When Your Husband Flirts with Other Women
A bit about me – I only write for women – so I am only going to talk about things that wives can change and control in this post. I am not an expert, a counselor, a psychologist or a pastor. What I write may be helpful – it may not be. Ultimately, you will need to pray and decide what God would have you to do in your particular situation.
I’m starting a discussion here, but if there are serious problems in your marriage, please seek godly, experienced help! (Actual infidelity, active addictions to drugs/alcohol, abuse, uncontrolled mental health issues – please seek help!!! Please don’t read my blog in these cases, but seek appropriate, experienced help.)
As wives, we cannot control our husbands. We can powerfully influence them. But we can’t change them. God is the One who is able to change people. And all people have free will. My goal is to point wives toward having Christ as Lord and toward obeying His Word and His beautiful design for marriage and to pray for healing for those who are hurting.)
FLIRTING IN OUR CULTURE
Our culture thinks nothing about married people flirting with others. It’s “not a big deal.” It won’t hurt anyone! That is what a lot of us believe, at least.
Each believer will have to pray and seek God’s wisdom and determine for himself/herself what boundaries God may desire them to have. My husband has his own convictions. I do not try to force my convictions on him or anyone else.
Very few people set out intending to have an affair.
It almost always starts as a friendship or close work relationship then proceeds slowly to flirting and confiding emotional details and problems – and then, before you know it, you are feeling unloved and lonely in your marriage and you have a man just waiting to “rescue” you and shower you with compliments, romance and attention – and then the emotional affair or sexual affair “just happens.”
It is a lot harder to “just happen” when we purposely attempt to stay away from compromising situations and provide no opportunity for the flesh!
MY PERSONAL CONVICTIONS ARE TO AVOID:
- private emails with other men
- long private phone conversations with men
- being alone with a man in a house or room with closed door
- private texting or Facebook chatting
- building close work relationships with men
- allowing men to disrespect my marriage by flirting with me
FOR WOMEN WHOSE HUSBANDS ARE FLIRTING WITH OTHER WOMEN
My heart BREAKS for you! I am SO SO SO SO SORRY for your pain! You have every right to feel righteous anger and jealousy about this. (The key is not to allow yourself to slip into sinful anger.)
Some things to possibly think about:
- I am not responsible for my husband’s sin. He will stand accountable to God for his behavior no matter what I do.
- I will stand accountable to God for my behavior and obedience to God no matter what my husband does.
If he is flirting – he may either already be far from God or he may be heading away from God. The farther a husband is away from God, the less impact his wife’s words will have on him. It is her behavior, kindness, respect, and godly lifestyle that will most convict him – as the Holy Spirit works in his heart. (I Peter 3:1-6)
I can INFLUENCE my husband and make sin more or less tempting for him by my own behavior. We are one spiritually, emotionally and physically in marriage. What I do affects him. What he does affects me.
The biggest question for me as a wife would be –
How can I conduct myself wisely in this situation, how can I seek to strengthen my marriage and how can I honor God in my marriage even as I am hurting?
There may be things I could do on my end of the equation depending on my answers to these questions. Of course – there can be times when a wife may do everything “perfectly” but her husband still sins. He has a free will. He can do that. If a man is determined to sin, a wife can’t stop him, just like a husband cannot stop his wife from sinning. Each person has the ability to choose his or her behavior. And when anyone chooses sinful behavior, they and everyone around them suffer and God is greatly grieved.
- My obedience to God and faithfulness to my husband do not guarantee me that my husband will honor our wedding vows.
- But my obedience to God and faithfulness to my husband DO please God no matter what my husband does.
Pleasing Christ and bringing glory to Him is my primary purpose in this life according to God’s Word.
I think a wife could maybe pray about her approach carefully then calmly, sadly and respectfully share her feelings and pain (These are some approaches that some wives have used – I don’t know if they may work for you – please seek God’s wisdom FAR above my suggestions and pray about what God might want you to say!!!):
- “Please do not flirt with other women.”
- “It is not ok with me for you to flirt with another woman.”
- “I am not going to tell you what to do. You are a grown man and you have the ability and right to decide how you want to live your life. I want you to know that when you flirt with other women, it hurts me deeply. I want you to honor and respect me and our marriage. If you continue to behave this way – I may need to do X.” (Please pray and seek God’s will about what action He would desire you to take if your husband continues flirting. Do you need to leave the house for a few hours? Do you need to respectfully pull away from him until he repents? Listen for God’s voice and His wisdom.)
- “It is really disrespectful to me and our marriage when you flirt with other women.”
- “I want to respect you and honor you and our marriage – your behavior with this woman makes it extremely difficult for me to continue to respect you the way I deeply want to.”
- When he approaches you for sex, “I want to be joyfully available to you sexually all the time. It is very hard for me to be vulnerable and trusting of you and to open myself up to you the way I want to when I feel so disrespected and dishonored by the way you have been flirting with so and so. I am so sad about this. I need to know that I am safe with you. I need to see that you are being accountable and transparent and willing to invest only in our marriage.”
- “Is there something you need from me that I am not giving you?”
- it’s possible there could be such severe situations that a wife may have to say, “I want to be the best possible wife for you. I want to honor and respect you. But I can’t be with you if you continue to do X. It’s up to you. I won’t try to force you to do anything. It is totally your call how you decide to act. But I want you to know that this is a boundary that I have to protect in our marriage. I will do what I need to do if you continue talking about having sex with/sexting with/behaving in such a sexual way with that woman. I expect you to treat me and our marriage with respect.”
Many times, if a husband feels greatly respected by his wife – that will make it less likely that he would want to flirt with other women. Of course, a wife cannot be responsible for her husband’s behavior, only for her own. A wife can certainly seek to honor her husband and God and the marriage covenant on her end. And she can pray for God’s Spirit to convict him and bring him to repentance.
WHAT DO I ACTUALLY HAVE CONTROL OVER HERE?
I would want to possibly ask myself some questions like:
- do I communicate that I desire my man in a way he really hears?
- do I generally show my husband that I accept him and am not trying to change him in our relationship?
- have I been withholding my body sexually from him? (I Corinthians 7:1-5 says it is wrong for one spouse to withhold sex from the other – that it invites temptation to the rejected spouse and opens a door for the enemy). God desires spouses to be sexually available to each other (unless there is infidelity or major health problems or we have agreed to abstain mutually for a short time to pray).
- do I communicate to my husband that he is strong, manly, powerful, respected and emotionally safe with me?
- do I smile at my husband often? Am I friendly?
- do I flirt with my husband (if he is receptive) and enjoy him?
- do I tend to take over control of the marriage or treating him like a little boy instead of a grown man? Do I think I have to lead because he can’t/won’t? Could I step down out of control and cooperate with him more instead of bossing and ordering him around? (Ephesians 5:22-33 = God’s design for wives to respect their husbands and follow the husbands’ God given leadership) If you struggle with trying to control your husband (like I used to), check out this post
- do I treat him with disrespect? (This is a LONG list of things for most men – it is surprising to many women all the things that can make men feel disrespected. This is important because men need respect like women need love!)
- do I treat him with respect in a way that is meaningful to him as a man?
- do I make an effort to make myself attractive for my husband (not just wearing a pony tail and sweats all the time and never shaving – for example) – could I fix my hair the way he likes it sometimes and do my makeup nicely for him to make him feel like I think he’s worth the effort? Could I dress in a feminine, beautiful way that he would enjoy? Am I eating a healthy diet and getting a reasonable amount of exercise? I am not saying we need to have surgery or implants or have anorexia or be a size 2 or obsess over our looks. But if we make NO effort to look attractive to our men, they could feel unimportant to us. Remember when you were dating, how you spent an hour or two dolling yourself up to impress your man? I doubt he expects you to spend 2 hours per day now, but 15-30 minutes might be a nice gift to give to him – to show you respect him and you respect yourself and take care of yourself.
HOW TO MOST POWERFULLY INFLUENCE A MAN
- In my experience, men only allow people they greatly admire and respect to influence their decisions.
If your husband doesn’t seem to care about your feelings – you may be able to influence his feelings by becoming a godly woman he can greatly respect and by showing respect for him for the good that you see in him. THEN – if you say that something hurts you – he will be so much more likely to care about your feelings and to desire to make things better. If you are already being respectful and he continues to disregard your feelings and continues to disrespect you, that is a problem. You may need to involve some help outside of the marriage like a trusted godly mentoring couple or trusted pastor.
IF A HUSBAND IS FLIRTING WITH OTHER WOMEN
He may not think it’s a big deal. He may think he’s just being friendly. A husband may have not really thought about possible negative consequences of flirting or he may think he “can handle” the temptation. Or he may not realize there could be a temptation.
This is a sin problem and he will have to be convicted by the Holy Spirit to be able to repent and seek reconciliation with God and with me. I am not the Holy Spirit and I can’t make my husband repent! I can respectfully tell him he has hurt me. That is an important thing for me to do. But I cannot force him to change.
I Peter 3 teaches us that when a husband is disobedient to God’s Word, a wife’s most powerful move is to be silent about spiritual things and about God, allowing God’s Spirit to speak to him directly without her interference. Yelling, nagging, preaching, lecturing, shaming, pouting, whining, demanding and criticizing are NOT generally effective methods to create motivation in men. It still comes back to respect.
My respect of what is good in him will do more to convict him than my contempt and condemnation ever could. My willingness to continue to seek to bless him, and to look for the good in him “will pile burning coals upon his head.” (Romans 12:9-21) I do NOT respect his sin! But I could find what is good and respect that. And I respect our covenant before God. The more godly I am (by God’s Spirit in me) and the less I sin against him, even when he is sinning against me, the more convicted he will likely feel of his own wrong behavior and the more loudly the voice of God will resonate within his soul.
I may have to confront him. If so, I will need to take care of any sin in my own life first (removing the “log” in my eye before addressing the “speck” in my husband’s eye – as Jesus commands.) But my confrontation should be done with self-control, manners and respect. There may be times when I need to confront his sin. Please see this post http://ninaroesner.com/resources/when-it-doesnt-work/ And please see this post about confronting our husbands.
If I sin against him because he was sinning against me – I am repaying evil for evil. Jesus says I can’t overcome evil with evil, I must overcome evil with good! (Romans 12:9-21) Jesus commands us to bless those who persecute us, pray for those who despitefully use us, you do good to those who do harm to us and love our enemies – so how much more should we love our husbands?
If I sin against him by berating him, emasculating him with words, raking him over the coals, attacking him, screaming hateful things at him, looking down on him, detesting him, rebelling against him, continually spying on him, expecting the worst of him, refusing to cooperate with his leadership and disrespecting him – he will be thinking about MY AWFUL BEHAVIOR AGAINST HIM. He won’t be thinking about his own sin. He’ll have plenty of ammunition to use against ME because of all the sin I’ve now committed against him. He’ll be thinking about how crazy I am, and how smothering and controlling and disrespectful I am instead of thinking about his own sin. When I keep sin out of my life by living by the power of the Spirit of God – all he will have to think about is the purity and respect I show him, my godliness and his sinfulness. THAT is how he will be convicted, ladies!
WHAT ARE MY GOALS IN MARRIAGE?
In my mind, the goals God desires us to acheive are things like:
- spiritual, emotional and physical unity and oneness
- bringing great glory and honor to Himself
- living out the very great mystery of Christ and His church
- drawing others to Christ through our marriage relationship
- being an example of the grace and mercy of Jesus
- meeting my husband’s needs for respect and for being the leader in the marriage and depending on Christ to meet my needs
- my holiness, not necessarily my happiness
- my obedience to Him
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Related posts:
Confronting Our Husbands about Their Sin
Do I Condone Marital Rape or Abuse?
