Handling Conflict in Marriage

Conflicts impose heavy costs on businesses, schools, families, and on any social organization.  Sociologists have spent years researching sources of conflict and ways of dealing with it.

Psychologists carry out research projects to find out how people think and act.  Recent investigations show that at least 80% of psychological studies are inaccurate because when other researchers repeat the same experiment, they don’t get the same answer.  How do you tell a good study from a bad one?

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.  Isaiah 8:20

Conflict management research claimed to have found successful principles of conflict management.  The Bible also explains ways for people to get along better.  Biblical principles and sociological research come to the same conclusion, particularly for conflict between husbands and wives.  The fact that the study agrees with the Bible gives reasons to trust the research.

For example, the conflict study had a section on call centers.  Nobody calls when they’re happy; every call is someone who’s upset.  The section was full of “If they say XXX, you could say YYY.”  The Bible says:

A froward man soweth strife Proverbs 16:28 – most callers are forward for one reason or another

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.  Proverbs 15:1

The call center section was a list of soft answers to give to callers who were froward in various ways.  I don’t want to be froward; I generally say, “Your computer is unhappy with me, can you help me figure out why?”  Every call center employee has been frustrated by their computer; this approach puts me and the call center person on the same side, trying to reason with an unreasonable computer.

Disagreement in Marriage

There will be disagreements in any marriage, just as there are always disagreements whenever two or more people try to do anything together.  Disagreements may be more common in marriages because men and women think so differently.  God warns husbands not to be bitter when wives do something inexplicable:

Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.  Colossians 3:19

Similarly, women say that it’s hard to understand what a man had in mind no matter how he tries to explain.

Disagreement is inevitable; conflict is not.  Disagreement becomes conflict when we let our emotions and feelings seep into the discussion.  This paper discusses ways to keep disagreement from turning into conflict.

Logic and Emotion

God gave us the ability to think and act with our emotions, that is, from our hearts.  He also gave us the ability to think and act logically, that is, from our minds.

God had to give us emotions so that we’d be fruitful and multiply.  There’s no logical reason for a man to dedicate his life to supporting his wife and children.  There’s no logical reason for a woman to dedicate her life to taking care of her husband and family.  The strangest thing about babies is that having had one, and learning first-hand how much work they are, a woman wants another one, and another after that.

Our emotions, that is, the things we do from the heart, determine what we are:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:  Proverbs 32:7a

The Bible commands five times that we “love the LORD thy God with all thine heart,…” (De. 6:5, 30:6, Mt. 22:37, Mk. 12:30, Lk. 10:27).  Our hearts are so important to God that although these passages list mind, soul, and strength in various combinations, heart always comes first.  If God has our hearts, the rest follows.  That’s why we’re commanded to keep, or, guard, our hearts:

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.  Proverbs 4:23

Our heartfelt emotions drive what we do:

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.  Matthew 15:18

Your heart drives your entire life.  Keep your heart by giving it to God.

The emotions that bind men and women together are powerful enough to hold families together in spite of many trials.  God expects us to rule these powerful emotions with our logical minds:

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.  Pro. 25:28

The first step in dealing with a conflict is holding your emotions in check and speaking logically.

Emotion drives Conflict

Disagreement turns to conflict when your emotions get aroused; you can discuss issues without conflict if you stay logical and factual by keeping your feelings out of the discussion.  Conflict in marriage can be especially damaging because the emotions that drive marriage are so powerful.

The Bible teaches married people to give up their wants in favor of the other:

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.  Philippians 2:4

That’s easy to say, but it can be hard to figure out how to do it, particularly when your emotions are aroused.  There are three Biblical principles that can defuse just about any conflict:

1)      The other person didn’t mean to make you angry.  That wasn’t the goal; your anger was an accident.

2)      The conflict is all about you; it has nothing to do with the other person.

3)      When you talk about your anger or your upset, never say, “you,” always say “I.”

It’s Usually an Accident

The Bible promises that married people want to make each other happy; they don’t want to create anger:

But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.  I Corinthians 7:32-34

Men know little about women, but they all know that an angry woman is a hardship (Proverbs 21:1, 19:13, 21:19, 25:24, 27:15).  Workers know that making co-workers angry makes the workplace miserable.  Adults hardly ever deliberately try to make each other angry.

We’re all creatures of the flesh, however.  We get careless, or tired, or frustrated, or irritated, or selfish.  It’s easy for any of us to do something that makes someone else angry without even thinking about it.

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.  Ephesians 4:32

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.  Colossians 3:13

“Forbearing one another” is another word for “assume good faith.”  Hurting you was not the plan.

The conflict is about you, it has nothing to do with the other person

The other person probably has no idea that you’re mad.  Irritating you wasn’t the goal; it was an unfortunate, unintended result of seeking some other goal.  Your emotions can be aroused by your pride:

He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat.  Proverbs 28:25

Whoever irritated you will most likely be astounded when you bring it up.  The other person may have forgotten about it.  If it’s not forgotten, you’ll both have different memories of what happened.  This isn’t because the other person is lying.  Assuming that the hurt wasn’t intended, they’ll see it very differently from you because you were hurt.  In any case, it’s rare for two people to have the same memory of any event.

Suppose something made you really angry and you have to talk about it.  You must keep your emotions and your anger out of the discussion of your anger.  You can have a calm discussion of something that made you very angry at the time, but it takes self-control.  That’s what the Bible teaches:

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.  Matthew 18:15

“Trespass,” means anything that irritates you.  Unfortunately, many Bibles have the uninspired heading “Church Discipline” near this passage.  That makes people think that talking about offenses is needed only when someone could be thrown out of the church even though the overall chapter deals with reconciliation, lost sheep, and healing.  Extensive research says that the best path when someone offends you is to go and talk about it calmly no matter how minor it seems.  The Bible agrees; “trespass” means anything offensive.

The sooner you do this the better.

Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:  Ephesians 4:26

There are several reasons to handle irritations promptly:

1)      Whoever offended you probably wasn’t aware you were offended, so it won’t mean much.  They’ll probably forget all about it unless you bring it up soon.

2)      The longer you wait, the more you’ll play it over in your mind, and the more upset you’ll get.

3)      The more you play it over in your mind, the more your memory of the event will change.

When you talk about anger or hurt, never say, “you,” always say “I”

Angry spouses often hurl accusations at each other.  A wife may say, “You don’t love me,” a man may tell his wife, “You never do anything right.”  Words said in anger or in pain make the situation worse:

A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.  Proverbs 15:18

Here’s a better way to put it.  Say, “When XX happened, I felt unloved.”  That’s a true statement.  It’s like your salvation testimony, nobody can argue with it.  Your spouse may remember it differently, however.  There is never just one version of the past; there are at least two memories of what happened and maybe more.

Don’t argue about memory.  Let go of “You did XX” – “No, I didn’t.”  Assume good faith – your partner probably isn’t lying when his or her memory differs from yours.  Even if you don’t agree on what happened, you can focus on the emotions and try to figure out how to keep whatever angered you from happening again.

It’s important not to accuse the other party.  If a woman tells her husband he doesn’t love her, he’ll disagree because of all the things he does because he loves her.  If he decides he can’t please her, he may stop trying.  If a husband criticizes his wife’s efforts to please him, she may become discouraged and give up.

