Learn How to Love Your Husband: the Key is Secret Service
Learning how to love your husband can be as simple as secret service. It was the key to unlocking my bitter, angry heart and learning to love my husband again, which, in turn, saved our marriage. What I really needed to learn was how to love your husband according to the Bible! We still really loved each other, but something was very broken. My husband was angry all the time. I was bitter. We could barely talk about anything without bickering, so we didn’t. I did my thing. He did his. We slept in the same bed, but we weren’t any kind of team. (keep reading for how dirty underwear brought lasting change to my marriage) By the time we tried to communicate, we were boilers ready to explode, harboring so many hurts and slights. Using every human method to communicate that I knew, we couldn’t find solid. I was desperately trying pop psychology and self-help books. But my marriage was still failing! A year after he returned from his last deployment, I didn’t know if we were going to make it. I was trying so hard to be a “good” wife while he was such a selfish jerk. He didn’t care about how his choices affected me at all. He used the last of the milk, broke my favorite dishes with his carelessness, and left me at home with the stomach flu and a toddler so he could go hunting. If I ever dared to complain, he would shut me out completely or explode with rage. The train wreck of our marriage was hiding so many broken pieces. I didn’t know where to begin to learn how to love my husband again. While I wasn’t ready to leave, I was heartbroken. I didn’t see how I could live the rest of my life with this awful person who hurt me at every turn. Guarding my heart from him, I walked on eggshells whenever we were together. Often, I went to bed aching with loneliness, wishing he would start being what I needed. What a selfish creep . . I was. Wait, what? Yep, I’d been angry and bitter because I’d been expecting my husband to fill my heart in the places God should be. I was bitter from my selfish, unmet desires. Before I could learn how to love my husband, I had to learn how God loves me. I began seeking God’s answers for my life. At first, when I read about letting God be my portion, it didn’t make sense, but I kept reading my bible and praying about it. Lamentations 3:24 ESV “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Over time, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to my need for grace, and understanding God’s love for me. It unlocked my heart. A veil lifted. I was able to see other people as loved creations of God struggling with their own sins and hurts. I stopped seeing my husband as someone responsible for filling my heart, but as someone whose heart was so empty, he could barely function. Then, I realized I’d been keeping score for a long time. I won’t do this for him because he didn’t do that for me. Each check mark against him cemented a brick in the wall between us. Even when I had been doing the right things, I’d had the wrong heart. I would hold up my pretty list of all the wonderful chores I had done for him during the day and wait for his gratitude. Most of the time, I got nothing or a mumbled thanks, then I got hurt and more resentful. But God really convicted me, “Are you truly doing things to serve or to get something from him?” My motives weren’t pure. I wanted his love, recognition, respect. I needed to learn how to love my husband unconditionally. Unconditional love is how we offer love to others without counting the cost or return, which is how we also serve those in need. A lesson from my Bible reading came to mind, about how we are to serve those in need. Matthew 6:1-34 ESV “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Was my husband needy? Maybe not in the traditional sense, but what if his poor attitude was because I was hurting him or not fulfilling his needs? Through the lens of God’s grace, I suddenly saw my husband weighed down with pain, war, loss, frustration, disrespect, exhaustion, like black chains dragging him down into despair. I realized I had been treating him as if he were deliberately interfering in my happiness and trying to be unkind instead of seeing his pain. As God’s word poured grace and forgiveness into my heart, I began to feel His love, and I started to fill up my husband’s cup out of the overflow of my heart. Once I learned the secret to loving my husband well, I began my secret service. Finally, I felt loved enough to be able to love others. I could serve him secretly, not because I didn’t want him to know, but because I didn’t need him to. Our Father sees what we do in secret. Quietly, I began doing things without his asking, like noticing his toiletries need replacing, making his lunch, preparing his coffee, and even encouraging him to go hunting when his week has been frustrating. Part of learning how to love my husband meant understand the battles he is fighting. The peace and quiet in the woods was how he was dealing with the results of years spent in combat. Loving my husband according to the Bible even meant picking up dirty underwear. One job I would never have considered before surrendering to Christ was picking up my husband’s dirty underwear off the bathroom floor. Every morning – He walks past his closet (where his hamper is) to leave the house, but it never fails that his underwear are on the floor under the edge of the vanity. Previously, I would have ignored them, kicked them, but picked them up – ugh, no thank you. But God was working on me. When God began to show me the selfishness of my own heart and how to love my husband unconditionally, I realized that my reaction to those underwear is what really needed to change. Before, I would have nagged him about being so lazy for leaving them there. My nagging would have become an infection between us. Proverbs 21:9 ESV It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. I realized how destructive my nagging was when the Holy Spirit brought this verse to mind as I was grumbling to myself over the underwear. So I focused on learning to quit nagging. Then, I would kindly ask him to pick them up, but secretly resented those stupid underwear. God convicted me that asking nicely wasn’t enough. I needed to see those underwear differently. I could have a perfectly organized house or a home that was lived in. So, I began to pick them up with a grateful attitude. “Thank you, Lord, my husband is not in Iraq.” Today, I pray over those underwear. “Lord, thank you for this opportunity to serve my husband, thank you for a marriage that is working, please remind me that all my service is for You ultimately, and is about humility and serving without drawing attention to myself.” I pray over his day. I pray that his body will be enough to face the challenges of whatever he is called to do. Mostly, I pray that his heart will be open to see God in his day. And I pray for him to know I love him, and to bring him home safely. And I choose everyday to thank God for those stupid, blessed, dirty underwear. I am even disappointed when he remembers to put them in the hamper. I have learned how to love my husband more in doing quiet, secret things for him than I ever did by nagging him into doing things for me. When God filled my heart, I stopped being bitter. I started looking for the next thing I could do for him. My focus shifted. I started giving him real attention, listening to his needs. When his work day had been awful, I gave him some grace to find his peace so he could be the daddy and husband he wants to be. If this is so secret, why am I writing about it? It’s humbling and real. And every time I have shared this story with women whether 2 or 100, I’ve seen tears and nods. We all have our own dirty underwear mountain that we need to surrender. So, I share in case another wife needs to hear my story. Nothing changed my marriage more than loving my husband and expecting nothing in return. and Secret service is counter-cultural . . . Our culture asks what’s in it for me? But I was never emptier than when I was counting the cost and measuring his gratitude. I’ve never been more joyful than I’ve been picking up his dirty, thrown up under the cobwebby vanity underwear because I see how God has moved in our marriage and in his heart through my tiny acts of obedience. And sometimes we need reminding that we’re not supposed to blend in. Besides, the underwear was just a start. Once joining the Secret Service, I found so many ways to love my husband and quietly serve people. Those services are treasures I hold like sweet pearls. I’m know my Heavenly Father, from whom nothing is secret, sees my service and growing unconditional love for my husband.
The post Learn How to Love Your Husband: the Key is Secret Service appeared first on Heaven not Harvard.