Portia’s Story – Winning Him Over without a Word
When Your Husband Sins Against You.
Handling Our Husband’s Visual Temptations.
Exploring the Depths of Bitterness
For Wives Addicted to Snooping and Trying to Control Their Husbands– please also read the comments
My Husband Doesn’t Deserve My Respect – Peacefulwife VIDEO
Biblical Submission Is Not Passivity (or Slavery)
BRENT RIGGS TACKLES THIS TOPIC
http://www.brentriggsblog.com/2012/08/marriage-man-or-hormonal-boy/
NINA ROESNER FROM THE RESPECT DARE
http://ninaroesner.com/resources/when-it-doesnt-work/
RESOURCES FOR PORNOGRAPHY ADDICTION
and for pornography issues… www.xxxchurch.com help for wives of addicted husbands… http://www.xxxchurch.com/women/spouses/what-do-i-do-when-i-catch-my-husband-looking-at-porn.html
The Peaceful Wife 
If your husband is flirting, you should walk up, kindly introduce yourself as his wife, and take over the conversation by asking her all kinds of friendly questions.
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Great idea!
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You know, there can be a really fine line between friendliness and flirting. Some women get upset when their husband is being friendly. And some women get upset when a woman is flirting with their husbands – but their husband really isn’t trying to flirt back. We definitely have to be careful about assigning evil motives when there may not be any!
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What about wives that are being friendly to other men? I’m married to a women who feels there is nothing wrong with being friendly to the opposite sex. This would included; private conversation, emailing…etc. I witness her being very friendly to a single guy at our bible study cell group, sitting next to him almost every meeting, joking and playing with his ear’s. I’m obviously not the only one who notice, the whole group begin joking about their relationship, in front of me. I notice after coming back from a mission trip that this same young man had a problem talking with me face to face, I mention it to my wife, but her reply was she didn’t know. I know I need to make a decision whether to leave or stay, but I really don’t know…help anyone?
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Jock,
I would be glad to talk with your wife if she is interested. Flirting is very dangerous – not to mention disrespectful to one’s spouse and to one’s marriage covenant. I am asking a godly man who works with men to respond since I don’t counsel men. He will hopefully be answering shortly. Thank you!
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Thank you!
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From Ronfurg (I can get you in touch with him if you want to discuss this any further in private – Peacefulwife)
Sir — Your wife’s relationship with the other man is totally out of bounds and inappropriate. Depending on your wife’s spiritual condition and maturity in Christ she may truly not realize the seriousness of her actions and may honestly believe there is no harm in what she is doing. The fact remains, however, that she is acting in a way that is harmful to your marriage and to her witness (assuming she is a Christian).
I believe you should start working on the situation by a thorough examination of yourself and repenting of any characteristics or behavior on your behalf that could percipitate your wife’s untoward interest in and attention to this other man. Ask God to reveal unseen things to you which may be playing a role in what is happening and ask for God’s intervention in what is obviously spiritual warfare being waged against your marriage. You must take responsibility for your actions and be courageous as you deal with your situation. When you are convinced that you are able to address the issue with your wife with godly fear and a pure heart, gently but firmly inform her that she cannot continue has in the past with this other man.
Her actions are very disrespectful to you as her husband. The fact that there is touching (playing with the ears) and that others in your Bible study group not only notice but even discuss her actions is ample evidence of her inappropriate behavior. Things cannot continue as they have in the past.
Remind your wife that not only is her inappropriate behavior harmful to you as it is disrespectful, and to her because of damage to her reputation, but it is also harmful to the man who is the recipient of her attention. In view of the question about what may have happened on the mission trip I would not hesitate to pointedly ask your wife if anything happened beyond what she would describe as a “friendly” relationship.
In addition to having what is certain to be a difficult conversation with your wife I also recommend a frank and honest discussion with the other man. Ask him to consider his relationship with your wife from your perspective and in clear terms let him know that your relationship with your wife is a sacred one and that you cannot tolerate damage to it resulting in part from the man’s relationship with your wife. Remind him of the “Do unto others,” command of Christ. Again, refer him specifically to the physical contact and the fact that others have obviously taken note of what has happened at the Bible study meetings.
You’re going to need to display a great deal of moral courage in having these conversations but you can have confidence that in seeking to safeguard your marriage relationship you will have God’s grace on your side. Seek God’s wisdom in determining the specific times, places, and even words to speak when having your conversaions. This is no time for passivity and yet to act in haste and without God’s wisdom would be a mistake.
One other suggestion — I believe it would be wise to seek the confidential counsel of your pastor or minister of counseling or of your mentor if you have one. Someone who knows your wife and the other man may be able to give useful insight and help you plan a strategy for winning the cooperation of your wife, and her respect for your position as her husband, and of the other man. Incidentally, his difficulty in looking you in the eye may be more the result of embarassment on his part for what has happened regarding the flirtation than from guilt over anything he has done with your wife when you were not around.
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One addition from Ronfurg:
It may be wise to stop attending that small group – and possibly even that church. The temptation may be too great.
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For wives, Keeping the Marriage Bed Pure http://peacefulwife.com/2012/08/20/keeping-the-marriage-bed-pure/
Also for wives: The Danger Zone of Guy Friends http://peacefulwife.com/2012/01/15/the-danger-zone-of-guy-friends-for-married-women/
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Thank you, I will forward this to her.
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Dear April, I am following your blog for almost year and a half now. Thank you so much for this, I know God is speaking through you.
I am in a so very sad, painful position for the past 6 months. My husband is spending a lot of time with another woman. In August they even spent 3 weekends all alone. She is present in our lives almost all the time.
Through your blog I became aware that I have been very disrespectful wife and I really pray to God to change me, to give me strenght to follow his will for my life. If I didn’t get God’s knowledge here, we would probably be separated by now.
For a very long time now my husband does not care about God, about His word and His will. And I am aware that I have to keep silent, so that Holy Spirit can speak to him.
He is very demanding person, knowing exactly everything that I didn’t do right and at the same time seeing himself as a perfect man. I am so, so tired. We have five children.
I read something in the Bible- Proverbs and I was wondering what would you say about it:
26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
Does this apply in any way to a situations like mine is?
Once again, thank you for everything and may God bless you and your family.
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Irena B,
Oh no! This is so heartbreaking. 😦
If your husband is involved in an unrepentant affair, there can be a time when it is necessary to separate. And there can certainly be a time when it is necessary to confront his sin. You won’t be preaching to him or lecturing to him about God. But this situation is not okay, my dear sister!
I pray for God’s wisdom for you.
Are you safe?
Please check out these posts:
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Confronting Our Husbands about Their Sin
Separation can be necessary. I know some women feel that God calls them to stay even when their husband is involved in adultery. This is a much bigger issue than just that he is flirting. But I believe it is often necessary for a wife to show that she respects God, herself, and the marriage covenant enough to separate until he is willing to repent. She can do this respectfully – praying for God to bring her husband to conviction and repentance and for eventual restoration of the marriage.
You may also want to seek godly counsel from a trusted pastor or biblical counselor.
Much love to you!
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I really don’t understand this flirting thing to me its cheating because keeping in contact with the third part while you are married I mean like every day that is cheating !!!!!!!!!
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Bongi,
I agree that for a married person, flirting with someone else is totally inappropriate.
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It’s not THE other woman, it’s just other women. If your husband has had an affair, he doesn’t get to talk to the OTHER woman.
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You should tell your husband in private that he is being disrespectful of your feelings. The Truth will set you free. Jesus is My Ultimate Truth Way and Life. How about you?
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To my Dearest Husband,
Regarding the big TRUST issue in our marriage, I have this to discuss with you.
You expect me to trust you. What does it mean to trust you anyway?
When you expect me to trust you, are you asking me to trust that you will not physically commit adultery by sex?
When you expect me to trust you, are you asking me to trust in your will power and self control, something that you take pride in, that even when you get to the closest possible distance to that “forbidden” line of sex, that you would still not actually cross it?
Therefore, the fact that you unintentionally or intentionally open yourself to opportunities that would take you closer to “the line”, or not walk away from opportunities of infatuation and flirtations, you expect and demand that you are totally justified with absolutely no need for any disclosure or accountability. So any of my reaction and emotion to such openness is entirely my unforgivable bad!?
But then if I can’t even trust myself with such kind of trust, knowing how vulnerable I am in my flesh, knowing how cunning Satan is, prowling around looking to devour my purity in any form, and to set out to tear down marriages, why should I grant you such kind of trust? In fact, your overconfidence in your own will power and self control makes it even more unreasonable to “just trust”, as your lack of alertness of the everyday spiritual battle will cause you defeat, because of your unawareness makes you defenseless in the reality of the everyday spiritual battle. To be honest, I cannot help but wonder if you demand such trust from me so that you can have the best of both worlds: keeping for yourself an openness to opportunity to feed the pleasure of your flesh and ego but yet do it in such a way that you can rationalize to yourself and to me that you can be trusted because you have not cross “the line”.
When you expect me to trust you, I hope you are asking me to trust that you will do anything possible to protect our marriage by a seeking the highest form of purity. I hope you are asking me to trust that you are seeking to get to the purity end of staying as far away from “the line” as you know how. I hope you are asking me to trust that you are not seeking the impurity end: just to get the rubber stamp of not crossing the line but open to opportunity to get closer, with denial of its danger and rationalization of your intent.
When you expect me to trust you, I hope you are asking me to trust that you do love God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength such that seeking His approval is all that matters to you, and therefore in order to please Him, you will seek the highest standard of holiness in your heart and in the covenant of our marriage, demonstrated in what you hear and look, who and how you talk to, seeking purity in all ways possible in your emotions, mind, heart and soul. I hope you are asking me to trust that you will resolve to reserve yourself to be one with me only, in heart, mind and soul, not just only in flesh, till death do us part.
Are you declaring, with God who testifies the state of your heart, that this is your heart’s conviction and the truthful desire and therefore I have no reason not to trust you because God is in you and in between us? While I do fully expect you to trust me in this manner as I declare that this is my heart’s conviction, are you asking me to trust you in this same way?
Love you always, your wife
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Wife in God’s grace,
This is how I pray we will all live!!!to honor God and our spouse and covenant and stay as far from the line as possible, not trusting ourselves, but only God’s power to make us able to be pure!
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I had a problem with my husband because he is very friendly, personable and easy to talk to. He had to learn to shut himself off a little bit or else his “friendliness” can be seen as something else or other women could take it a different way than him just being nice. Its sad to know that we live in a society where other women don’t respect the sanctity of other’s marriages.
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I’m facing the same problem here.. I’m sad that we live in a society where people don’t respect other’s marriage. I’m furious to those women who think flirting with married man, my husband is an okay thing
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Anon,
It is VERY SAD that marriage is not respected by so many. And our culture promotes the idea that flirting isn’t a big deal – that is NOT true! It is an extremely easy thing to go from flirting to much more serious sinful behavior. No one is immune from the danger. Pride comes before a fall when we think we can handle this and control it on our own and play with fire like that.
I wish that all people respected the sacred covenant of marriage – for themselves and for others and took protecting the institution of marriage seriously.
I am so sorry for your pain!
I hope you are able to address this with your husband calmly, briefly and tell him that it’s not ok with you and ask him to stop or not participate.
I pray he will be willing to set up strong walls to protect your marriage. Marriage is such a precious thing – it needs a lot of protection.
Thanks for your comments!
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Me too. My husband flirts all the time in front of me and my kids. I’ve told him it hurts, but he just doesn’t stop. It makes him and the other women look desperate. I really don’t like the way the article addresses the wife as needing to fix it by respecting her husband. I’ve tried this. Husbands are stubborn when they want their ego increased by other women.