Don’t say, “When you did XX...”  Keeping it impersonal puts you and your spouse on the same side.  As partners, you can work together to figure out how to solve the problem.  Accusations put you and your spouse on opposite sides.  Hurling emotion back and forth makes it worse:

Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.  Proverbs 30:33

It’s best to list all the good things when mentioning any irritation.  A man can say, “ZZ didn’t work out as well as XX which you did well, and I really liked the way you did YY.”  A wife can say, “In my heart, ZZ made me feel unloved even though I know you love me.  You come home, you work to support us, and you do XX and YY.”  The Bible usually puts the negative first and ends with the positive – “the fool … but the wise …”  A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.  Here’s how to minimize conflict:

1)      It’s generally an accident; adults very seldom try to make each other angry.

2)      The hurt and anger are all about you, the other person probably has no clue that you’re upset.

3)      Never say “you.”  Say “I” to focus on your feelings.  Talk about how you felt, not who did what.

4)      Listen to the other party, particularly if emotion is leaking in.  It takes effort for men to understand what a woman is talking about and vice versa, but if you don’t listen respectfully for as long as it takes to understand, how can you fix the problem?

5)      Have an agreement in place that if someone needs a “time out” to keep from saying hurtful things, whoever leaves must return within 24 hours.  Knowing that the other party will come back makes the situation far less worrisome for both parties.  This shouldn’t happen, but leaving for a while can be better than saying extremely hurtful things which you can never take back nor erase:
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel Half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

6)      One of you must help the other in time of stress (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12), but you can’t both become overwhelmed at the same time.  If a wife’s overloaded because company’s coming, for example, her husband must help her, and he can’t b overloaded until she recovers.  If the husband’s overwhelmed, she must help him no matter how much she’d like to let go.

This is easy to say, but it can be hard to do.  The rest of this paper explores applications.

Good Faith is Unbelievably Important

My wife and I have been happily married since 1971.  I did something very Japanese on our first date that made her angry.  She could have walked a block to her car and driven off.  I was quite attracted to her and would’ve been badly hurt.  If she’d done that, we probably wouldn’t have married.

She thought, “This guy’s smitten with me.  He didn’t offer to buy me food to make me mad.”  Instead of showing her anger, she gently asked me why I’d done it.  When I told her, she liked it.  She saw that there would be many such issues in the future, but she knew that I would tell her why.  When I opened my heart to her as Boaz opened his heart to Ruth the day they met (Ruth 2:11-12), she knew that if I told her why I did strange things, it would be OK.  Her assuming that I didn’t want to anger her got her a husband.

What You Believe Determines What You Do

God is good and marriage is good.  Psalm 107 says four times, “Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”  The psalmist saw that people don’t really believe that God is good.  If they thought God was good, they’d obey Him so He could bless them.

Marriage is one of God’s wonderful works.  It’s too wonderful to be put into words:

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:  The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.  Proverbs 30:18-19

Nobody marries to make the other person unhappy.  The bride expects that the groom will be happy with her, and the groom expects that his bride will be happy with him (I Corinthians 7:32-34).

God loved all of us enough to send His Son to die so that our sins could be forgiven and we’d have everlasting life (John 3:16).  God invented salvation out of love for us.  God also invented marriage.  If He loved us enough to send His Son to die for us so that we could have joy in the next life if we pursue salvation according to His instructions, don’t you think He loved us enough to create marriage so that we could be joyous in this life if we take up marriage according to His instructions?

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.  John 10:10b

Jesus wants our lives to be abundant!  The bride and groom want marriage to overflow with joy.  God is party to their marriage vows (Malachi 2:14), He wants it to be so good that it shines a light to the lost.

Marriage hasn’t worked out wonderfully for lots of Christians.  Given that all parties wanted it to be good, when a marriage isn’t good, it’s a sign that something went wrong and something must change.  Continuing with whatever you’re doing and expecting better results is one of the definitions of insanity.

Many say, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for this food,” but few Christians act as if they believe that God is good.  The Bible teaches that husband and wife should belong to each other, most Christians would rather keep emotional and physical independence.  The Bible teaches that a husband should lead his wife by serving her; most husbands prefer to command.  The Bible teaches that a wife should obey her husband; most wives would rather do what her husband would have told her to do if he had understood the situation as she did.  Doing salvation our way takes us to hell; doing marriage our way can make life hell on earth.

God commands us to praise Him because praising Him reminds of what He’s given us and makes us less likely to be unhappy about what we don’t have.  Scientists recommend praise between husband and wife:

“Expressing appreciation to your partner, noticing the things you love about them and telling them that you love those things about them,” said Ms. Joel, “just has wondrous effects. They feel appreciated, and then in turn they feel better, and just expressing the gratitude makes you feel better, and then they want to reciprocate the gratitude, so then they appreciate you more which makes you feel better.”[1]

Relating to God and His Word

Following the Bible helps handle conflict.  God is His Word (John 1:1).  Your view of God shows in how you handle His word.  Suppose a wife tells her husband over and over that she likes vanilla ice cream, but he always brings home chocolate.  She won’t believe anything he says about loving her or caring for her because he won’t “dwell according to knowledge (I Pe. 3:7).”  Jesus asked, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say (Luke 6:46)?”  Can someone who ignores what the Bible teaches really love God?

The simplest solution to marriage problems requires that you believe that God is good so you can follow His plan for marriage.  God knew what men wanted when He made women.  God also knew what men needed.  Men who refuse to see how women meet their needs, as opposed to their wants, often feel that God made women wrong.  Their complaints make their wives unhappy, which makes everyone unhappy.

Marriage is a gift from God; you don’t deserve it.  A woman doesn’t deserve her husband dedicating his life to taking care of her and leading her by serving her, that’s a gift from God who made men and from him as he chooses to spend his life nourishing her and cherishing her.  A man isn’t worthy of his wife’s submission, that’s a gift from God who made her and from her when she chose to obey God and belong to her husband.

Marriage prospers if you have an “attitude of gratitude” to God for His gift of marriage and serve your spouse in gratitude to your spouse for being yours.  If you think of marriage as something God or your spouse owes you, it won’t work no matter how many books you read or how many counselors you see.

The only way two individuals can be “no more twain but one flesh (Mk. 10:8)” as Jesus expects is for both parties to die to their former lives and be re-born into a one-flesh married unit.  God expects husband and wife to serve each other.  When you serve your spouse, you aren’t just serving your spouse, you’re also serving God.

If you’re saved, God sees you as perfect because Jesus’ blood washed your sins away.  We’re commanded to follow God (Eph 5:1).  As God sees your spouse as perfect, you, too, must see your spouse as perfect for you.

Sources of Conflict

The main sources of conflict in marriage are personality, in-laws, children, sex, communication, and money.

Personality

People whose lives are merged closely with another person can easily become irritated by personality traits.  Some characteristics are related to gender.  Men do things that annoy women just because they’re men.  Talking to other women showed my wife that many men annoy their wives by doing the same things I do that annoy her.

