I finally started talking all I could say was to tell the Lord that I loved my wife over and over. 

I stewed on this for a few weeks and then when Heather and I were taking a trip I took the concentrated alone time in the car to tell her about what God had convicted me of and to repent to her for loving her conditionally, and I committed to her to love her unconditionally. It was a beginning to a very new time in our marriage.  

I have always believed that one of the reasons why God could come and deal with me so severely (Thank Him for it!) was because Heather was not in disobedience (to God). It kind of had a feel of “Heather, why don’t you just step aside and let Me take care of this knuckle head for you…Whack!” 

So I spent the next 14 years pretty aggressively going after “Husbands, love your wives...” We of course had our spats and failures, and whatever my desire was I certainly didn’t always love her as I knew I should, but it was my goal.  

Right now I am going through your material with a group for the third time and enjoying it thoroughly. I suppose I am a Love and Respect Zealot. I appreciate your example in the DVD teachings of holding up Love and Respect together to be valued. I seek the Lord to be balanced with the truth and watching the DVDs is a great help. (Bill) 

I salute Bill as a true man of honor! As you read these verses, replace “your brother” with your spouse’s name.

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Luke 6:41, 42 (NASB) says: “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or, how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” 

I am inspired to take a fresh look at the logs in my own eye. How about you?

~Emerson

See other testimonials and share your marriage testimony with us here.

“I confronted…nothing changed…now what?”

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Q:  What if I have respectfully confronted my husband but he continues in his addiction? His drinking is destroying our family!

Dr. E says:  As you know, giving advice through email is not the ideal.  I desire to serve you with godly wisdom, yet realize I don't have all the pieces, and have not heard both sides.  Please keep this in mind as I attempt to help within these limitations.

If your husband is refusing to deal with his addiction, you may need to give an ultimatum. As I have said, unconditional respect means you come across respectfully as you confront his unacceptable behavior, but it also means you set healthy boundaries.  For example, you can say respectfully, "It is time to deal with this. I believe in you, this is why I married you. But you are not acting like the man of honor I believe you long to be.  Until you get help for your drinking, I would not be respecting you if I just look the other way while your drinking destroys our family.  We need to separate (not divorce) until you let me know of your decision to seek help and for us to address these matters with a third party." 

This ultimatum should only be made after you have respectfully confronted him and asked him to get help, and he has refused. Before you do this, you must decide what your plan of action is going to be, and there must be a plan of action, or the situation will remain the same. To ignore the problem would be enabling, which contributes to the problem.  God’s Word does not advocate enabling sin but rather just the opposite. The apostle Paul warns us to not participate in unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead expose them.  NOT confronting sinful behavior can lead to enabling that behavior, allowing it to continue. 

Again, you must have a plan of action which could include an ultimatum for him getting help for his addiction, or he leaves for a time of separation (not divorce).  The details of this are something you should work out with Godly counsel – someone who is for your marriage and will come alongside you to support you in tough love and respectful confrontation.  You must protect yourself and your children.  Do not confront him alone if you fear his reaction. 

I am well aware of the devastation that addictive behavior brings to marriages.  I do not wish to minimize this in any way. This is sinful behavior that Christ would not have you tolerate.  If you need additional help to confront this, please seek out wise Godly counsel. 

~Emerson

Trust God to Work

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Perhaps the major problem that keeps so many couples somewhere between the Crazy Cycle and the Energizing Cycle is the fear that, even though they try to practice the Love and Respect Connection, it won’t work.  Or, that they will be the only one in the marriage trying, and their spouse won’t reciprocate.

To these couples, my advice is always the same:  Don’t give up because it doesn’t seem to be working.  Keep showing your spouse unconditional love and unconditional respect.  Look for even the slightest improvements.  A husband doesn’t bring flowers, but he does fix the leaky faucet.  The wife still has a headache more than you like, but she has toned down the negativity. 

Here’s an example of a wife who felt nothing was happening but later was amazed.  She called her ex-husband and apologized because she hadn’t always respected his position in their home.  (She is a Christian, and he is not.)  There was silence, and then he responded, “Thank you.”  That ended the conversation, but several days later he called back at midnight in tears, wondering why she had made her apology.  She explained she had to ask forgiveness for not being what she should have been as a wife.  Again, the conversation ended abruptly.  Not much seemed to be happening.  Another week passed, and again he called at midnight.  He had been thinking of everything he had done, and he was sorry.  He went on about all of his mistakes – “some of the few kind words he has ever said to me.”

In another situation, a wife moved out and bought another home.  I coached the husband on how to behave toward her in more loving ways.  This went on for some time, and he was seeing little progress.  Then one day she said, “Are you wanting me to beg you to ask me to come back home?”

The above are just a few examples of what can happen.  Don’t give up because weeks or months pass with no response.  Don’t interpret delay as defeat.  Don’t assume that what you are doing is unfruitful.  Most often, love or respect is working on your spouse more than you realize.  Something is transpiring in the soul of that person.  Have confidence that God will work.

~Emerson

Excerpts taken from Loveand Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.                                            

                                                       

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Marriage {Maintenance}

Recently I came across a blog entry written by a woman who communicated so effectively the mutual fear couples often experience related to a husband’s spiritual leadership and authority.   She nails it!  So this week I’m honored to share a portion of her blog, with her permission.  Thank you, Bekka!

~Emerson

← 5 Minute Friday – Joy

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Maintenance

I've been a little quiet this week because Tim has been home. After four weeks working at a job site more than 14 hours drive away, I tried to take advantage of as many moments as possible with him…I’d asked Tim to book the time off to include the weekend because this weekend, a combined effort of our local churches led to the hosting of a Love & Respect video seminar in our community centre.