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Anonymous,
I only address wives in this blog, so I don’t talk about what husbands should do. But obviously, it is never ok for a husband to flirt with someone else.
I have some posts you can search on my home page:
– when my spouse is wrong
– confronting our husbands about their sin
I am so sorry for this very painful situations. Praying for healing and wisdom for you!
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TELL HIM TO STOP. Done!
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Junie136, I find your comment to be a bit disrespectful to women who are going through this, or have been through it. Do you really think NONE of the wives here have tried that (often more than once, and in more than one way)?
Yes, telling him you want him to stop is a first step. But it’s not always “Done!” at that point. Just telling someone to stop doesn’t always make them stop or cause the pain to go away.
I suspect from your comment that you have never been in the kind of situations some wives here are struggling through. I hope you never are.
Please don’t belittle their struggles with an over-simplified “solution.” They are in pain, and need compassion and prayers.
God bless.
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Same issue with my husband. So overly nice. He says he does think the other women think like that.
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Lovette,
Your husband is very friendly with other women and nice to them? But you feel it is inappropriate?
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My husband is extremely friendly and easy to talk to if your a female of any age. He gets obsessed with whatever he is doing. For instance, he recently took up running. We do everything together to some degree. He is from a family of small athletic people. I am from a family of large non athletic people. He has been thin all his life, I have not. 20 years ago I had an accident and ended up with a broken ankle, compound fracture, gained too much weight from limited mobility. Now 20 years later I walk, where doctors said I would not. Yet, now 20 years later I am overweight by 100 pounds. I have tried my whole life to control this but my family genes are in control. In the last year my efforts which can be extreme are helping but not very fast. I have lost 12 pounds and 2 clothes sizes. While I recognize this is good progress, its not enough fast enough. My thin husband runs while I walk due to a metal ankle and arthritis in my hips and back. My doctors do not want me to run and honestly, it is quite painful. But these limitations leave me out of his running. For instance during a 5k he runs and is done in under 30 minutes, while I walk and it takes me at least an hour. He is busy chatting up athletic women while I try so hard to better myself. It is very depressing to be left behind. But I can’t quit or I will always be the fat lady just hanging around. The attention he gives to other women just crushes me. He is not bad to me, but he hurts me so bad when he doesn’t see me in public and ignores me. This last run, I stood at the finish line right in front of him to get his picture as he crossed the finish line. He ran past me close enough to touch shoulders and then right behind me stopped and bent down to ask a young lady if she was okay. When I showed him the picture, he question how I got such a good picture. He had no clue he passed me because he was looking at her. It hurts so bad!!!!
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That is heartbreaking! 😦
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This is what I thought of my husband as well untill he finally told me he was flirting for 9 years and has now claimed to have stopped after I asked him not to go on lunches with a woman co worker alone. Now im so upset about him flurting in the past , but I can say anything or feel hurt cause he said he stopped when I trusted that he was just friendly and the women just saw it differantly.
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It’s not even about that. He has to have the wisdom to know who it is important to be friendly TO. Other women? There is no reason to be friendly or chatty with other women when you are married. It is flirting.
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junie136,
Different people have different definitions of flirting and when friendliness crosses the line to flirting. I don’t see where it is sin in Scripture to be friendly to the opposite sex, even if one is married. We are, after all, called to love our brothers and sisters with brotherly love. Certainly married people can smile and shake hands at church or in Sunday school and ask people how they are doing. Or a married pastor can smile and speak to the women in his congregation, as well as the men. If a person has coworkers, he/she may smile and be friendly with them in a professional and courteous way. If someone works in retail, he/she may smile and be friendly and professional with their customers.
Different people have different personal convictions about where flirting actually starts and where it becomes sinful. I think it is important to look at a person’s motives and their heart. Of course, we don’t usually have access to that information. But I want to be careful not to try to force our personal convictions on other people. There is room for us to give grace in many situations.
Jesus spoke with married women, and even the “untouchable” Samaritan woman at the well. He treated all people with dignity and respect, including married women.
I don’t want to endorse the idea that married people can never smile and speak to people of the opposite sex. I think that would be extremely restrictive.
But it is important to guard our hearts and marriages. I do advocate not having a lot of private conversations or meetings with the opposite sex – and I do advocate, as does Scripture – to flee from sexual temptation. I also advocate not putting a stumbling block in someone’s way and trying to tempt them.
But I think we need to have balance. I hope that makes sense. I don’t want to see married people truly flirting with others or trying to use innuendo or sexual vibes with others. That would be inappropriate. But I hope we can keep in mind that friendliness and flirting are not necessarily the same thing.
Much love to you!
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The spouse’s sensitivities need to be considered. If the spouse is sensitive, OR senses something not right, then the “friendly” spouse needs to check himself or herself. The “friendly” spouse may not see anything wrong with it or it may be completely “innocent”, but the other person with whom they are being friendly may not see it that way. It could be encouraging further flirtation or “friendliness” from the other person (outsider). Why encourage that? You can be cordial and courteous, but small talk and friendly chatter? Totally unnecessary.
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junie136,
Wow.
You and I have very different views on this issue. I do understand your concerns. I definitely do. I don’t want to see anyone slip into an affair or flirt. And if a sensitive spouse believes that a specific person is receiving a friendly spouse’s friendliness as flirting – he/she can share that information with the friendly spouse, and hopefully the friendly spouse will honor the sensitive spouse’s suggestions and concerns.
But if the issue is a blanket thing with all people of the opposite gender under all circumstances – that there is never to be any kind of small talk or friendly chatter…. wow. That just makes me sad for the friendly spouse whose personality is going to be completely squashed. How can he/she even obey the Holy Spirit when his/her spouse is so restrictive?
I agree that a spouse’s sensitivities need to be considered by the more outgoing/friendly spouse. But for the more sensitive spouse – there are responsibilities in Christ, as well – I would suggest that she/he also be willing to extend grace in the direction of the friendly spouse, as well. What you are describing is extremely restrictive – much more so than Scripture ever commands or suggests, in my view. An introverted spouse who has no need to talk to other people may cause a more friendly spouse to feel suffocated with such severe restrictions.
I would certainly feel imprisoned if my husband put such restrictions on me. I talked with Greg about your comment, and he said he said, “Wow, it would be like being married to a prison warden.” That’s how I would feel if someone tried to control me and restrict me to that extreme degree. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a retail pharmacist. I wouldn’t be able to talk to my boss to ask him about his wife – who is my friend. I wouldn’t be able to talk to any men at church ever – even just to ask how their children or their wife was doing. I couldn’t ask my dad’s good friend at church, who is my dad’s age – about his medical condition or talk with him about the medications he is on or tell him I am praying for him or ask him how his wife is doing. I wouldn’t be able to have this blog, certainly. Men do comment. And I comment back to most of them. I do delete the inappropriate comments or vulgar comments, of course. And I stop anything that looks like it could remotely be inappropriate. I also copy my husband on all of my correspondence with men.
I totally agree there should be no flirting or inappropriate conversations. But to unequivocally say that one’s spouse should never engage in any small talk or friendly chatter with the opposite sex under any circumstances seems very oppressive to me – and seems that it may be so restrictive that it could actually end up suffocating the marriage. I think we would both agree that we don’t want that.
I pray for God’s wisdom for you, my sister. 🙂 I do thank you kindly for sharing your perspective. I pray you might prayerfully consider the wisdom of this view. I want your marriage to flourish and be beautiful, strong, intimate, and glorious for Christ. 🙂
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Your reply to me pretty much goes against everything that your article is about. so are you against flirting or not? If you and your husband feel no need, then that’s fine. Good for you. as I said everyone is different and it depends on the spouse.
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junie136,
I am so sorry that you feel that way. I don’t believe that my reply is different from the article. It is approaching the issue from a different angle.
I AM against flirting. But I think that you and I have different definitions of flirting. To me, flirting is when a woman or man intentionally tries to draw a person of the opposite sex toward them in a subtle or overt sexual way. It is not the same thing as just having a brief, public, friendly chat about the weather or the kids. It is possible for men and women to have brief conversations that are friendly where there is some smiling, “Hey! How are you. How’s everyone at your house doing this week? Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that the baby is sick.” That is not flirting – not unless the motives of the heart are to try to pull in the other person for a sexual kind of relationship or exchange later. It is true that it COULD turn into flirting. That is possible. But not probable in most cases.
Now, if a woman said to a man at church (not her husband), “Oh man! You are looking FINE today! And you seem like you have been working out extra lately. Let me feel that big muscle in your arm.” That is flirting. That is a problem.
I don’t believe it is wise to have many long conversations (even in public), or any private communication with members of the opposite sex. And if a spouse has concerns, that is something to prayerfully and carefully consider. I think it is wise to guard our hearts and minds and our marriages. But it is possible to go overboard either way. It is possible to be too free and to indulge in unwise conversations that could easily lead to flirting and adultery potentially. And it is possible to be so restrictive and uptight that we don’t even let our spouse breathe. There is a place of balance and, I believe, godly wisdom, in the center between the extremes. This will require sensitivity to the Holy Spirit for each spouse.
Much love to you!
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junie136,
Here are some Scriptures to consider that may help shed a bit of light on the issue at hand. 🙂
First – instructions to a young pastor:
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. 1 Timothy 5:1-2
I notice that he is to interact with the younger women and not avoid them completely – but to treat them as he would his own sister, with purity. I believe that these instructions would apply to us, as well – even though we are not pastors. This would be a biblical principle for all believers about how to treat members of the opposite sex.
Now, if there is a concern that there could be a temptation toward sexual immorality, there is Scripture that deals with that, as well:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 1 Corinthians 6:18
And there are warnings in Proverbs to avoid the adulteress and not to even go down her street. If there is someone who is a specific temptation – YES. Avoiding them is wise.
But we are to love our brothers and sisters in Christ with I Corinthians 13:4-8 kind of godly love. We are to have unity in the Body of Christ. We are to be known for our love for each other. Not illicit love, of course – but agape love. God’s love. Yes let’s guard our hearts. But let’s not completely wall ourselves off from half of the Body of Christ.
How is your walk with Christ going, my sister? It sounds like you may be in a lot of pain spiritually or emotionally?
Are you feeling rather anxious or afraid?
How are things in your marriage? Is there something you’d like for us to pray about with you?
Much love to you! And thank you kindly for having this important discussion with me.
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I don’t require a chapter in response to each one of my comments. I guess we agree to disagree. I think if many of these wives were smart they would be more in tune to that kind of chattiness and put their foot down. Goodness gracious, that is what this article is all about. There is nothing wrong with being jealous of your relationship and putting a guard on it. Wives, if you don’t feel good about it, somethings not right! Follow your feelings.
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Junie136,
One of the major themes of my blog, and something I am thankful God showed me after over 14 years of my being a rather controlling, disrespectful wife… and repelling my husband the whole time… is that I can only control myself. I can ask for what I would like from my husband respectfully. But it is not my job to be his Holy Spirit or to make him do what I think he should do – which I tried to do for many years. Of course I may confront sin, if it is actually sin. I have a post about that and the importance of our motives if we should do so.
When wives attempt to be the thought police or to control and monitor their husbands over every little thing, it creates an angry mother/little boy relationship that repels our men and sabotages the very intimacy we most desire. It turns out – that as we learn to understand God’s design for us as women and wives and as we treat our men with honor, respect, and faith – we generally have a much more powerful (in a productive, healthy way) influence on them than when we try to force our way.
I long for every woman to experience the freedom, peace, grace, contentment, security, and joy available through Christ!
Much love!
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For those who are interested, please check out these posts:
Signs Your Husband May Be Feeling Disrespected (and Unloved)
Control and Healthy Boundaries
Fear Fuels Our Need to Control
But, I’m Right!