These common annoyances are one reason older women are commanded to instruct younger women about men (Titus 2:3-5) – they need to know its part of the package.  After we’d explained this, a woman came up and said, “If I’d known that, I would have stayed with my first husband.  My second husband did exactly the same things.  So did my third husband, but he left me.”  Wives must cling to Jesus’ words:

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.  Matthew 18:21-22

Some scholars believe that in saying 490 times, Jesus commanded forgiveness without limit.  I tend to agree.  I’ve been married longer than 490 months.  Assuming I annoyed my wife only once per month, she wouldn’t have to forgive me anymore if she were counting.  I suspect that I annoy her more often than that, so I’m grateful that she decided to laugh about it and appreciate the ways men differ from women.

Other characteristics have nothing to do with gender.  My wife’s a neatnick, which means she believes that there is a place for everything and that everything must be in its place.  God arranged that opposites would attract so that we’d continue to bring forth after our kind.  If tall people married tall people and short people married short, eventually there’d be two kinds instead of one.

It should be no surprise that I’m a trashnik, the opposite of a neatnick.  My wife cleans off a table; when I come in carrying something, I tend to put it in the first open space.  It frustrates her that her efforts to be neat and put everything away are frustrated.  To her, I’m a clutterbug.  She saves old clothes, so she’s a pack rat.

“Trashnick” is tactless so let’s use “innie” and “outie.”  An innie wants everything put away; an outie prefers that important things be out in the open where they’re easy to find.  I’ve an innie friend who married just after college graduation; she’d never seen her husband’s house.  “He carried me over the threshold,” she told me, “and the living room was full of tires.”  He had 8 tires, 4 for each vehicle.  An outie man keeps tires in the living room so he can find them.  “It took me a month to get the tires out on the front porch,” she said, “and another two months to get them around back, but I got them out of the living room.”

She went carefully and slowly instead of just taking over his house.  As he came to trust that she could find his socks, underwear, and other unimportant things, he trusted her to find important things like his tires.

Our 16 month old son visited grandma’s house.  He pointed to a 2 inch piece of white string on her rug and said “Broom, broom.”  When grandma asked what he wanted, he crawled to the closet and patted the vacuum cleaner.  He wanted her to clean up this intolerable messiness.  His personality and his mother’s innie training made him even innier than she, so his extreme outie wife has had to work hard to learn his innie ways.

An innie woman married to an outie man is frustrated because she can’t keep her house as neat as she’d like.  I know my wife’s distress, but it’s very hard for me to avoid messing up.  I have to work at being better at that.  It’s probably harder for an outie wife married to an innie husband.  It’s hard for an innie to understand just how difficult it is for an outie to act like an innie.  My son’s wife can clean like a white tornado when she has to; she can put everything away very fast.  Over the years she’s learned her husband’s ways, but it was a hard slog.

When she visits, she tends to think that my wife is rebellions because my wife’s house is not as neat as her husband expects of her.  She doesn’t realize that my wife’s husband isn’t an innie like her husband.

Couples draw closer to each other over time.  I Corinthians 14:40 commands “Let all things be done decently and in order,” so the outie should probably move further toward the innie than vice versa.  We have to consider our testimony; even lost people know that “cleanliness is next to Godliness.”  I have a ways to go.

On the other hand, the term “control freak” describes innies who overdo it.

Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.  Philippians 4:5

Some people like to plan everything out way in advance; others refer to just do whatever comes up.  To some, “Yes” is a 100% commitment, to others, “Yes” means “Maybe” or “If possible.”

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.  Romans 12:18

When it’s your spouse, living peaceably is worth a great deal of work, time, effort, thought, and prayer.

Conflict with In-Laws

Your in-laws are your spouse's parents.  Very few parents want to make their children unhappy.  No matter what they think of you, your in-laws know that if they make you unhappy, their child who’s joined to you will be unhappy.  When your in-laws make you unhappy, it’s generally an accident because they don’t want their child miserable.  Thus, in-law troubles come from lack of communication and lack of understanding.

In the old days, young people married someone from the same town.  We travel further these days and many people marry without a lot of common cultural background.  That can make in-law communication difficult, particularly if your in-laws and your spouse have different cultures.

I have a friend whose wife’s parents fled Iran just before the Shah fell.  She grew up in America and has a light complexion.  You’d think she was an all-American girl with a tan.  Her parents never adapted to America, however, so their cultural conflicts get pretty tangled.  My friend and his wife share a common American culture; her Iranian parents confuse her as much as his in-laws confuse him.

Cultural confusion can be long-lasting and hard to resolve.  My wife and I painted one of our bathrooms.  I was at my in-laws that weekend and told them we’d painted it green.

Next time she visited, my mother-in-law said, “You painted the bathroom again.”  My wife said, “No, we painted it once.”  My mother in law said, “Your husband said you painted it green but its blue.”  She looked at me funny.  I told her, “I'm not colorblind; I just get the names mixed up.”  She looked at me funnier.

When I asked my wife what happened, she said my mother in law thought I was mentally defective.

Several years later, my wife took Japanese lessons because we planned to visit the town in Japan where I’d grown up.  After an early lesson, she said, “I understand blue and green!”  Japanese have a word for the color of grass and they use the same word for the color of the sky.  I grew up using one word for both colors.  It never occurred to me that getting the English words mixed up was strange – my Japanese friends did it all the time, and Kentucky blue grass looks green to me.

My wife’s mother accepted this, sort of, but didn't really believe it until she visited Japan and asked.

That’s the sort of disconnect you get with cross-culture in-laws.  My mother-in-law knew that her daughter had married me for better or worse and she didn’t rag about her mentally-deficient son-in-law.  Had she done so, it would have been difficult unless she noticed how badly her daughter was suffering and stopped.

We solved this problem because my wife remembered the issue for years and saw the solution when it came.  Here’s another culture-clash.  My mother was teaching child development at a Japanese college.  She spoke of “The first trimester … the second trimester…”  A student asked, “What’s a trimester?”  Mom said, “Its 1/3 of a pregnancy.  Pregnancy is 9 months; a trimester is 1/3 of the pregnancy, so a trimester is 3 months.”

Ever been teaching and realize that something you said totally, utterly lost the entire class?  Mom had no clue what she’d said, but there was total disconnect, all the lights went out at once.  Finally, a student said, “But Taylor sensei, pregnancy takes 10 months in Japan.  We’ve been having babies a long time and we know.”

From her youth up, my mother had been told about 9 month pregnancies, and she’d had 3.  However, all the students lit back up, the lights came back on, and so she had to roll with ten-month pregnancies.

She drew 11 vertical lines to show 10 months of pregnancy.  Class-wide nods.  Then she turned the chalk sideways and drew two fat lines at 3 1/3 months and 6 2/3 months.  “Americans divide pregnancy into thirds.  This is the first trimester, this is the second,  …” and she sailed on to class-wide understanding.

Japanese pregnancies do take 10 months.  Why?  On average, pregnancy takes 280 days.  280 divided by 9 is 31, so pregnancy is 9 31-day months.  The Japanese word for “month” uses the character for “moon.”  280 days divided by a 28-day lunar month is 10.  What happens when a Japanese wife who’s English isn’t all that great becomes pregnant in the US and asks a 9-month obstetrician when she’s due?