At first he was all like “Do we really need to go to this thing?” to which my reply was that we didn’t really need to go, in the sense that we’re not in any kind of crisis stage of our marriage. However, I posed the issue of maintenance. As my friend recently pinned on Pinterest, the grass is greener where you water it.

Session One began Friday evening, and it went over well. It was humorous and enjoyable (I particularly liked the statement “There’re no vacancies in the Trinity”) and we went home, both of us thinking “Great stuff, but we already knew that.”

Then began Session Two on Saturday afternoon, followed closely by Session Three. And that’s where we realized what was missing in our marriage.

Dr. Eggerichs made a comment much to the effect that most Christian wives are looking to their husbands to be the spiritual leaders of their families. They expect their husbands to be the representation of Christ in their households. I was sitting there thinking, “Wow, ain’t that the truth of it! That’s exactly what I want of my husband.”

But with one little word, I realized where I had messed this up. In the middle of the acronym “CHAIRS”, is the word “Authority”. Dr. Eggerichs began to describe our spiritual relationship to the letter. Essentially, the wife looks to the husband for leadership, but she is fearful and apprehensive and so she asks questions and looks for reassurance. The husband interprets this as trying to take control and wear the pants of the relationship and so backs off or responds negatively to the wife and a cycle begins. I believe Dr. Eggerichs fondly refers to this as the “Crazy Cycle” – which comes in part from the definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.”

And that’s where our crazy cycle began, with authority. I wasn’t letting my husband have any because I was allowing my fear to intervene. And what was I afraid of? I was afraid that my husband would stretch me.

Tim is a self-taught philosopher and theologian. He is incredibly intelligent…So I was worried my husband… would stretch me further than I thought I was ready to be stretched.

When I confessed this to my husband on our drive home and asked for his forgiveness, I was once again rocked to my core.

That same segment about spiritual leadership had impacted him as well. And he confessed that he was afraid. He was afraid that I would somehow crush him if he had taken on that role. He never thought he was afraid of anything – this is the ironworker who climbs 150 feet into the air and sends me a text message to let me know he loves me, because 150 feet above ground is the only place his cell phone would get a signal.

Last night, as we were lying in bed, God gave me an image of my husband walking up the steps of a raised dais to a throne. On his shoulders was a black mantle of fear, worry, apprehension and something else I couldn't place. As he walked up the steps, his mantle fell off and he was able to sit on the throne. And then he was crowned.

I’m excited for my husband to take his rightful place as the spiritual leader of our family, where I have so desperately longed for him to be, yet have unknowingly set up road blocks all these years. I’m excited to see what happens next.

I give the Love & Respect seminar an A. I highly recommend it to anyone who is wondering just what seems to be missing from their marriage, or who feels like they’re just going through the “Crazy Cycle” all the time, or even for people who think they've got it all together right now and just want to go for some encouragement and maintenance. 

           

SELLING BRASS KNUCKLES TO MOTHER TERESA

I love how people apply the Love and Respect message. There is something about this message -- or subpoints of this message -- that bring about life change in people. Sarah and I continue to be overjoyed and grateful to God.

A husband writes, "My church held a conference here in Vancouver BC Canada with your DVDs. Just before that I was having a hard time in my relationship with my wife. Your views on relationships and what God expects of us through Ephesians was astounding. It changed us and our relationship went from constant nagging and fighting to realizing that my response IS my responsibility. I find myself constantly going back to that -- in all situations that get heated between us. Its gradually gotten better and better. It wasn't over night, and I failed at it many times, but it echoed in my head each and every time ("my response is my responsibility"). So I thank you for all your hard work and instruction using the Bible. I have even suggested this info to some other ppl I know that are not Christian and it opened new doors for them too. Dunno if they will become Christian but it provided an avenue to answers they had not taken into consideration."

At the Love and Respect conference I point out that when a couple gets on the Crazy Cycle (without love she reacts without respect and without respect he reacts without love) that in order to get off the crazy cycle the one who sees himself or herself as the most mature moves first. (We all want our spouse to move first by stopping their unloving or disrespectful reactions before we do!).

That begs the question: how do I know if I'm the mature one? One sign of maturity is owning up to this truth: my response is my responsibility. In other words, my spouse is not causing me to react in unloving or disrespectful ways on the Crazy Cycle. Instead my spouse is revealing my unloving or disrespectful reactions on the Crazy Cycle. OUCH!

At first, that phrase (my response is my responsibility) is intimidating. However, as we see with this husband once he subscribed to this truth, the nature of his marriage changed for the better. Actually, his maturity of owning up to his own reactions gave him benevolent power and influence in the relationship. But up to this time he didn't know that he could influence his wife this way. Sadly, he thought he exercised power and influence by making his wife responsible for his responses! How foolish to think blame works! But when he demonstrated maturity by taking ownership for his own unloving reactions, his wife allowed herself to be influenced by his mature reactions, which she perceived as loving. The same holds true for a wife toward her husband. When she demonstrates maturity by taking ownership for her own disrespectful reactions, her husband allows himself to be influenced by her mature reactions, which he perceives as respectful.

As indicated by this husband, this positive change did not happen immediately nor was it easy. But over time something good began to happen.

Having said this, Sarah and I don't like the phrase "my response is my responsibility." To say that we hate that phrase is a bit strong, but at times we hate it!!! Truth be told, we all hate that phrase. Blaming Sarah for my unloving reactions is so much easier. But here's the deal. Holding Sarah responsible for my responses is completely ineffective. In other words, though I don't like the phrase "my response is my responsibility", the alternative explodes in my face. Both Sarah and I discovered that holding each other responsible for our own responses is as effective as selling brass knuckles to Mother Teresa.

Some things just don't work. Have you discovered that some things just don't work?

Copyright by Emerson