Husbands Share What Is Disrespectful to Them
Godly femininity
My Identity in Christ
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If I may speak just for myself, I dislike the “little boy” framing of women in relationship to their husbands. I guess that I can think of no greater put down than that reference followed with patronizing. I’ve been married only once to the same woman for many decades and she has never given me even the impression of being her “little boy!” (By the way, I am in agreement with your comments of August 5, 2015 at 6:57 am.)
Having counseled hundreds of men, many feeling so low and inadequate, that to refer to them as “little boys” is, I believe, to be one of Satan’s best tools to drive a wedge in a couple’s relationship.
If I could sent one message a wife who is struggling in her marriage, I would encourage you to “brag up” your husband to others (but be real and truthful), be absolutely ready…on the edge of your chair…to forgive him…regardless of whatever he has said or done, keep no account of his wrongs but keep an extensive account of his “rights” and point them out frequently, be exceedingly patient with him, let him lead–at all costs, pray for him but never push him to pray (that’s the work of the Holy Spirit), allow him to be human (he is your “movie star”–so don’t compare & DON’T swoon over anyone else), don’t nag–ever, be faithful to him, keep yourself up (be modest and yet attractive to him), never replace him with your attention to the children, and don’t say hurtful things about him on social media.
I think I could preach a lesson on each of these topics and more! I’ve heard so many sad stories from men…and I know that I am hearing one side of the story…but I’ve heard some of the same things over and over again. I’ve seen incredible marriages–trashed–but brought back together by God in miraculous ways…and most were a direct result of faithful prayer…by a wife…and even by unfaithful husbands! But you can’t pick it up at a drive-thru window, nor is it going to be ready in 45 minutes delivered to your front door. It takes time…sometimes gut-wrenching time, blood, sweat and tears time, crying out to God and the absolute full forgiveness found only at the Cross of Jesus.
I have a wonderful wife! But I wasn’t a wonderful husband. I have a praying wife, but I was unworthy of her prayers. I have a loving wife, but I was most unlovely. I have a submissive wife…and that testimony is why I am saved today! Wives: You’ll never know what you will discover inside of your husband until you first surrender to Jesus and then live under His assigned authority in your life: your husband. And then brace yourself for the most fantastic marriage you could never imagine!
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M and M,
Thank you very much for sharing. 🙂
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EXACTLY!
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Peacefulwife & thegreenlatina: it would be great to ask the Respected Husbands to share what are their tell tale signs when friendliness becomes a rationalization for flirting. This is a topic that brings a lot of hurts to wives who can only suffer from it privately alone.
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Maybe we can get some husbands’ opinions on that!
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Thank you, Peacefulwife! I enjoy your blog and find it quite helpful! Keep Blogging as the Spirit inspire you. May Christ’s compassion to redeem broken marriages for the Father’s glory keep motivating you to share from His Word as the Spirit gives you words to share!
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Thanks, Wife in God’s Grace – please keep praying for God to use me for His greatest glory and the edifications of His church and marriages in the church!
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I just got done reading your two posts on this subject and wanted to comment. First of all, I do not want to make light of these issues. I know there are women who are dealing with an extreme amount of pain because of their husbands indiscretions and I know what a problem and marriage-breaker pornography can be. My comments are not aimed at women who are dealing with big problems like those. I agree those things need to be seriously dealt with by contacting a professional. My comments are aimed at those who are overreacting like I did.
When we were first married if I thought my husband just glanced at another woman, or if he would say someone was a nice-looking woman I would be upset and he would know it by the way I was acting. He wasn’t doing anything more than I did, who of us cannot say that we see someone and the thought enters our mind that “He’s a nice-looking guy” How wonderful that my husband felt comfortable enough and trusted me enough to want to say his thoughts out-loud, but my reaction sure made him think twice about it.
One time he and his crew had just got back from hauling hay bales at a farmer’s I did not know. My husband commented to the other guy’s, “That Mary _ _ _ _ _ _ _ sure is cute isn’t she?” I was instantly jealous. I know my face showed it, I know my actions showed it. After the other guys left, hubby asked what on earth was wrong and I told him that really made me feel uncomfortable when he said right in front of the other guys that he thought another woman was cute. Imagine how small I felt when he told me that Mary was about six years old!!!
One thing I think we really need to keep in mind, is when we as a wife react with such insecurity and jealous, it can truly be a major turn off to our husband. Turn the table around in your mind and try to see how you would feel if your husband was acting toward you the way you are acting toward him. Not very attractive is it.
We get so much wiser as the years go by. Now I can look back and realize that any jealousy I felt came from my own insecurity instead of my husbands behavior. If I felt like I’d put on too much weight on, or hadn’t been taking care of myself, I easily felt threatened even though there was no threat there.
Thirty eight years of marriage has been such a blessing to me. We both are now so secure in our love for each other, if he describes another woman to me and says “She’s a nice looking gal,” I don’t think anything of it and I can say the same thing to him. What at one time I might have thought was flirting with a waitress, I now realize is him just being friendly and giving her a hard time.
Again, I am no way saying these things to anyone who is dealing with truly sinful behavior on their husbands part. But I thought maybe I’m not the only one who was seeing “flirtation” behind every rock when truthfully there wasn’t anything there
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Norma,
I am SO thankful for your willingness to share your situation. I think you make some extremely important points! It is easy for us to get a lot more jealous than is warranted at times. An angry, jealous, hateful looking, hateful acting, hateful sounding woman does NOT attract her husband to her! She repels him. It is our godly femininity: our respect, our delight, our confidence, our faith, our joy, our peace that draws our men to us. That is where our power is!
Thank you for taking the time to share and to help us see how you have grown and learned to have so much more intimacy and peace over the years. What a great example you are for us now!
I like the way you handle things now. Great ideas!
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Norma,
I wonder if you might allow me to use your comment as a post in the coming weeks?
Thanks!
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I would be honored!
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Thank you so much, Norma!
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Norma, I, too, thank you for sharing your perspective on this topic. I’ll be the first to admit that this is a very touchy issue for me as I dealt with this for a long time with my husband.
My marriage hit the rocks as soon as it began anyway and so there were a whole lot of different issues that came into play (among them being adultery and violence) so I can’t look at this issue as benign in any way. While I completely understand and appreciate your point of view, to me, it is either flirting or it isn’t. No in between. By saying that I am not saying I think you are wrong but that maybe on this topic their might be a bit of leeway in interpreting it differently in different marriages.
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OH, I couldn’t agree with you more. I know that there are women who are dealing with very serious issues and with unfeeling husbands who show their wife absolutely no respect when it comes to this. I am truly sorry that this was the case with you. Every husband and every marriage is different and your statement that things will be interpreted differently in different relationships is completely accurate. I just know in MY case, I was getting jealous when there was no reason to do so, like when my husband commented that a little girl was cute.
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I think you and I basically agree and I’m just feeling really sensitive on this topic. 🙂
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I really like your post. I am having the same problem that you had before. I really don’t know what to do. I feel that my husband is getting tired of me being jealous. I am trying to trust my husband and not being jealous, but everyday when he at work i always think that he might do some wrong against me to make him feel better. And then, when he gets home we start arguing. Both of us didn’t have any good night together lately. Would you please tell me more how did you get over the jealouse and stay in your wonderful 30 years marriage? Or if someone can help me, please advise.
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Myheartbleeding,
I am SO sorry for the pain you are experiencing!!!!!
It is VERY hard not to be jealous when your husband is giving you so many reasons to be jealous.
I will say that anger and bitterness will not draw him to you. So I believe you will want to work through the anger with God and work to forgive your husband – that way you will have God’s power to help you be the godly wife He wants you to be and you will be able to work on respect and cooperation.
I would recommend reading this post http://wp.me/p28uul-1dP about what most husbands find to be disrespectful. And then I would also read the post at the top of my home page called, “101 Ways to Show Respect for Your Husband – bu MintheGap” and I think you will find some helpful ideas that will breathe life into your wounded marriage.
Norma and other ladies- I am sure you will also be responding with encouragement and godly suggestions soon!
With love, precious sister!
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Myheartbleeding,
How are things going this week?
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I’ve once read, in a scientific source I don’t recall the name, that many times the root of jealousy lies within things of the past, not the present and, regarding wives being jealous of husbands because of little things he does (not porn or adulterous things), it may actually come from her relationship with her Dad in her childhood and teenage years, for she didn’t get all the attention she wanted/needed because her Dad treated her friends or sisters better than he treated her, for example, and so now she links that with her husband’s acts as if he is “turning into her Dad” and loosing another man she loves. That type of jealousy leads to feelings of unworthiness, and she’s likely to put all her feelings of emptiness from her past into the present, not because of her husband, but because of her Dad. She’d then have to analyse where the root of jealousy comes from, separate her husband from her Dad in her head and, most importantly, forgive her Dad and learn how to move on.
One tip for when a woman flirts with your husband (and he doesn’t flirt back) is to, instead of feeling jealous, feeling proud because he’s yours! Congratulate yourself for him choosing to marry YOU and not any other women in the world and smile at the women pitifully. 🙂 hahaha 😛
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Mysterytopursue,
You are right! There can definitely be times that baggage from childhood or even from previous relationships can create unfounded fear for women and jealousy in current relationships. Great point!
And I LOVE your tip. Awesome attitude! Thanks for sharing!
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My husband has been flirting with another woman. I only found out today. I thought we were fine. I am very shocked. I don’t even know what to do or think. I feel confused, lost. I need him out of my life.
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May,
I am so sorry to hear that your husband has been flirting with someone else. That is SOOOO painful and upsetting – and rightfully so. 😦 My heart aches for you. I believe there is plenty of hope for you at this stage – and I pray that you won’t give up on your husband, but that you might be able to react with God’s power to heal your marriage and create the marriage of your dreams for both of you that will greatly glorify God. If you want to talk more, my email is aprilc@sc.rr.com, or you may comment more here.
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It makes me deeply sad sometimes because I can see clearly that men do not love as fully as women are capable of loving. When a wife loves her husband, it is a love that encompasses both her “love” and her “lust”.
I really struggle with jealousy and don’t know how to get over it.
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Anna,
Women and men are definitely different in the way they look at love and how they process love and emotions. But I don’t think it is fair to say that men do not love as fully as women do. There are some men who don’t, yes.
What kinds of things are causing you to feel jealousy, specifically? Let’s hash through this stuff and address it. Because – unfortunately – when you are feeling jealous and angry – you will tend to lash out disrespectfully and repel your man even further. And that is not what we want! In order to attract him back to you – he will need to see your respect and faith in him. That can be a tall order when you feel that he is violating your trust.
So, if you are up for it – I will be glad to walk with you on this journey and we can talk through the things that have you feeling jealous and come up with some healthy, godly ways to react that might actually bring healing and life to your marriage instead of greater destruction.
I want to see your marriage thriving and Christ being greatly glorified!