Suppose an American college student goes to Japan and marries a Japanese girl.  His Japanese isn’t wonderful and her English is incomplete.  Who’s going to think to tell his parents when they fly over for the wedding that in Japan, the groom’s family is responsible for paying for the wedding?  And that the custom is for each family to send one person to the reception, but that person must bring home enough food so that everyone in their family gets a taste?  Assuming they get through that, what happens when she’s expecting and tells her American mother-in-law, “I’m nearly through my 10^th month!”  Her 9-month in-law will freak.

My brother knew a well-educated Japanese lady whose niece was marrying an American.  “I don’t know if they can have children,” she mourned.  “American pregnancies take only 9 months, we take 10.  Their body temperature is 98, and we’re 37.  How can they have babies?”  Well, they can!  For in-law issues:

1)      They don’t want to make you unhappy if only for the sake of their own child’s happiness.

2)      Subtle cultural issues can take years to figure out.  Pay close attention at all times!

3)      You didn’t just marry your spouse, you married the whole family.  If you think ill of each other, so be it, but shut up about it.  Unhappy in-laws will make your spouse unhappy.  That will make you unhappy.

4)      There may be severe doctrinal differences between you and your in-laws.  In those cases, cling to the Lord and remember that they, too, need Christ.

Our society has too many sub-cultures to list them all.  For example, people who work in Internet marketing use the term “blast” to mean sending out email or text messages to prospective customers.  One of my friends received an email that referred to “blasting.”  Not knowing how techies used the term, she thought she was being criticized.  Instead of blasting back, however, she asked and learned what the writer meant.

In-laws should remember, God expects each couple to establish a separate household.  Jesus said:

And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?  Matthew 19:5

Our society has no “rite of passage,” a ceremony that indicates that a child is now an adult.  Parents often have trouble realizing that children have grown up and must make their own way.  My wife’s mother was secretary of a 1,000 member church.  If we’d married there, we’d have had to invite the whole congregation and my relatives would have been lost in the mob.  We had a small wedding in the church where we met.

The pastor was hurt, but I explained that I had had to prove to one and to all that she was now mine.  He understood, and forgave me.  We didn’t drive 45 minutes to spend our first Christmas with my in-laws.  I had to prove to them and to my wife that she now belonged to me; we came for New Years instead.

However, we had had Thanksgiving dinner with them.  My mother-in-law always cooked to exhaustion – if she had any energy left, she’d bake another pie.  After dinner, I stripped the meat off the turkey and got the bones ready for soup.  She decided that I had some value, which made missing us at Christmas less painful.

Mother-in-law jokes refer to the husband’s mother-in-law because men forget the saying, “If you would the maiden win, with her mother first begin.”  Women differ greatly, but a wife and her mother differ less than most women.  It’s worth the time to praise and appreciate a wife’s mother, if only to learn how to praise your wife.

It’s important that in-laws not interfere, but your children badly need grandparents.  You must maintain solid relationships with in-laws, if only for your children’s sake.  Your in-laws raised your spouse.  Your children are going to be like your spouse and may do some of the same things your spouse did during childhood.  Most grandparents really have seen it all before.  You do not have to rediscover all the solutions of parenthood for yourself, particularly if you draw on the wisdom, knowledge, and scars of your in-laws.

The best way to deal with in-laws is to show them and your spouse over and over how much you love, appreciate, cherish, and nourish their child.  My mother-in-law could see how much I loved her daughter.  That made it easier for her to accept her mentally-defective son-in-law who couldn’t tell blue from green.

It’s stupid to recycle old mistakes your in-laws could have told you about.  Communicate!

Never assume hostility where none is meant.  Your anger is about you, not about the other person.

Children

Malachi 2:15 explains why God brings men and women together into “one flesh.”  “And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed.”  God’s plan to get servants is to have the servants He has have children.  Children can cause great stress, which is one reason He made the bonds between men and women so strong.

When my wife taught school, a hardware merchant loved helping her buy things for her classroom.  When she told him she planned to marry, he said, “May all your problems be children.”  What did he mean?

Lots of kids become picky eaters which can bring great frustration.  This attitude is forbidden by God:

Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.  I Timothy 4:3-5

If you’ve thanked the Lord for the food, it’s sanctified to God, and is not to be refused or criticized.

We had a system.  The child didn’t have to clean the plate in case we gave too much, but the plate went in the refrigerator came out at the next meal.  And the next meal, and the meal after that in stubborn cases.

When he was four, my son decided a few days before Christmas that he absolutely, positively would not eat his last spoonful of Spanish rice.  He’d eaten the rest, but the last bite was anathema.  We put it away, and brought it out, and put it away, and brought it out again.  This went on for four days.

Finally, my wife took our other son and drove off to grandma’s for Christmas.  The holdout realized that I meant what I said, if he didn’t yield, he and I would miss Christmas.  He ate the last spoonful.

Why was my son so stubborn?  He actually liked Spanish rice.  What was going on?  Where did he get the strength of character to hold out for four days?  Ever hear of DNA?  Ever hear of heredity?  The Bible says, As is the mother, so is her daughter (Ezekiel 16:44) and that Adam bore a son in his own likeness (Gen. 5:3).

I knew the passage about mothers and daughters.  When I met my future in-laws, I took a very good look at her mother.  She had her mother’s DNA and most of what she knew about being a wife had been taught by her mother.  Her mother was a truly gracious lady and her father was happy.  I decided that if my wife acted the same way at that age, it would be just fine.  Her mother later appreciated me when I told her that.

The Bible says your kids are you.  My father said that children were perfect mirrors, showing all their parents’ faults.  Children show us the things we did wrong when we were children, and what’s worse, they show us things we still do wrong.  It’s humbling to admit to your own child that you blew it and that you’re trying to change.  Kids don’t expect their parents to be perfect; I’ve never lost points with my children by confessing error, but humbling yourself before a child is no fun at all.  Covering over mistakes or sins does cost points.

Having children fling your sins in your face is painful.  It’s worse when your child marries and your child’s spouse realizes that you have the same problem.  Heredity makes problems with children more intense.

We had no static about food for years after the Spanish rice episode.  One evening, a son said, “I don’t like this.”  I swept it off his plate and divided it among the 4 of us.  “What’ll I eat?” he asked.  “Nothing.  You didn’t want it; that’s all there is.”  “May I leave?”  “No, this is dinner time.  Stay here.”  That ended it.

When my sons got to college, they were astounded at how few of their classmates would eat dorm food.  Picky kids had grown up to be picky college students.  I wonder what they eat now.

To be fair, parents have to set an example of eating with thanks.  My mom served carrots at a meal when I was about to go off to college.  Dad looked at her and said, “Do I have to keep eating these any longer?”

Mom smiled and said probably not.  We were bewildered.  It turned out that dad had hated carrots from his youth up, but he and mom sincerely believed that all things are to be eaten with thanks.  He’d set an example for us by eating carrots for decades.  My brothers and I eagerly divided up his carrots; they weren’t wasted.

My wife’s parents didn’t like Brussels sprouts or broccoli.  They had them often, and their kids never knew.  Both our families found that giving thanks for all foods was powerful testimony to people from other cultures.

