Be Warned Men

*This picture is from a different article to the one in my piece

I have talked a fair bit on my blog, on social media, in sermons, and in other contexts about how many men whose wives work, and especially who work fulltime, are heading for disaster.

Most of these men don’t want to hear it.

Many people just can’t comprehend why you would even challenge people on this issue.

Some of their wives get angry at it being mentioned.

I don’t care, it is important that men recognize the importance of Peter’s advice in 1 Peter 3:7, “7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” Most Aussie men I know think their wife is just a man with a slightly different personality and body shape.

What do I mean by that?

Many men consider their wives to be able to equally carry the financial load, decision load, and pressure load of life, just like them. But they are wrong, desperately wrong. Some men go even further and will defer to their wife in most things, “Let me check with the boss.” These men are even more wrong. Peter explicitly says to understand that your wife is the weaker vessel and to honour her by taking that into consideration in how you live in your home. Many men ignore this because their mums taught them to ignore it, or the T.V. taught them to ignore it, or the school system, or even their wives themselves. For whatever reason you ignore this, if you do you are being foolish.

I see these households end up in two main situations:

1)     Women become masculinized, take control of their husbands, home, and become increasingly less feminine in their outlook and way of living. This has particular effects on themselves, their husbands, their sons and their daughters. It particularly breaks sons. It really breaks their sons, actually.

 

2)     Their wives up and leave. A lifestyle that they told all their friends and family that worked for them, where the woman is equal breadwinner, or even primary breadwinner, comes crashing down eventually. It might be because the woman hits menopause and her view of her husband literally changes at a hormone level. Or it might because your wife finds a man who will provide for her. Or it might because your wife’s friends all got divorced and they started going out on the town more, and she wants to discover herself. Whatever reason eventually not considering your wife will backfire on you.

Look how this woman describes it,

“I hadn’t realised quite how much I was sleepwalking through my life, or my marriage, until the day I woke up and knew I couldn’t do it any more.

I had been with my husband for 18 years. To the outside world, we looked like we had the perfect marriage, the perfect life. We had lived in a wonderful, rambling, old house on the edge of a creek, a house filled with our blended family of six children (four mine, two his). We had an open-door policy, all our friends, all our children’s friends were welcome – there would be food, wine and fun.

But right around the time Covid-19 hit, things started to change. My children, the only ones left in the house, were leaving, and menopause was hitting. My career seemed to have hit the skids – after years of writing bestselling novels, suddenly my novels were no longer making much money, and given that I was the sole provider and breadwinner, I would go to sleep every night with the albatross of financial fear wrapped tightly around my neck.

My husband had been made redundant back in 2011, and initially, I loved having him at home. He became the primary errand-runner, shopper, caretaker of the house, and of the children’s forgotten homework, driving them around town to activities and friend’s houses.

But now those children were grown and leaving, and I was still the only one working. The only thing that had changed significantly was our relationship. All of the laughter and levity, the closeness and warmth that had got us through the past 18 years, seemed to have been gone, replaced with resentment and sadness.”[1]

I think it is funny that she says from the outside it would have looked like they had the “perfect marriage, the perfect life…” Because if I had known this couple in real life, and they had asked me, I would have told the husband that his marriage was heading for disaster. I have done that with couples living in a very similar way, when asked.

Firstly, she was forced to take the financial load which likely, as she is clearly very feminist in her outlook, she told herself for years was a success story. But once the daily grind had overtaken the novelty of being a Germaine Greer model family experiment would have faded away and resentment and then contempt would have crept in and built.

When her and her husband were dealing with the kids together, she would have been more likely grateful for the help. But once the kids were gone, or nearly gone, she would have turned around and looked at this man and thought, “I don’t respect this guy, and I am going to have to put up with him for another 20 or 30 years?” Throw in menopause and these negative feelings would have been exacerbated. Which is a connection she makers herself in her own article, “learn how to have a voice loud enough to have your needs met, and open communication with your partner, encourage them to hear you, really hear you, rather than dismiss you as having a menopausal meltdown.”[2] Many men and women note how much this time can change a woman’s perspective on her marriage. Any resentments not dealt with can come back to haunt a man in this time. Him not providing enough is sure to be one of them.

Part of living with a woman in an understanding way is not simply listening to her and considering what she says and how she feels. Though it does include that to a degree. It is also understanding what God created a woman to be, and how much it harms your wife if you encourage her to work outside of that design too much and for too long. This can and often does severely backfire for a lot of men.

This woman’s husband also had no respect for her ability to feel at home in her home,

“I spent much time in bed. In truth, this had started 10 years prior, when my stepdaughter moved in with us. It was a difficult relationship, as were my relationships with the other two primary women in my husband’s life – his mother and his ex. I might hear that while I had been in town for the day, my husband’s ex had brought a friend and spent the day by our pool; I might emerge from my bedroom in the morning and find my mother-in-law helping herself to breakfast, or showing her friends around our house.”[3]

This guy obviously lacked both get up and go and any good sense. But so do many men in this situation. Once a man works out that his wife will let him fall behind her in providing, or even not have to work at all, he will take all sorts of other liberties. A man has a right to have people in his home who are part of his life. But respect is not simply given because you hold a position, you must also show that you can earn it. Many men do not understand this. This man was asking for trouble. Having your ex-wife around while your wife is out is disrespecting her, disrespecting God’s intention for marriage, not understanding women and not understanding your role as a husband. Being a model of an egalitarian lifestyle will not prevent your marriage from hitting the brick wall of reality. There is what modern society says is acceptable, and there is how God created men and women to be. These often do not line up.

Paul says this about men and work, “8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). Of course, almost the entirety of the modern church does not believe, not to mention much of society. Though many might respond that they have simply re-interpreted this passage as including the ability for their wife to work, under their authority, to help contribute to their provision. Fine, if you want to reinterpret it that way, then that is your decision. But don’t forget this, the Bible speaks from the perspective of our creator, and he knows men and women better than we do. He did not say this lightly, and if you think you can flout this teaching too far and it won’t come back to bite you, I encourage you to look around you and observe how ignoring this command has ripped our culture apart from the seams.

The only real way to truly solve this problem is for the government to change the law to make it much harder for people to get divorced. This will reign in the women who feel they can blow up their marriage post-menopause so they can find themselves, and it will reign in the men who feel like they can just exchange their wife for a bright new shiny model. However, until that point comes, a man can enhance his chances of having a successful marriage by listening to what the Bible says about marriage, rather than the voices of our culture. Of course, many men who do this will still be railroaded by bad women. But some situations are just unfortunately a part of our fallen world.  

List of References

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[1] https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/at-55-i-left-my-husband-and-four-children-and-moved-to-morocco/ar-AA24Ucf3?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=6a2f6f5748824dc992c2239e6c8476f9&ei=12

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.