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I came across a text message on my husbands phone about 4 months ago, to someone that I did not know. It was a very flirtatious conversation between the two with cute little pet names and all.I didn’t say anything about it at first because he didn’t even try to keep his phone from me. He wasn’t acting paranoid or touchy about me looking through his phone. And actually i was looking for a text message for him, that contained some info he needed, while we were traveling. AND, my husband is very social in this small town we live in and he knows so many people. It kinda stung me a bit but I overlooked it. At a later date he was having some problems with one of his social web pages and asked me to see if i could fix it. We both have each others passwords to all emails and social web sites. So i logged on to fix the problem when popped up a message from this same person that he was texting. I didn’t respond to it but I did look at it and the conversations had been going on for a while and they were in the same form as the text messages. Not only with her but with others. I then confronted him about it. I asked him why he was talking to women in this manner and he didn’t know what to say. I asked him if he would be okay with me talking to other men in that same manner and he did respond with a no. I reminded him that he had made a promise to never cheat on me and he then got defensive saying that he never has. I told him that he may think that flirting is not cheating but I was brought up being taught that if you think it in your heart and mind then you have already committed the sin. (Matthew 5:28) He still did not agree with me but he said it would not happen again. He deleted and blocked all the women that he had been talking to on the social sites as well as his phone. Just last month I discovered that he has been flirting again. Same type of conversations, all different people. I don’t know how to deal with it. I have shut myself off to him and I know that is not helping matters but I can’t stand the thought of him touching me or being cutesy with me, knowing he is that way with other women. I used to be a constant encouraging part of his day. I always flirted with my husband and made sure that he knew how much I loved him and appreciated him. I would leave loving messages on his websites or send him random text message throughout the day or leave cute notes on the bathroom mirror, cook his favorite meal/desert. This is why it hit me so hard because I don’t understand what it is he needed from these other women that I am not giving him. I have diabetes and there are days when I am not feeling 100% but I always smiled when he was around because I did not want to drag him down. I want to say something about my recent discovery but I just don’t know how to make him understand how hurtful it is. He has noticed my pulling back from him and he asks why but I just say that I’m not feeling well. Maybe some advise??
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Anna,
How heartbreaking! 😦
Is he a believer in Christ?
I believe that you will have to respectfully confront him again. I think you will likely have to do a lot of praying and make sure you can do this without sinning against him, but tell him something like, “I am devastated that I found you are flirting with other women again. I want to trust you and be able to freely give my heart to you. But I don’t know how not to shut down sexually and emotionally on you when you flirt with other women. That is NOT ok with me. It leads to adultery. It is disrespectful of our marriage covenant. It dishonors Christ.”
And then you will need to see him repent. You may decide to ask him to take FB off his phone or not to have a smart phone, even.
This isn’t about you – it is a high, like a drug, probably, that he gets from knowing he still “has it” with other women. It has nothing to do with whether he loves you or is attracted to you. But it is foolish behavior that EASILY leads to adultery. There is not to be even a hint of sexual immorality among believers according to Scripture. So I believe that this is inappropriate behavior for any Christian married person.
I don’t think that telling him you aren’t feeling well will do anything to solve the issue. 😦
If you have not read “The Excellent Wife” – I would encourage you to read it! She has a lot of help about confronting our husbands’ sin. I also have a post up about when our husbands wrong us today, actually. YOu may want to check it out, too.
Please let me know how you are doing! Would you like my prayer team to pray for you today?
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We are both believers in Christ and that being said, I know that the enemy is real and he is out there to destroy families. I would very much appreciate your prayers as I will be praying and seeking God’s guidance on what I should say and how to confront this issue. Thank you for your words of encouragement and I will update you on how things are going.
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Ok! We are praying for you! If there is anything you need, let me know.:)
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Hi..
iam not a jealous woman but i think iam starting to because i feel so jealous when i found out that my husband flirts with other women..He has promised me that he wont flirt again but he still does it…He said that he didnt meant it that way itwas just a joke..but to me it was not a joke ..it really breaks my heart when he does this….iam now feeling insecure and i don’t know if i can trust him that enough.. He doesn’t flirt often but i can always found out about him because iam praying so much to the lord for guidance and protection against all these things..My husband thinks its just a joke sharing but i told him that when you get married theres a boundary and i don’t like that much..feeling soooo insecure
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Heleni,
Are you both believers in Christ?
I completely agree that flirting with other people is totally inappropriate once a person is married. It is just a recipe for disaster.
BUT – if you want to draw your husband’s heart back to you – I believe you will need to find your strength, confidence, joy, hope and faith in Jesus. He will be able to give you the power to respond in a godly way no matter what your husband does – but also, when you have your faith squarely in God, you are more confident, at peace, joyful, calm, not afraid/upset/worried/anxious and that attracts your husband back to you.
You can definitely tell him that it hurts you when you find out about him flirting.
But please make sure you remove ANY behavior on your part that he might find to be disrespectful and then study what respect means to men and to your husband in particular. Be sure you are cooperating with his leadership, and not trying to control and boss and dictate to him.
As he feels more and more respected and sees you have faith in his ability as the leader of the marriage – that has a REALLY powerful effect on husbands and will likely draw him back to you.
But your purpose must be to seek God first and His will and His glory – not to try to control your husband or make him do certain things.
Then, you will see God’s incredible blessings in your marriage!
I’m right here if you want to talk more. 🙂
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thankyou indeed…i really appreciate ur help..yes we are both christian believers and i will try my best to focus more on what u advice..God bless you n pray for us too..thanks indeed
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You are very welcome!
I’m here if you want to talk more or have concerns or questions – I’ll do my best to point you to CHrist and His Word. 🙂
MUCH LOVE!
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Jean,
I am not sure that you are reading the same post!
Here is where I spent a few paragraphs about that flirting is sin (that would go for either spouse) – and sin means it is wrong before God:
FLIRTING IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
I believe that flirting (outside of marriage) is VERY dangerous for people who are married. It is an extremely slippery slope from flirting to infatuation to an affair. I don’t think ANYONE is above this kind of temptation. Not only does flirting make it possible and more probable that someone will begin an affair, but it is just downright DISRESPECTFUL toward a person’s spouse and marriage covenant. I realize my position may seem strict. I believe that there is never a good reason to flirt with anyone but our spouse. It is playing with fire and we will get burned or at the very least we will cause pain and disrespect to our spouse. The Bible commands us to FLEE from sexual immorality. And we are also commanded not to allow even a “hint” of sexual immorality to be among us.
A marriage covenant is a VERY serious thing in God’s sight and to your husband or wife. The price of flirting with someone else is just way too high. I want to encourage ALL married believers to commit to not flirting with anyone but our spouses. We need to build STRONG hedges of protection around our marriages.
I believe that means avoiding whenever possible:
private emails with the opposite sex
long private phone conversations with the opposite sex
being alone with the opposite sex in a house or room with closed door
private texting or facebook chatting
building close work relationships with the opposite sex
building close friendships with the opposite sex
These things are HUGE opportunities for sexual temptation. It may take months or years for the temptation to fully peak – but it is just better, in my opinion, not to go there.
1. Because the husband and wife are ONE in God’s sight and He has made them one – we are NOT RESPONSIBLE for our husband’s sin (which I stated) but we can and will influence them towards us or away from us by our own behavior. We are always either drawing them towards us by what we do or pushing them away. They do the same with us. But we can’t control what they do. We can’t MAKE them not sin. We can’t MAKE them not flirt. We can say, “I don’t want you to flirt with other women.” “Please do not flirt with other women.” “Flirting is wrong. It dishonors our marriage.” But I cannot force my husband not to flirt. He has a free will, just like I do. My husband cannot force me to do what is right either. God gives each person a free will.
I think that focusing on what we can’t control is a colossal waste of time. I can only control my behavior, my attitude, my obedience to Christ, my relationship with Christ – and the less I sin myself, the more I obey God and am intimate with God – the more attractive I will be to my husband. BUT – I don’t give my husband respect and cooperate with his leadership because of HIM or to control him or to attract him – I respect him and honor his God-given leadership out of reverence to God and obedience to God’s Word – NOT because my husband “deserves” it. IF my husband is SINNING or asking me to sin – then I must resist him. God’s authority trumps my husband’s God-given authority. But if he is not asking me to sin – then God commands me to respect and submit to my husband.
2. Many women, like me for the first 15 years of my marriage, have no idea what respect and disrespect mean to men. It is a whole world that I was blind to in the past. That’s a HUGE problem! God commands me to respect my husband – so it is my job to figure out what my husband needs so that I can meet that need. And in our respect-famished culture where there is almost no respect for any God-given authority any more – it is an even more important concept for me to study because I sure won’t see it in the world. (And husbands ought to be figuring out what love means to their wives – but I am not talking to men, only to women). My post from 9-19 is extremely eye-opening about what some real life men say is disrespectful to them. It is a VERY long and detailed list. There are countless ways that we as wives tend to disrespect our husbands without even realizing it. I used to do that and was unknowingly sabotaging my marriage. (Yes, there are absolutely many ways men are unloving and don’t realize it, too. My husband has posts about that on his blog.)
3. God commands wives to submit to their husbands “as to the Lord.” If my husband is flirting – I certainly don’t cooperate with that. Flirting is SIN – as I have mentioned multiple times in the post. A sin is WRONG – it is anything that misses the mark of God’s holiness. We certainly do not cooperate with infidelity! Adultery is a HORRIBLE SIN that greatly dishonors God and the marriage covenant as well as the spouse being sinned against! We cooperate with our husbands’ leadership when they are not asking us to sin or asking us to condone sin. That is the command of God for wives. Husbands represent Christ in the marriage and wives represent the church. (Ephesians 5:22-33)
4. There are REASONS people sin. There are always reasons they do what they do. THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT! To me, it helps me to understand why people do what they do if I have to deal with someone else’s sin. Pornography is a huge sin and it is an addiction that literally changes the neuronal pathways of the brain exactly like an illegal drug does – and the damage is permanent. People use it because it temporarily makes them feel great. Just like anyone can become addicted to an addictive drug, people can become addicted to other sins, too.
I am not at all blaming women for their husbands’ sin. Husbands are guilty for their own sin – NO MATTER WHAT THEIR WIVES HAVE DONE! They will stand before God and have to answer and give an account for every sinful thought and word and action – unless their sin is covered by the blood of Christ and they have repented of their sin. God will hold husbands responsible for their every adulterous thought and for flirting and infidelity regardless of how respectful and cooperative their wives were. They are to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave Himself up for her even if their wives are hateful, cold, disrespectful, controlling, unforgiving, bitter, manipulative, verbally abusive and withheld themselves sexually from their husbands every day for decades. The husband is still accountable to God not to sin himself.
Wives will also stand individually before God and have to give an account for every sinful thought, word and action – unless our sin is covered by the blood of Christ and we have repented. I am not permitted to sin just because I am sinned against. Gary Thomas “Sacred Influence” says, “We are most tempted to sin when we are sinned against.” For my husband to flirt or commit adultery is SIN on his part. I am not responsible for that. But I am responsible for my behavior, my relationship with God and my own sin. If I add more sin to his sin – that does not make things better! Jesus commands me to overcome evil with good and not repay evil with evil.
God commands us to forgive others (that includes our husbands). After the Lord’s prayer in Matthew, Jesus adds that if we refuse to forgive others when they sin against us, we won’t be forgiven by God. That does not mean we must trust a man who has been untrustworthy or unfaithful. A husband would have to rebuild trust and prove himself trustworthy over an extended period of time before a wife would accept him back sexually or into the home, for instance, if there was infidelity going on. Or a wife may decide she can’t trust him after the infidelity. That is not sin on her part – to decide she can’t trust him. And some husbands may decide to continue on in infidelity. A wife is not responsible for that. All she can do is make sure that she is right with God and that she is honoring God in her thoughts, conduct and behavior. And she can pray for God to change her husband.
I love wives and women and want to see women have the power of God in their lives – even if it means doing things that are counter-intuitive and counter-cultural so that we can honor God in our marriages. The way we have been trying to have power in our marriages in our culture IS NOT WORKING. God’s design is foreign to our culture – but it is beautiful and it works.
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How are you this week? In Christ, April Cassidy
http://www.peacefulwife.com
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I would like to thank everyone for taking the time out to reply. I will think about the counsel that I have been given before moving forward. As you can imagine this is heart-wrenching, please keep us in your prayers, and again, thank you.
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Jock,
You’re welcome – you will be in our prayers – and I will ask the prayer team to pray for your marriage, too!