But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.  Heb. 13:16

The examples you set are a form of communication.  Examples speak so loudly that your kids can’t hear a thing you say.  What’s worse, your children are you!  You’re re-living your failures.  Past a certain age, you know it will hit the wall, and you can’t stop it.  All you can do is pray and, knowing the terror of the lord (II Cor. 5:11), try to persuade.  Other child-related conflicts feed on lack of communication.  Unlike in laws who seldom deliberately stir up conflict between spouses, children seek out areas where parents disagree.  The child wants to get out of doing a chore or wants permission to do something one or both parents might not approve.

Things change visibly when a child accepts salvation and then change again when he or she decides to belong to the Lord, but an unsaved child’s heard doesn’t belong to God.  A self-centered child’s full time job is figuring out how to manipulate adults to get what the child wants.  When asking permission, a manipulative child goes to the parent the child believes is most likely to say “Yes.”

The simplest way to deal with this is to decree that a child must get “Yes” from both parents and that either parent may say “No” without explaining why.  It took us several years to figure this out, but it helped a lot.

We found that neither of us ever had all the information.  Somehow, either by accident or by design, the child seeking “Yes” often left out important details.  The answer usually became obvious if we took the time to pool everything either of us knew, called other parents, and pried more details out of the child.

Years later, we overheard one of our sons say to a friend, “Mom won't let me do that.”  His friend asked, “Have you asked your dad.”  Our son said, “He’ll ask what mom said.  If I haven't asked her, he’ll talk to her about it.  If she said ‘No,’ he’ll ask, ‘Then why are you asking me?’ and I’ll be in trouble.”

We tried to let our sons do as many new things as we could, but they had to convince both of us.

We learned the value of ill-defined feelings when a friend’s oldest daughter came back from college with a boyfriend.  Our friend was a successful businessman who was good at hiring employees and at pleasing customers.  He could not explain why, but he did not like this young man.  He told his daughter, “I’d never hire this man; you may not marry him.”

His wife had planned the wedding in her mind and was looking forward to grandchildren.  His daughter hadn’t kept her heart and was convinced that she was in love and his younger daughter sympathized with her sister.  My friend had not one, not two, but three contentious women dwelling with him (Pr. 21:19, 27:15).

It's easy to tell when a wife is unhappy with her husband – it shows in her body language, her walk, and in her tone of voice.  A couple of weeks later there was a sudden change; all three women were much more content.  They had learned something about the young man that made all three women agree that they didn’t want him in their family.  The father had been right, even though he couldn’t say what bothered him.

Communications Styles

Men and women have very different ways to communicating, which makes getting to agreement more difficult.  Men sometimes feel that women act more on their feelings than they should, but consider:

a prudent wife is from the LORD.  Proverbs 19:14b

The exact mixture of logic, emotion, and intuition that God gives a wife helps her guide her house, but it makes women think differently from men.  This story shows just how different their thoughts can be.  A wife told her husband, “Buy me a carton of milk, and if they have avocados, get 6.”  He bought 6 cartons of milk.  When she asked why, he said, “They had avocados.”

Then there’s the husband who found a note on the refrigerator, “This isn’t working.  I’m at my mother’s.”  He opens the fridge, finds it’s working, doesn’t understand why she thought it was broken, and sits down to wait for her to get back from her mother’s place.  She, of course, is waiting for him to call her.  Disconnect!

It’s likely that she’d been hinting of trouble and he’d missed it.  A friend sent me an email illustration of the disconnects that can happen between men and women.

Her diary: Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird.  We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner.  I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it.  Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk.  He agreed, but he didn't say much.  I asked him what was wrong - he said nothing.  I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset.  He said he wasn't upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it.  On the way home, I told him I loved him.  He smiled slyly, and kept driving. I can't explain his behavior; I don't know why he didn't say, “I love you too.”  When we got home I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. H e just sat there quietly and watched TV.  He continued to seem distant and absent.  Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed.  About 15 minutes later, he came to bed.  But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep; I cried.  I don't know what to do.  I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else.  My life is a disaster.

His diary: My motorcycle won't start, and I don't know why.

Men tend to focus more intently than women do, but no man should lock his wife out of his thoughts:

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4

On our first date, my wife said something profound and I started thinking about it.  About 20 seconds later, she put her hand on my arm and asked, “Where are you?”  I said I was in the restaurant, and she said, “Your mind is a million miles away; I can see it in your eyes.”

I told her what she’d said that was important and explained how I was trying to fit it together with what I already knew.  She liked the fact that I would think so hard about what she said, she found the world where her thoughts had taken me to be interesting, but most of all, she liked the fact that I opened my heart to her.

Remember how God punished Eve:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.  Genesis 3:16

A wife generally has a strong desire to please her husband.  She needs to know that he still loves and values her, and she needs to know this many times per day.  I was in a meeting and my friend’s wife telephoned from the bank to ask a question.  They talked for 2 minutes, and we resumed.  A half-hour later, she called from the post office for another 2 minutes.  “Why does she keep checking with me?” he asked.

“Because she wants you to be pleased with what she does.  That is a gift from God to men.  You need to tell her how much you appreciate her checking to make sure things happen the way you want them.”

While working from home for years, I developed fierce powers of concentration to do my job.  My wife would ask, “Why did you let child A violate rule B?” not realizing that I hadn’t known child A was in the room.

No matter how deep I was in concentration, however, I had to let her interrupt when she needed attention, if only to remind her that she was more important than my work.  She learned to wait while I hit the “save” key, then I was hers.  Sometimes she had a question, sometimes she just wanted a smile, but she needed it badly.

Suppose your wife is in a bad auto accident.  The surgeons put her back together, but she needs regular doses of painkillers so her muscles can relax enough to heal.  No matter how busy you are, wouldn’t you set an alarm clock to be sure to give her pills on her schedule to meet her physical needs and heal her pain?

A wife needs regular doses of attention and appreciation, that’s what “your desire” means.  You have to let her set the dose of attention and appreciate to meet her emotional needs and not cause her pain.  In order to be one as Jesus expects, you have to die to yourself in favor of the family.  It’s no longer “you,” it’s “us.”

Most wives think their husbands should understand them, but not even God expects a man to understand his wife, He expects him to know her:

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.  I Peter 3:7

There’s a big difference between knowing and understanding.  My wife believes our quilt isn’t square and the flowers have to be right side up instead of sideways or upside-down.  She can’t sleep if the quilt’s on the bed wrong because, she says, it doesn’t cover her when I’m in the bed.  I say it’s king-size and she’s a small woman, it’s wide enough either way, but she doesn’t agree.

There are 7 wrong ways to lay a quilt but only one right way.  For years, she was frustrated because I put the quilt on wrong when I tried to help her.  She could’ve been like women who say, “If he loved me, he’d know how I want the quilt,” but she knew I loved her.  She finally decided I really couldn’t tell which way was up.  Then she noticed a tag on the quilt and told me to put the tag in my corner.  That solved the problem.

