Miserable Christian Marriages

Lately, my pastor and I have been mediating a number of conflicted marriages. It is heartbreaking too work with these couples. They love the Lord, love their children … and cannot stand one another.

Instead of demonstrating to the world the relationship of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5), their marital relationship is filled with bitterness, rage, and mutual disgust.

There is so much to say on this topic (I’ve even been thinking about writing a book on Miserable Christian Marriages) — but I only have a few minutes before I have to start getting our family ready for church, so I’ll bottomline the thoughts that were bouncing around in my head this morning when I woke up:

1. Ladies, dear ones, precious friends … is there anything our husbands could do that would ever really be enough to satisfy us? Really? Could they be 100%, consistently, faithfully, day-and-night, kind, merciful, attentive, romantic, respectful, servant leaders? Would that satisfy us and then we would be loving and forbearing with them? Really?

I doubt it.

I happen to be married to one of the most lovely, loving, gentle, kind, patient, sweet, servant leader husbands I’ve ever met — and I can tell you, for sure, that we have plenty to argue about and be bitter over. There are times when we can’t stand to look at one another. We get incredibly frustrated in some conversations and Man! Can we push each other’s buttons.

One sinner incompatible with another sinner. That’s us. That’s marriage. That’s all relationships and that’s life.

So what will we do with it? Make an idol out of having a loving, perfect husband? And when our demands are not met, will we hold grudges? Keep lists of his offenses and wrongs? Withhold ourselves–physically, emotionally, spiritually? Avoid him entirely? Criticize, blame, attack, accuse?

And what will be the likely result? What will be our testimony to our children and to a watching world? That we are “good” and he is “bad” — deserving of our condemnation and scorn?

God have mercy on us all! Of course our husband is rotten! So are we. We are all desperate for a Savior and the moment we forget that is the moment we falsely give ourselves license to judge and attack–even the very man we pledged our life and our love to on our wedding day.

Friends, if you are struggling to respect and care for and serve your husbands with true grace, mercy, and selfless love … please get help! Stop complaining to your friends — confess your need to them and ask for their accountability and prayers. Live by faith not by sight! Treat your husband as God treats you–with compassion and kindness. He doesn’t deserve it — of course he doesn’t! Neither do you.

Oh! There is so much more to say, but time is running short (I keep mentally calculating the time it takes us to feed & bathe Sophia and get ready ourselves), so I must move on …

2. Beloved gentlemen–Christian husbands. You who are called to love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her as an offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5) …

How do you live with the wife of your youth? Do you pray for her and with her? How often do you affirm (to her and to others) her gifts, beauty, and intellect? When she walks in the room, do you attend to her with kindness and respect? Do you listen to her–really listen to her? When she is working on a favorite project (of hers, not yours), do you enter into her world, come alongside of her, engage with her?

Or do you avoid her–physically, emotionally, and spiritually? Do you disdain her, yell at her, swear at her? Hit her? (“Only a slap–and she deserved it.”) Do you spend time with everyone else–friends, coworkers, children–just to avoid spending time with her?

Gentlemen, if you are struggling to love your wives, please get help! If you raise your voice in anger, fail to seek her out with romantic and attentive love, never pray with her and for her … please get help today! Run to the Church, seek out a biblical counselor (careful! not all “Christian counselors” are biblical), put yourself under the authority of other men for accountability and rebuke. This is serious! This is your ministry.

You may be the most effective Sunday school teacher, extremely profitable and acclaimed in your professional work, and adored by your children … but your wife is your primary mission field. Don’t run away from this problem! Don’t run away from your wife. Run towards her and get help.

3. For both husbands and wives in miserable Christian marriages … Run to Christ! You cannot “fix this” — you’re simply not strong enough, wise enough, or faithful enough. Your only hope is Christ. Run to Him! Worship Him! Rest in Him.

If we had only a glimpse, a glimmer of just how rotten we are and how beautiful and holy God is … if we could understand even one iota of how radical it is that the Perfect, Holy God loves sinners like us … we would not be so quick to judge, despise, hate, criticize, mock, and reject any other person–especially our spouses.

Friends, God is sovereign over your marriage. He is! Trust Him in it. Your struggles and misery are not a surprise to him. And you are definitely not alone. You are not the only (terribly) unhappily married Christian couple.

See that couple with the arms around each other in church today? You think they have a perfect marriage, right? But I had the privilege of spending two days with them last month in a mediation room because they were headed for divorce (the second divorce for both of them). Fred and I have one of the most intimate and loving marriages of any couple I know — but we regularly seek out the counsel and help of our pastor and our friends.

Don’t buy into the lie that “you’re the only one” who struggles in your marriage. We all do! We’re all in need of the help from the Body. Biblical counseling. Christian conciliation. Ongoing discipleship and accountability. We all need it. Thank God it’s there.

“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” Romans 12:4