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April, I think my wife could possibly benefit from the counsel of another Christian wife, is it possible that I could give her a more private setting email to contact you? She is a new Christian, but I believe a very sincere child of God. She has shown a willingness to adjust to the things she is learning from the word, but still struggles with things that she is use to doing before she came to Christ. I know she struggle with giving me the proper respect in many different areas, but it has less to do with me, and more to do with her past. I don’t know if she would email you, but I would like to try. Thank you again.
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Thank you April, I told her that I requested your email, and she said that she will be willing to email you. Thank you again, you’re a God sent!!!
P.S. Her name is Dana, just in case it goes into the junk mail.
God Bless
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Perfect!
Sent from my iPhone
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Jock,
I have a post up today for women about flirting – and will have another one up tomorrow about signs that a relationship is getting dangerous and what to do.
Thanks!
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Jock – How are y’all doing?
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Hello April,
I guess I’m doing okay. It’s really kind of weird place for me, but my wife and I are now in counseling, with a Christian Counselor and we’re dealing with a host of issues. At the present moment we are dealing with “trust” issues. We had a big setback last weekend when we got in a heated argument about nothing in particular and she begin to tell me some negative things that her ex-boyfriend said about me, and one of the guys that she have been talking and emailing too.
I believe God shield me from being so offended that I didn’t just walk away from our marriage at that point, and look beyond her faults and see her needs. I believe at the moment she has cease from the previously mentioned behavior, until we can at least talk about it with our counselor; but to say that this is hard, would be a understatement.
I choose to believe that she is a good wife, and in time, will honor me as the man in her life, and grant me the respect that is due to such honor. I know that she continues to try, and if given the right tools, she will be the blessing that I envision when we were married.
Thanks for asking,
God Bless!!!
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Jock,
I love your attitude and know that God must be working powerfully in you for you to be able to approach her like you are and with the faith you have in Him and in His ability to heal this marriage. Beautiful! I pray for wisdom and for God’s power to continue to guide you as you seek to represent Christ to your wife.
I am available if she is interested in corresponding with me.
May God richly bless your marriage and draw you both to each other and most of all to Himself!
Thanks for the update!
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Hi,
I have some strong issues about this subject. My husband is a charmer, friendly and very easy to talk to. He also does photographer on the side as a way of extra income for us and our 2 young boys.
Just recently, my husband and my family and I were walking around Wal-Mart and I was standing in front of a shelf looking at an item. I remember looking over my shoulder to ask my husband a question when I saw this young attractive girl coming down the aisle from behind him. I knew she was coming before my husband even saw her and she eventually came and stood near him to get an item off the shelf and then she walked away. I watched my husbands reaction the entire time and when the girl came and stood near him, he stopped staring at me to stare at her and- I can’t really explain it- but I know he was looking at her and admiring her. Then, to make matters worse, after she walked away he turned back to me and said, “She is pretty.”
Of course, I got angry because all he had done earlier that day was criticize me from my hair to my clothes -which are now too big, because I recently lost 22 pounds and everything looks sloppy on me. We dont have any money at all and I dont buy stuff like clothes because we have a ton of bills. I have been very insecure about my looks for as long as I can remember because I am short and my hair isnt they way I would like for it to be. I got angry when my husband said the other lady was pretty because she is everthing I am not, and he KNOWS that.
Then when I told him how hurt my feelings were, he never apologized and then he said, “I only said she was pretty because I was looking at her from a photographers point of view…she may have not been discovered yet.” I don’t believe that for one minute. And then he argued back and said, “She is a little girl. It’s not like she is a woman.” To me, she didnt look like a little girl. She was at least 5’7, and was maturely developed…so I don’t know why he won’t admit he is lying to me. He argues back and say that I shouldn’t feel bad because he felt like he could commuinicate this to me…but I told him, I don’t really want to know that he finds another woman pretty. It hurs my feelings a lot.
And then his final arguement is that he said I acknowledge other men all the time when I am watching TV/movies/plays and he doesn’t get jealous. My defense to that is those actors are not right in front of me and I will never see them in real life, unlike him, who finds another woman “pretty” while at the store. So I am wondering, if he finds another woman “pretty” when he and I are not together, what’s to stop him from handing them his photgraphy business card and telling them to call him for a photo shoot? (He’s done this by the way…I’ve seen him do it at Wal-Mart, the mall, etc) and his reason is always photography. But for some reason in the back of my mind, I don’t believe him. I believe he has women kind of like reserved, so if he and I are not together anymore, he can call them up and they’ll come running. And there is no telling what goes on on his Facebook page…I guess I will never know. 😦
Please help if you can, and let me know if I am being irrational about this.
Thanks,
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By the way.. I had 2 kids back to back over the last 2 years. Our youngest just turned 1 this month. I’m 5 feet tall and weigh 124-125.
My husband is 6’1 and is about 228 pounds and he is 18 years older than me.
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Married for 5 years,
I’m glad to hear from you!!! I’ll be glad to give you my thoughts, but my goal is going to be to point you to Christ and also to your power in the marriage.
First, a few questions:
– does your husband have a relationship with Christ?
– has he been married before?
– does he have a history of infidelity?
– do you have a relationship with Christ?
I believe that you might find Shaunti Feldhahn’s book “For Women Only” helpful. She does statistically accurate polls and surveys of Christian men to determine how they think, process and feel about many issues. One of the topics is about how visual men are and what that means exactly. I don’t think that most women have any idea HOW DIFFERENTLY men think than we do and what it means that they are “visual.”
Some of what you are experiencing with your husband, I believe, may just be that he is a man and he is wired to be very visual and he looks at life very differently than you do. For you to look at life the way he does, something would be wrong with you! Some of what he is doing is not necessarily “wrong” – it is possibly just part of being a man. Men will notice beautiful women.
Once they notice the beautiful women – how they handle that is the critical thing. There is a huge difference between noticing and appreciating beauty vs. lust. Unfortunately, we as wives can’t really tell what our men are thinking, necessarily. We can make assumptions. But, unless they tell us, we don’t know for sure.
For a man to acknowledge that a young woman is beautiful or pretty is not necessarily a sin or wrong or even an insult to you or your marriage.
The fact that your husband felt open and safe enough to tell you what he was thinking may actually be a good thing.
Now, if he had said she was sexy or he was interested in her – THAT would have been a big problem. Saying she was pretty – may not have been the wisest thing for a husband to do – but does not mean he is committing lust in his mind with her.
Wives tend to be REALLY sensitive about stuff like this and feel like if a husband acknowledges another woman is pretty on the planet that means that her marriage is not secure. That is usually true. Men notice beautiful women. But then they are usually able to quickly draw their thoughts back to their wives.
Yes, there are some men who ogle and lust and that is WRONG.
But here is the thing.
Even if he was lusting in his mind – which you do not know he was – you can’t control his thoughts.
And the thing about men is that the more you try to control them, lecture them, nag them, preach at them, criticize them, and say negative things about them – the farther away they go emotionally.
Would it have been more tactful for your husband not to say something? Probably. Did he do something wrong? Maybe not. Some women would handle that by saying, “Yep. She sure is pretty.” And appreciating the fact that they are married to a man and then be glad that he is going home with them and that he is redirecting his thoughts back to his wife.
In an ideal world – husbands wouldn’t ever look at women more than a second or two and would be totally unaffected by all other women and never ever have a lustful thought or temptation.
We live in a world where all people are sinners. Our husbands aren’t perfect. Neither are we.
If you want to draw your husband back to you – my personal suggestion would be to not make a big deal out of him saying that a woman is pretty. If he is flirting or having private conversations on FB or meeting privately with women – THEN you have an issue and would respectfully and calmly need to ask him to stop doing those things out of respect for your marriage and for you. I talk more about that below.
If the only issue is that he says “she’s pretty” when he sees a woman he thinks is pretty – it may not be a big deal.
Husbands take great pride in how their wives look. We as women hate that sometimes because it can feel like too much pressure. But men get a lot of their sense of worth and identity from having a beautiful wife. AND they are very visual. Some men are more visual and verbal about it than others. He is asking you to show that you respect him and yourself by taking some effort to make yourself look attractive – that means a lot to him. It is not wrong that he appreciates it when you are able to take some time and effort for him. That is just what he likes.
When wives just had babies and are sleep deprived and exhausted, it can be very difficult to fit in time and energy for primping. But when you are able, trying to do your hair, clothes and make up the way he likes it tells him that you respect him and love him and that he is important to you.
This is a SUPER common misunderstanding between husbands and wives.
Your power will be in your ability to show him respect and avoid disrespect and to NOT freak out about small things. Of course, that means we must be able to distinguish between the small things and the big things.
If a husband is seriously flirting a lot and won’t stop with the intention of having sex with another woman, sexting other women, going to strip clubs, kissing other women committing adultery, severely addicted to pornography or seeing prostitutes – THOSE things are BIG problems.
At that point – a wife would have to say something like, “This is not ok. I want to be on your team and tackle this thing together. But what you are doing is extremely disrespectful to our marriage covenant and it is sin. I will do whatever I can to support you, pray with/for you to fight against this sin together. But here are the things I need from you in order to be able to trust you – X, Y and Z. And I want us to visit a godly pastor together. I want us both to be totally transparent with each other. No secrets. I want to make this work. What is it that you need in our marriage?”
🙂
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Thanks for sharing your feedback. By the way my husband and I are both Christians. Please keep us in your prayers.
Thanks
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Of course!
Lord – I lift up these struggling marriages to You. You know the pain and the feelings of betrayal that many of these wives (and some husbands) are experiencing. Please let each spouse seek You first above all else in life. Remove any sin. Convict all of us of anything that offends You. Fill us with Your Spirit and let us be the godly wives You desire us to be. Use us to greatly bless our husbands and children. Teach us about Your beautiful design for marriage. Teach us about the power You have given us as women – help us to learn to use our respect, admiration, faith, trust and cooperation to influence our husbands Your way. Help us to lay aside our own desires and any idols or pride. Tear down any strongholds of Satan in us – unforgiveness and bitterness, and any lust or any sin in our marriages. Help us to breathe Your life and strength into our marriages for Your greatest glory! In the Name and power of Christ, Amen!
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Thanks again for your advice and wisdom and your prayers. May God bless you
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OH!
And if you do decide to show respect to your husband, and cooperate with his leadership – do NOT do it for him, or to control him. That won’t work! Do it out of reverence and love for Jesus. That is what will bring power and healing into your marriage.
You may also want to check out this post a 40 year old single Christian guy wrote about insecurity. He has a lot of experience with it, too – but it is an eye opening post. May God richly bless your walk with Him, your marriage, your husband and your precious children!
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Was it wise of him to say that? No. It was thoughtless. But I am not talking with him. I am talking to the wife. Talking about what other people should do is useless and a waste of time.
My concern is the wife’s response. That is all she can control and I am talking with her.
She may certainly say that she doesn’t want him to say that and that it hurts her feelings.
And hopefully he will apologize and not make that mistake again.
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I have been married 32 years and I completely understand but have no advice to offer as I am today consumed with depression over him noticing other women and ignoring me in public. My heart goes out to you. Your story is so real to me. Lots of tears today.
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Thanks for writing April, your blog is a source of encouragement and enlightenment!
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By the way, I am working on a “Recommended Resources” page for my blog ~ would it be ok if I put your blog as one of them?
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You are welcome, and sure, you may list it. It’s great to meet you Samantha!