Do I understand this?  I do not.  But I know it; I know where she wants the tag, so I put the tag where she wants it.  This makes her feel loved because she knows it makes no sense to me, she knows I don’t care; she knows I do it just for her.  When you do something just to make your wife happy, she likes it, it makes her feel loved, which, done many times per day, makes her glad to belong to you even if you don’t understand her.

This took patience.  I see no difference between the top and bottom, but the tag, I can find.  She had to be patient while she figured out how to tell me how to meet her needs.  I figured out putting toilet seats down and rinsing the sink after I brush my teeth by myself, but the quilt, I simply didn’t get.

After I told this story at a couples’ meeting, a woman mourned that her husband never laid their quilt with the eagle’s feet toward the bottom of the bed.  Her husband was passing near her and said, “The eagle doesn’t have feet.”  Her talk about putting the feet down had been wasted because they weren’t on the same planet.

Some men say I’m demeaning my wife by telling others that she cares so much about an unimportant quilt but that’s silly.  God gave marriage because He wants children.  It does God no good for a child to be born if it dies because someone overlooks a detail in taking care of the child.  Women generally worry about a huge number of details that aren’t on a man’s radar, that’s why a woman’s “baby bag” has so many different things in it, and why they vary with the seasons and with who’s sick.  A man thinks the quilt’s just as warm no matter how it lies on the bed, but women agree that there’s one right way to spread a quilt, the other 7 ways are wrong.

This doesn’t mean that all women will agree on how to spread a specific quilt.  One may choose one side for the top; another might prefer the other side.  One may want the flowers facing the head of the bed so she can see them from the foot, another might want them the other way so she can see them from her pillow.

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.  Philippians 2:4

My wife manages many details of guiding our home and children, I’m glad I don’t have to.  I concentrate on the Big Picture, but when something matters to my wife, it had better matter to me.  If I don’t care about what matters to her, if I don’t look on her things, she thinks she doesn’t matter to me.

Reporting and Rapport

Men engage in “report talk” to say what happened.  Women use “rapport talk” to build relationships.[2]  Women bond to each other by sharing stories.  Men bond by sharing experiences.  Women have a deep need to talk; the phrase “Strong, silent type” describes men who don’t talk very much.  The Bible has an example of relationship-based woman talk:

When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.  Matthew 27:19

Pilate’s wife expected him to pay attention to her dreams.  He should have relied on her feelings.  On the other hand, a wife must let her husband punish their children when necessary no matter how she feels about it:

Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.  Proverbs 19:18

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.  Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.  Proverbs 23:13-14

We never heard what was wrong with the rejected boyfriend, but we’ve seen bad marriages give a taste of the punishments of hell.  Our friend’s daughter probably saved herself from hell on earth by obeying her dad.

A man can’t protect his family without either cooperation or incarceration.  If our friend’s daughter hadn’t cooperated with her father, if she’d run off with this guy, he couldn’t have protected her.  Juliet’s father tried to keep her away from Romeo and appointed the family nurse to keep her at home.  Juliet fooled the nurse, snuck off, and got together with Romeo.  It didn’t turn out well.

Peter Pan told Wendy to stay in the clearing.  Captain Hook kidnapped her when she disobeyed and went walking in the woods.  Peter had to risk his life in a sword fight to get her back.  If he’d known he wouldn’t get cooperation, should he have used incarceration by locking her in the house?

Fathers aren’t infallible, of course.  Jacob let his daughter Dina go out to “see the daughters of the land;” Shechem kidnapped her and raped her (Gen. 34).  David not only gave his daughter Tamar permission to see Amnon, he told her to go see him, and didn’t follow the law and make Amnon marry her after he raped her (II Samuel 13).  Did David or Jacob ask their wives for advice before doing these things?

The hardest part about parenting is persuading children that your ways are right.  They may obey you while living with you, but when they leave, they’ll do what they think is right.  Unless you convince them that your ways are correct before they leave home, they’ll do something else, to your sorrow.

Sex and Communication

We communicate by what we say and by what we do.  Actions speak far louder than words - what you do speaks so loudly that nobody can hear what you say.  Of all the things married people do, sex communicates the most vividly.  If a woman deflects her husband’s desires, she’s telling him she doesn’t belong to him, unlike the woman in Song 2:16 who says, “My beloved is mine, and I am his:”

If a man won’t stop when his wife says, “Ouch,” he’s telling her that he doesn’t mind hurting her.

Sex is important to a man.  Although women enjoy sex from time to time, they're not generally as driven for sex as men are.  Most women are driven to build relationships by sharing their feelings and the thoughts of their hearts instead.  Open-hearted conversation is as vital to a woman’s well-being as open-hearted sex is to a man.

Most men know that lying about love helps persuade women to have sex, but few understand how deeply relationships matter to women.  God told Adam that he would eat by the sweat of his face (Gen. 3:19).  Eve wasn't strong enough to hunt or to farm and she had other burdens while pregnant, nursing, and raising children.  Through all the generations of our hunter-gatherer stage and of muscle-powered agriculture, a woman had to persuade a man to feed her to survive.  If a woman’s relationship with her provider fell apart, she and her children might starve to death.  Maintaining and strengthening relationships was a matter of life and death.

Having her husband open his heart to her so that she knows that the relationship is in good shape is as important to her as having his wife open her body to him is to a man.

The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.  Song of Solomon 2:8

Why is he so eager to come home?  Will he rejoice in how neatly she’s stacked their linen closet?  Or is he confident that she’ll delight in giving him the “three warms:” a warm bed, a warm heart, and warm meals?

The Bible teaches that both parties should sacrifice their own interests in favor of serving each other:

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.  Philippians 2:4

The Bible teaches that it’s fraud for a husband or wife to deny each other:

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.  Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.  I Corinthians 7:3-5

“Benevolence” refers to a gift; “due” means something owed.  Husband and wife owe each other the gift of themselves.  They must give freely to each other but the verse starts with the husband giving himself to his wife.  Couples open themselves to Satan’s temptation if either defrauds the other by failing to meet basic needs.

Owing a voluntary gift isn’t a contradiction.  You don’t have to marry.  “Due benevolence” means that if you do marry, you have vowed before Almighty God that you will freely give of yourself to your spouse based on your spouse’s individual needs as long as you both shall live.  It’s fraud against God if you don’t.

Communication

The Bible speaks highly of communication:

But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.  Heb 13:16

The Bible recognizes that it’s a sacrifice for a man to communicate as much as his wife desires.  God also expects a man to talk with his wife enough to know her needs and take them into account:

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.  I Peter3:7

If a man fails to honor his wife by listening to her enough to know how best to nourish and cherish her, his prayers bounce off the ceiling.  This can take a lot of talk.  Just before our wedding, my fiancé told me she was really looking forward to being married.  I was too.  I thought we were on the same page, but she went on.  “I really like talking to you.  Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.”

That’s more talk than a man can imagine, she was expecting hours per day!  I’d been talking a lot while dating because we couldn’t do anything else.  I thought once we were married, it would be a done deal and we wouldn’t have to talk about it any more.  The Holy Spirit led her to tell me that talking to her a lot more than I could imagine was an important part of our marriage covenant from her point of view.

I had no idea how vital this was.  A woman can’t follow her husband unless she knows what he wants.  She can’t do what he wants unless he opens his heart to her so that she knows him well enough to know what he wants.  Then she can be sure he’ll be happy with her, which makes her happy.

God made women so that they think very differently from men (Pr. 19:14).  It takes hours and hours of talk before a man can understand what a woman is saying.  If I hadn’t promised to talk to her, I’d probably have been too impatient to communicate with her enough for her to feel that I valued her mind.  A wife can’t make her husband any happier than he makes her, so making my wife feel appreciated benefits me greatly.

Opening my heart to her was scary, but Proverbs 31 says “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.”  God wanted me to know that it was OK to open myself to her.  It helped that from time to time, as the spirit moved her, she’d call me “Sir.”  The Bible teaches women to call their husbands “Lord.”

Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.  I Peter 3:6

A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.  Proverbs 12:4

There is no worse shame for a man than having a woman belittle or defy him.  Men are deeply afraid of ridicule from women; her calling me “Sir” meant that she’d respect me even when I made mistakes.  That made it a lot easier for me to open my heart to her.

Opening myself to her made me hers as opening herself to me made her mine.  The Song of Solomon teaches that husband and wife are supposed to belong to each other (Song 2:16, 6:3).  God led her to ask me to promise to talk to her and led her to show me I could trust her.  Opening my heart to her made me hers.

A wife chooses to honor her husband, it cannot be commanded.  Some years ago, I read:

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.  I Ti. 3:12

“Wife,” I asked, “do I qualify, I don’t rule you, I hardly ever tell you what to do?”

“Husband,” she said, “you rule me totally.  Your ways aren’t natural to me, but we’ve talked enough that I know how you want things done.  Nearly everything I do, I know how you want it done and I do it your way.”

She desired to please me and chose to serve me out of love as Christ chose to die for sinners out of love.  Once I understood that, I was more careful to notice how she did things and express appreciation.  It also showed another advantage of all that talking.  A woman can’t follow her husband if she doesn’t know what he wants.  The only way she can find out is through hours and hours of talk.

It’s important to keep your words healthful at all times.  While we were dating, she asked that I never fuss at her.  “I want to love you very much,” she said.  “The more I love you, the more your disapproval hurts me.  I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.”

That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and delicate.”  I don’t want to make it hard for her to love me, so I watch what I say.  God said the same thing:

There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.  Pro 12:18

I need this too.  A man can be hurt as badly by a woman he loves as a woman can be hurt by a man she loves.  My wife tries to speak so that the 10-foot area near her is the most pleasant place in the entire world for me to be.  That’s why I like hanging around her and hurry home to be with her (Song 2:8).

Keeping your talk gentle and kind is one of the fruits of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).  It avoids conflict.

Sex

God intended that a wife should welcome her husband’s physical drive and keep it focused on her:

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.  Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.  And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?  Proverbs 5:18-20

I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.  Song of Solomon 7:10

His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.  Song 8:2-3

How can a man be ravished always with his wife’s love unless she always welcomes him?  Draining off all her husband’s sexual energy convinces him that she belongs to him.  This makes it worth his while to nourish her and cherish her (Eph. 5:29).  Keeping his desire focused on her makes it much harder for other women to get his attention.  Letting him go to work with his shirt soaked in gasoline, on the other hand, means he’ll be tempted to get too near a fire and they’ll both be burned:

Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?  Proverbs 6:28

Seeing the power of his desire for her helps convince a woman that he cares enough about her to stay with her.  This is one way for a woman to be reassured about the stability of the relationship, but it matters greatly how a man approaches sex.  God commands men to set their wives apart:

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:  I Timothy 4:3-5

Some say that this verse refers to a man possessing his own body, but the “vessel” as in “as unto the weaker vessel” describes something that receives.  Jesus said that a man and wife were “no more twain, but one flesh.”  It really doesn’t matter which body the passage refers to; in a Christian marriage, there’s only one body.

“Sanctify” means “set apart.”  The only way to set a wife apart is to listen to her and get to know her well enough that she’s “but one” to her husband as in the Song of Solomon.  He has to know what makes her different from all other women or he hasn’t sanctified her.  Without sanctification, he possesses her in the lust of those who don’t know God.  She won’t like being treated that way and she won’t want to do it.

What separates man from animals?  Human beings know right from wrong and they communicate.  Men, if you possess a woman without communication, if you possess her without worrying whether you’re doing right by her, if you don’t set her apart from all other women you’re no better than a beast.

Women understand this.  An unsanctified wife may feel that any woman would satisfy her husband.  This makes her feel like a whore or an interchangeable sex toy.  Being taken is humbling (De. 21:14 22:25, 22:29, Ez. 22:10-11); being taken by a man who won’t sanctify her is humiliating.

Listen to what these men say about their wives:

My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.  The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.  Song of Solomon 6:9

Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.  Proverbs 31:29

These men know that their wives are the best there could be.  The only way a man can praise so that a woman believes it is to talk to her enough to know her well enough to praise her gifts in detail.  Talking that much is scary for men, but opening herself to her husband often enough to satisfy him is scary for a wife because being invaded takes away her independence.

As my wife’s desire to talk was stronger than I could imagine, a man’s sex drive is stronger than a woman can understand.  As a woman wants her husband to open his heart to her for hours of talk per day, a man wants his wife to open herself to him many times per day.  Ezekiel pointed out that men’s sex drive is so strong that it can lead to sodomy when men feel rejected:

Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that loatheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.  Ezekiel 16:45

The prophet goes on to say that in loathing their husbands, the women of Israel were sisters in conduct to the women of Sodom.  Modern feminist writings say that men are “too macho,” they are “too possessive,” their desires are “disgusting.”  Women are being taught to loathe their future husbands, which leads to sodomy.

Thwarted drive also opens men to pornography.  Once a man learns to find satisfaction in porn, he doesn’t have to beg and never suffers the humiliation of being told, “No.”  A man runs the same risk if he fails to satisfy his wife’s need to open-hearted talk - she’ll be tempted to share her emotional thoughts with someone else.  Emotional fornication often leads to physical fornication.

Some men say their wives don’t want to talk.  This may be because she’s been so criticized, either by her husband or other men, that she’s afraid to open herself.  Women are unbelievably sensitive; many wives interpret their husbands’ words more negatively than their husbands intend.  Men must be careful what they say.

Money

After listing many activities that wouldn’t bring happiness, Solomon told men how to find joy:

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 9:9

A man’s only source of joy is his work and his wife, but for him to rejoice with her, he must nourish her and cherish her so that she rejoices in belonging to him.  Solomon’s labors were vanity and chasing after wind because he worked to please himself, but when a man works to provide for his wife, her depending on him makes his labor worthwhile (I Ti. 5:8).  Nothing straightens up a man like having a woman lean on him, and if she teaches her children to follow him by her example of submission, he can get joy from them.

Many women have difficulty choosing suitable gifts for husbands or brothers.  This is because God designed men with one really major want and designed women to fulfill it.  If a man’s wife likes belonging to him, that’s pretty much all he wants and they can spend whatever he earns guiding the house.  If a man opens his heart to his wife and makes her feel loved, she can more easily be content to live on what he earns.