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April, thanks for linking to my blog and my post about flirting… feel free to offer your readers my free ebook on Internet pornography which is 1) the reason behind a lot of inappropriate flirting and 2) the secret sin of the Church today. It’s an epidemic with Christian men AND women… and it doesn’t have to be a full blown 24 hour a day raunchy porn obsession… many men “dabble” in it but don’t realize the risks they are taking and the damage it does to them individually and of course to their marriage. The free ebook download is here: http://brentriggs.com/stuff/details.aspx?id=8
Brent Riggs http://www.seriousfaith.com | http://www.linkytools.com
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I’ve longed to see a post like this. Im a devout Sikh and and understood so much through Christian teachings about this particular topic. My fiancé has always thought it is ok to talk to his single female friends and be this emotional shoulder to cry on in their times of need. Obviously…with me expressing my concerns about this, it comes across as jealously. I stand my ground and will continue to respect him as I wouldn’t even consider behaving in such a way with other men. He hasn’t ever understood how damaging this is, and what this leads the women onto think. I will take on all the advice given in this blog and I really am thankful for coming across such advice
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Akaaal,
It is wonderful to meet you! Many people in our culture today think that flirting is no big deal. They don’t stop to think where that path leads. Is it possible that it may not go any farther or cause a problem? Maybe. But is it possible that some seemingly mild flirting could help people develop romantic feelings for each other and lead to an affair? YES. It’s important to guard our hearts.
I am looking forward to hearing from you any time!
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I am a man. Not married but I have a girlfriend. I love her very much and I used to flirt a lot and I actually danced with a few girls in the past on different occasions. I don’t know why it was in my heart to do such things but I don’t want to anymore and I just want to be able to forgive myself and forget the old me and continue to change and get better. Please pray for me and my girlfriend. Thank you
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Brock,
Of course I will pray! I pray your life might honor God and bring Him great glory. I pray He might give you wisdom as you lead in your relationship and thank Him that He is able to forgive us. We all need His forgiveness desperately! I know your girlfriend will feel much more respectful towards you, and more trusting and more full of faith and hope as she sees that you protect your relationship from outside temptations. That will make her feel much more safe and secure.
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
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Hi Peacefulwife,
I would like some prayers if I could.
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. The last three year’s I haven’t gotten a thing (This is our 5th VDay together, 4th since being married), but still prepare my husband his favorite dinner, and this year made a nicely decorated cake, decorated the house, made homemade chocolates, gave him a nice massage, and gave him a very nice ending to the evening. He said days ago he had something special in store for me this Valentine’s Day, so it made my heart race, since I know it’s not like him to get a gift for me on Valentine’s Day.
Well, he had to work a 14 hour shift as a military soldier, and was working at a preparatory exercise on the nearby military base. He comes home, with no presents, and tells me over dinner what one of my presents is. This isn’t word for word, but basically what he tells me:
“Well, there was this really attractive (enter rank here) woman who I had been talking to the last few days at the exercise, because I didn’t really like the exercise too much. She was really smart, and we got along very well. One of the other soldiers asked if I was going to ‘hit that’ (Have sex with her) and I said blatantly, ‘No! I’m married dude’ and he retracted, ‘oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know’. So, there was this really attractive woman, and she seemed interested in me, and I didn’t do anything about it. See, even when you’re not around I’m thinking about you…so that’s one of your Valentine’s presents, and the next one you’ll get next week.”
I smiled but inside felt so disgusted. Being a good husband, doing your daily duty to be faithful to me, is the great Valentine’s day surprise I was waiting for? I’m not a materialistic girl by any means, but this left a bad taste in my mouth. My husband has always been a flirt, I’ve talked to him about it, but it doesn’t change anything. Am i selfish for wanting something more “personal” than him telling me “hey, it’s cool, I didn’t cheat on you today – surprise!”. I’m pretty mixed with emotions right now, and haven’t talked to him about it, because he seemed like everything was fine and dandy.
Am I selfish, materialistic, over dramatic, or are my feelings appropriate for this situation? I’d just like some insight, because I feel like this isn’t what I should consider “a gift” after 5 years of marriage.
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Bleeding Heart,
WOW.
Ummmm…. You know, I try VERY hard to help wives see all the things to respect in their husbands and try to help wives understand that masculine perspective. But – WOW. Your husband is making my job REALLY, REALLY hard right now.
Maybe if he had changed what he was saying to something more like,”Honey, I just want you to know that I only have eyes for you. I make sure not to flirt with other women because I respect you so much and cherish our marriage so much. I always strive to guard my heart and avoid even the appearance of evil because I want to honor God and honor you and our wedding vows.” That might have gone over a lot better!
I understand why you were disgusted about that.
I think he does not understand how women think and feel very well at all! And his way of explaining what he was trying to say was NOT a smart approach with his wife.
I think that he led you to believe he was giving you a material present. That made things even worse.
His faithfulness is to be expected – because he is married. You can definitely tell him you appreciate him being faithful. I tell my husband sometimes, “I am SO THANKFUL that you are always so incredibly faithful to me. I want you to know how much I appreciate that”.
I am not sure how strong your relationship has been lately – but you could address him politely, calmly and gently and say, “You know, maybe what you meant was ‘I really love you and respect and honor you by not flirting with other women and by making sure I protect my heart and our marriage?’ Is that what you were saying? I do appreciate that. I was kind of confused about why you built that up as a ‘gift’ for me for Valentine’s Day. I trust you and expect both of us to be faithful. I’m really glad you didn’t give in to temptation. I’m proud of you about that. But I feel kind of confused and hurt.”
And then maybe he can clarify or save face somehow?
How are you doing tonight?
Thanks for the comment! I’m sorry you had such a yucky experience! I don’t think he really meant it to be as bad as it felt. I think he was trying to show you that he is honoring you. That is my interpretation.
Let me know how things go, please!
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My husband and I have been workin on our relationship and he has been flirting with our friend’s wife. We have discussed and I’ve asked him not to do that, knowing that it leads down a slippery slope. Tonight I came downstairs to find the two of them laying on top of each other on the floor kissing. I’m so pained and shocked and don’t even know what to do or how to repair this damage to our relationship. We have two small kids (8 mo and 3) and I feel like this has damaged their innocence, even though they know nothing about it. Am I wrong to be grieving for our entire family and not just myself? How does one even attempt to restore a relationship like this? Early on in our marriage we had gone through a really rocky time and the situation was reversed, with me at the fault. I was always so thankful that The Lord brought is stronger together. But things were admittedly bad on both sides back then, not to mention we were so young and really didn’t have a good grasp of marriage. But 9 years and two kids later, I would expect the relationship to be more mature. He said he never saw flirting as harmful. And I tried not to nag him about it because I know no good will become of that. And now what I feared has happened, and this was the wide of his best friend of decades. What do we do to patch this up?
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Hurting,
OH NO! That is not good. My heart completely breaks for you!!!!! 😦
Your children don’t know – so right now, they are mostly impacted by your emotions. I would certainly not talk about this in front of them.
Do you have a trusted pastor or Christian counselor you can see?
Are either of you believers in Christ?
Personally, I would say something like, “I understand the temptations you are facing. I am a huge sinner myself, and I know I have caused problems just like this in our marriage in the past. And I thank God every day that you were able to forgive me and we moved past that. I want our marriage to be strong. I want it to honor God and I want us to set a great example for our children. I love you and I am committed to you and want to try to heal what is broken here. But for me to be able to remotely begin to be able to trust you the way I want to – I want you not to see her or talk to her at all anymore. I would like for you to give me access to your phone and all your email accounts, please, to show me that you are willing to be transparent and accountable. And I want us to see our pastor ASAP. I am devastated this has happened with so and so. I don’t know what to do!”
And when your emotions are more stable, eventually, you may want to calmly ask him what it is that he needs from you in the marriage. And then listen. And consider what he says, and think about the things he asks for that are reasonable (not that allow him to cheat!) and be willing to talk about changes.
I would recommend that you read some of the posts linked at the top of my home page about disrespect and respect and see if it is possible your husband may have been feeling disrespected in the marriage? I don’t know. But then show him you are willing to work to become the wife God desires you to be, as well… that you want to work as a team to heal from this.
How are you today?????
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I can honestly say I never thought this would happen to me! When I married my husband, who was very strong in his faith, had great Godly character and integrity, I felt as though I could trust him with my life. He was so forthright with his commitment to me and his desire to please God with his life, I never thought I would be a betrayed wife. But at the mark of our 16th anniversary, here I am.
He said it started with her grabbing his hand at a work party, he tried to pull away but she was persistent. Nothing else happened that night, he tried to talk to her about it but then the flirting began. The innocuous banter and flirting back and forth at work (they don’t work together every day). He said he enjoyed her attention, thought she was pretty, like the fact that someone liked him and felt like he was not “really” doing anything wrong. Said all the usual things you hear everyone else say: “I wasn’t expecting anything from it”, “It was fun”, “It felt good to have someone like me”. The exchange of phone numbers started the texts. It built up to the exchange of gifts and Valentine’s Day presents. He continues to say that it was not emotional, she means nothing and that he didn’t realize all he had to loose until… I found out. He stated that it was only two weeks when things became “intense” with some texts and calls while I was out of town. He assures/promises me they never met outside of work, there was never any physical contact other than the hand holding at the party.
He wrote her a very complementary note and expressed how taken and moved he was by her but that he need to basically stop the flirting and just be friends, to just get off the train. This was his break-up letter. I wanted to see if, in fact, he was breaking things off. He would not ask her for the letter, so I hired an IT forensics person to retrieve it from our computer. It breaks my heart to hear how he complimented her and how he had “never been so moved, interested or taken by a woman”. It rings over and over in my head. He said that I should not have gotten the letter. He had confessed his sin and he knew the letter would only cause me pain. Was I wrong for wanting to know how emotionally invested he was?
The “infatuation”/emotional affair was a time frame of 2 months, with the last 2 weeks starting the secretive texting mentioned about. He’s ready to move on (it’s been 2 weeks since the discovery) and try to restore our relationship. He tells me he is committed to me and our family and that is all he wants. This is the first time we have ever had a direct attack on our marriage.
I think I handled the discovery very well. No screaming, yelling, threats. Was calm, cool and collected…. I was completely numb.
I’m naturally a suspicious person and felt I was not wrong in wanting to know what all went on. He says he has come clean but I have a nagging instinct that there may be more to it. How do you put away these thoughts? How do you feel good about your self knowing how taken (in such a short time) he was with this woman? I’d love to speak to her and verify what he has said. But do I do this and risk looking like a crazy, jealous wife. Should I?
Shocked and Confused
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Shocked and Confused,
I am SO SO SO SO SOOOO sorry that you are in this situation!!!!! 😦
I’m extremely thankful that it didn’t seem to go any farther than it did. That is a huge blessing. I’m glad that you didn’t completely lose all self-control when you found out. I’m sure it was the most painful experience of your life. 😦
I would strongly suggest – and this is my opinion – NOT confronting that woman. I have seen women do this, and I have never seen it end well!
My highest concern for you is your own relationship with Christ, your spiritual healing – and healing your marriage.
I used to believe that certain people were “above” infidelity. When I was a naieve 21 year old – I believed that. But now, at almost 40 years of age, I realize that ALL people are perfectly wretched sinners and without God we are all capable of just about any sin.
Has your husband talked with you about what he wants in the marriage now? Has he said how he plans to be transparent and rebuild trust?
What do you want in the marriage? Reconciliation and healing? Or revenge?
Your answer will have a huge bearing on whether the marriage can be healed.
You have so much power here – when you do things God’s way. You may want to check out some of the post links at the top of my home page – particularly the one about disrespect, respect and biblical submission if you are a believer in Christ – which it sounds like you are.
Then let me know how you are doing and what God is speaking to your heart. I will be glad to walk beside you through this valley.
Much love to you! Praying for God’s greatest glory in your life and your marriage!