Without talk, however, a wife feels unloved and unappreciated, and she’ll want to go shopping to make herself feel better.  Similarly, a man feels unloved unless his wife encourages him to take her whenever he can.  Without that, he’s tempted to buy toys to try to make himself feel better.  The book of Ecclesiastes shows that this possession-based approach won’t bring happiness to either party.

God planned that a husband and wife should be each other’s main source of contentment so they don’t need to spend money on nonessentials.  If they meet each other’s needs, they’ll have fewer financial problems.

We’ve been talking about keeping emotion out of disagreements and sticking to the facts.  Money is the very best place for fact-based discussion.  I grew up in Japan where heating oil cost $1 per quart; I kept my apartment at 50.  For three years before we married, my wife lived in a YWCA in a room over the main boiler.  Her room was between 70 and 80 all winter.  When we bought our first house, we encountered the usual whiplash of the wallet, but we were able to install storm windows.

I waited until we got the November heating bill and laid out a cash flow projection for her.  This was before spread sheets; it’s a lot easier now.  I showed what we got after taxes.  I showed all our expenses including mortgage, cars, phone, etc.  I then explained that the heating bills for December through February would be at least double the November bill.  We’d barely make it.

I reminded her that she wanted to buy a freezer.  She didn’t want to pay interest, so we had to save the price.  “If you set the thermostat at 50,” I told her, “we can afford to buy your freezer this spring.  If, however, we set it at 70, we won’t be able to save the money until fall.”

She knew that a dollar spent on heat was a dollar we couldn’t spend on her freezer.  She bought very heavy quilted men’s underwear, took in the waist, drank a lot of tea, and we set our thermostat at “way cool.”  We bought the freezer; it served us 30 years.  We found a way to give her a choice as God gives us free will.

3 years later, we scraped together airfare so I could take her with me on a business trip.  She found a crystal vase she really wanted.  We’d been eating in cheaper restaurants than my colleagues so I could pay for her food and mine from my daily meal allowance.  This was before computers.  It wasn’t worth the effort to add up all the receipts for each meal, so the company simply gave us a fixed sum for each day.

She knew that paying her air fare had left us in a bleak position, but she wanted the vase.  “If you buy groceries so we can eat in our room,” I told her, “we can save enough out of my meal allowance for your vase.”  We ate a lot of tuna and the bread sometimes went stale, but we bought the vase.  She still has it.

We’ve been talking about keeping emotion out of discussion and sticking to the facts.  There is no topic better suited to fact-based discussion than money.  You know what you’ve spent, you know what came in.  What’s more, you know most of the upcoming bills and most of what you expect to come in.  Facts take a lot of the sting out of discussing money.  Everybody has spread sheets; there’s no excuse not to have totally factual discussions about money.  Once all the facts are on the table, the answer is usually obvious.

Belong to Each Other

God expects each husband and wife to belong to each other:

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.  Song of Solomon 2:16

I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.  Song of Solomon 6:3

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.  I Corinthians 7:4-5

Everyone knows this.  There’s a song:

Button up your overcoat, when the wind blows free
Take good care of yourself, you belong to me!

God created each woman to be her husband’s help meet.  A woman can’t help a man unless he heeds what she says.  A man would far rather give to his wife than have her take from him, and a woman would far rather give herself to her husband than have him take her.  If a man belongs to his wife, it’s much easier for her to give herself to him.  If she belongs to him, it’s easier for him to give to her.

If a woman belongs to a man, her happiness also belongs to him.  He’ll soon find that making her happy will make him far happier than anything he does to make himself happy.  If a man belongs to a woman, she will find great joy in making him happy because his happiness becomes hers.

Jesus said that spouses should not only belong to each other, they should become one:

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.  Mark 10:7-8

The only way that two people can be “no more twain, but one,” is for each of them to die to their former individual lives and be re-born into a one-flesh married unit.  This is just like salvation.  The Bible teaches that sinners have to die to their former lives in order to be born again into Christ:

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.  Romans 7:4-6

A man shows his wife that he belongs to her by opening his heart to her.  This frightens a man as much as opening herself to a man frightens a woman, but the Bible teaches that it’s safe for him to do so:

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.  The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.  She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.  Proverbs 31:10-12

This applies to a virtuous, Godly woman.  An wife unsaved may end up doing her husband harm instead of good.  There’s a saying, “If a man loves a woman’s soul, one woman is all he needs, but if he sees only her face or figure, all the women in the world won’t satisfy him.”  That was Solomon’s mistake:

Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.  Ecclesiastes 7:27-28

Solomon found joy with the wife of his youth.  In his old age, he was bitterly disappointed in women, even though he had a thousand (I Kings 11:3).  Why?  What went wrong?  Solomon knew it should have been good:

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 9:9

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.  Pro 5:18-19

Solomon knew he should have been able to rejoice in marriage, but he mourned, “a woman among all those have I not found.”  Why?  Why was his soul vexed and empty when he had so many women?

Men usually say, “Women are unmanageable,” few admit it was Solomon’s fault.  What didn’t he know?

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.  Song of Solomon 2:16

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.  Song of Solomon 6:3

I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.  Song of Solomon 7:10

The Song, particularly 8:2-3, shows that she liked belonging to her husband because he was hers.  If a wife doesn’t like belonging to her husband, his soul is as empty as Solomon’s soul was empty.

Solomon didn’t realize he should belong to one wife and be hers even though Deu. 17:17 told him not to “multiply wives” because having a lot of wives would turn him away from God.  That happened to Solomon, but having so many women also made his life empty.  He said, “my soul seeketh, but I find not.”

Solomon should have known that a woman must have a man belong to her for her to enjoy belonging to him.  Solomon had life and death power over his wives but they didn’t like belonging to him.  A man may own a woman, he may be able to command her, but he can’t make her like it.  If she doesn’t like belonging to him, he’ll miss the joy and glory God intended that she bring into his life.

The book of Proverbs warns five times that living with an unhappy woman is a hardship.  Opening his heart to a woman takes so much time that a man can’t possibly belong to more than one.  Solomon didn’t belong to any of his wives; he had 1,000 frustrated, unhappy women wandering around.  No wonder his soul was empty!

Marriage can be summed up in just two verses:

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.  Philippians 2:4

Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth.  I Corinthians 10:24

A man should dedicate his life to taking care of his wife and a wife should dedicate her life to serving and taking care of her husband and children.  Seeing her husband work hard to care for her and working hard to share the concerns of her heart makes a woman happy to belong to him.

In this life, there is no joy for a man which compares to having a woman like belonging to him so much that she delights in blessing his fountain.  God is just – He offers men and women the same amounts of joy in marriage, but it takes different forms.  A woman delights in having a man delight in taking care of her, opening his heart to her, using her skills and knowledge, and making her a permanent resident of his world.

Marriage is really as simple as a child’s song:

If you’re saved and you know it, then your life will surely show it.
If you’re saved and you know it, pass it on – especially to your spouse!

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[1] “Can Scientific Relationship Advice Save Your Marriage?” New York Times, Feb. 9, 2015, http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/can-scientific-relationship-advice-save-your-marriage/?_r=0

[2] This research is explained in “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen, she also wrote “That’s Not What I Meant”