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I wish my ex-boyfriend had given his flirting with other women as much thought. His flirting and need to have his ego stroked tore us apart and hurt me more than I ever expected anything could. I thank God every day for giving me the strength that I need to get through it. I fail God in many ways every day of my life, but I know he is there to give me the strength to get through the pain my ex-boyfriend’s flirting and philandering caused.
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Jodi,
I am SO sorry for your pain! Flirting with other people can easily lead to such heartbreak. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here! aprilc@sc.rr.com
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I would love for you to be praying for my marriage as well. 9 months ago I came across some text messages on my husbands phone that were with a female coworker. They had been going out for lunch and drinks 3-4 times per week. They even had a cute little name for their time together. My husband assures me that this never was physical but none the less it was very damaging since about this same time he also started telling me he didn’t love me anymore. He told me that they were giving each other marriage advice since she was also in a tumultuous marriage.
Well we stuck through and went to counseling and he promised never to have such a relationship with her again. 3 months later his behavior was so secretive and bazaar I knew something was up…I found that he had been deleting all the calls and texts between them for the last 3 months he hadn’t stopped at all. Not only that but his behavior with all women seemed very inappropriate including getting their phone numbers or email addresses. Again once he was caught it was all I’m sorry and I want our marriage to work….this time I asked him to block her number which he did.
This week again I found that he had been deleting her messages and phone calls and had obviously taken the block off here number.
There have been others too even one so brazen as to tell me how sexy my husband is…what do I do with this??? When is it enough??
I have been going to counseling regularly. I pray for him everyday. I cry out to God for help…I have asked God to help me give up control… I have tried to stop snooping and tried to understand….and be as dedicated of a wife as I can…
He tells me everyday he doesn’t want me, he doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t want to try….that he is only here for our son…but then he doesn’t want to leave and he wants to work it out….
I need help….I am utterly torn as to what to do as a Christian woman and mother….I question does God really want me to stay in this mentally abusive situation
He is a believer…sorry this is so log it just all came out….
Any advice would be wonderful!
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Trisha,
It is wonderful to meet you!!! I really hate that it is under these circumstances.
What does your counselor say? Is your counselor a believer?
If there is unrepentant infidelity going on – I don’t believe that the Bible says you must stay. I don’t believe it is a sin to separate – and then pray and seek God’s face and wise counsel. I have seen God heal marriages even after infidelity. But if your husband refuses to repent – I would not personally want to live there. My personal opinion is that I would pray for God to draw my husband back to Him and eventually heal our marriage – but my greatest prayer would be for God’s will and His glory in His power and timing.
I assume that you are telling him it is not ok for him to cheat on you.
It’s possible that it may take your husband seeing some consequences for his spiritual eyes to be opened and for him to have conviction and repent.
I pray for God to direct you and for God to open your husband’s eyes to what God sees.
And I pray that God might show you anything in you that offends Him as well and that you may be willing to lay aside bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, pride, anything that you may have put above God, etc. It will take God’s Spirit working in you to bring you healing to work through these things. But it is my prayer that you may be able to lay aside any sin that entangles you so that you can have GOd’s Spirit working full force in you for His glory!
Much love!
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Thank you. Not a direct client here but I love what you are doing!!!
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I am very shocked and devastated that too many so called Christian men feel entitled and justified in lusting , flirting, indulging in sexual fantasies, and lying to their wives about these issues including their use of sexually stimulating images of other females. It seems like Christians have adopted some bogus ideas about male and female sexuality promoted by secular sources. Why do you advise betrayed wives to try and draw the heart of her arrogant, lecherous, selfish husbands back to them ? Only a very small percentage of abusive men ever stop abusing. And sexual misconduct is abuse. These men lack character and integrity. I am married to a guy whom I met at church and he refuses to give up his predatory practice of hunting around for attractive females to stare at and flirt with. He has an attitude of unfaithfulness and total disrespect. After years of suffering from his leering and forcing eye-contact with his targets, I want to divorce him. Men who indulge in this kind of junk are like wolves in sheep’s clothing. Aren’t we suppose to shun them and treat them like tax collectors and heathens? Where in scripture does it say that a hurting wife is suppose to draw back the heart of a wicked reprobate husband ? If they refuse to repent, why prolong the pain of broken-hearted wives by telling them to try and draw the heart of her husband back ? Have you had personal experience dealing with deceiving, cold-blood sex addicts? Nothing is as important to them as gratifying their greedy flesh and indulging in evil desires. Could it be that the failure of so many guys who profess Christ, to strive to maintain sexual purity and integrity is a major cause of collapsing marriages and a weak ineffectual Christianity in America? According to recent findings using brain imaging technology, men are not the only gender that is “visual”, so are many females. So that is no excuse or explanation why so many self-centered married men choose to lust after others. Maybe if women would have the courage to refuse to accept this inappropriate damaging conduct from men, there might be more motivation for these jerky-acting men to clean up their creepy habits.
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Thea,
Thanks for your comment!
I’m so sorry you are in so much pain. 😦
Jesus said lusting with the eyes was sin. That it is adultery in the heart. It is wrong. Absolutely.
He also says that unforgiveness is sin, and that looking down on others is sin (Pharisees), and that holding on to hatred is equal to committing murder in our hearts. These things are equally offensive to our Holy God.
In Micah 2:16, God says that He hates divorce. And in the New Testament, Jesus talks about how God doesn’t want married people to divorce – and that Moses only allowed that because the people’s hearts were hard.
In Ephesians 5:22-33 we find God’s design and pattern and purpose for marriage. Marriage is supposed to be a living parable of the profound mystery of Christ and the church for the world to witness. The husband is supposed to represent Christ by showing selfless love and humble, servant-leadership to his wife. The wife is supposed to represent the church by showing reverence, adoration and honor for her husband’s leadership as the church does with Jesus.
Obviously, husbands are sinful humans – just like wives are. We are all wretched sinners before God. We all desperately need the blood of Christ for our billions of “dollars” worth of sin debt.
I would like to encourage you to read Shaunti Feldhahn’s book “For Women Only” to get a very real glimpse into the minds and hearts of men. Absolutely, pornography is a HUGE problem in the church. Porn addiction destroys marriages and families and it is utterly sinful. Lust has definitely paralyzed many men and keeps them from being the godly men and leaders that God desires them to be.
There are times where we do need to confront our husbands’ sin – Matthew 7:1-6 and Matthew 18 give us some godly ways to do this with respect, gentleness and humility – making sure we take the plank out of our own eye before we address the speck in our husband’s eye.
There is actually a vicious cycle in many marriages where a husband feels disrespected, he turns to porn, the wife finds out and disrespects him even more, that pushes him further into the very sin she hates, she disrespects him more… and it continues to spiral downward.
At the top of my home page is a link for help with porn addiction.
If you want to salvage your marriage – your power will be in looking at your side of the marriage, your own sin, God’s commands for wives and getting rid of any sin that is keeping God’s Spirit from filling you. Then God can partner with you and fill you with His power to be the wife He desires you to be and He may do miracles and work in your husband’s heart. He is able to change other people in ways we cannot.
I Peter 3:1-6 is God’s most powerful rx for wives whose husbands are far from Him and living in disobedience.
I’m here if you want to talk or would like me to pray with you. aprilc@sc.rr.com
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My husband tends to be friendly and gentlemanly, and many women seem to interpret this as an invitation to flirt with him. He has gotten better about recognizing this and drawing a line with most women, and I appreciate that and have told him so. I do trust him, and he is a faithful man and good husband.
However, he often tries to be “the hero” to other (usually unmarried) women, and I am very hurt when he does this.
For instance, he felt bad for a lady whose husband left her shortly before St. Valentine’s Day… so he bought her a dozen roses. He says he got yellow, because he recalled me saying many years ago that yellow roses signify “friendship.” So then, as an afterthought, he bought me some red roses. He even implied that he originally wasn’t planning to get me anything, but since he was getting flowers for her, he “should probably” get some for me. I was mostly hurt that I was an afterthought, but I was also hurt that my gift was not any more creative, thoughtful, or meaningful than hers. Other than the color, it was the same gift, same price, same effort (actually, in my mind, less effort, because he was already there to get roses for her!).
He still doesn’t get why it upset me, and thinks it was fine to buy another woman flowers–even though he rarely buys them for me (4 times in nineteen years of marriage–I wish I could say I wasn’t counting, but when it’s that rare, it’s easy to recall).
A few days before Christmas, he found out that one of the clerks at the local gas station was going to have to work on Christmas Day. He felt bad for her, so he bought her a Christmas gift of chocolates and a small toy for her son. Normally, this would not have bothered me; I’d think it sweet… except that he didn’t get me anything for Christmas, and in fact, did not help me at all with buying or wrapping anyone else’s gifts–even his mom’s. Yet he could put in the time and effort to go buy and wrap a gift for this young woman he barely knows?
When I tried to tell him why I was hurt, the next day, he went and bought me some chocolates and thought that I should no longer be upset, because “now it’s equal.” I told him I don’t WANT to “be equal” to other women in his eyes, I want to be his wife, the *most important* woman in his life! He didn’t seem to get it; he just expressed frustration and said that he’d “never understand women.”
And it’s not just gifts; sometimes it’s a task or chore that I’ve asked him to do at home that still isn’t done weeks or months later (I won’t nag), but if a neighbor or co-worker asks him to do the same chore, he’ll have it done for them within a few days–and he won’t accept pay for it.
I know that a lot of it is that he appreciates the gratitude he gets from these women who truly weren’t expecting anything… but I really don’t understand how he could think it wouldn’t bother me when he does things for them that he won’t do for me!
Except for those two “afterthought” gifts, I’ve always shown gratitude and expressed pleasure when he gets me a gift or flowers or does something I’ve asked–but I must admit, it’s rare that he does these things for me, and becoming more common that he does them for others. 😦
I don’t want to discourage his generosity, but is there some way I can get through to him how much it hurts me when he treats other people (especially women) as a higher priority than me? Is it that he thinks he doesn’t need to be a hero for me, the way he is with these women? Any ideas how can I fix that?
Prayers would be appreciated.
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Amy,
That is thoughtful of him to help these other women. But it is also quite disrespectful towards you – considering the way he is treating you in comparison. 😦
Hmmm….
I am sure he feeds off of the admiration and respect and delight of these other women.
I think there are definitely things you can do to encourage him to want to be YOUR hero primarily.
Check out the posts at the top of my blog about disrespect and respect. And then I’d love to hear from you again. Let me know if you think he might be feeling disrespected at home by something you have been doing without realizing how it came across to him. And let me know what things you might be able to add to show respect.
Then we will talk about the next step!
Are both of you believers in Christ?
Your power is going to be in focusing on putting Christ first by MILES in your heart, and by focusing on obeying what God asks you to do, applying Philippians 4:8 to your thinking about your husband and getting rid of any disrespect and replacing it with respect and a cooperative attitude.
Much love to you! I am praying for God to change you first. Then I feel sure He will change your husband in His time. But even if your husband never changes, you can still draw closer to God and live in His Spirit’s power and become the woman of His dreams. 🙂
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I am really emcouraged by your post and msgs peacefulwife. I am struggling with so many jealousy issues. Is it ok to email you regarding these issues?
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Thank you, Peacefulwife!
I have read several things on your blog about showing respect (and not showing disrespect!), and though I strive to do many of them already, I have discovered a few more things that I didn’t realize he might view as disrespectful. For one, I have ADD, so I really struggle with listening fully or, more often, refocusing my attention, such as when he starts speaking to me while I’m reading and I am not even aware that he’s talking, much less talking to me. I’m not sure how to work on this particular one, but there are other areas I can definitely improve upon.
Another is asking, “why?” when he tells me what he’s decided to do (or how he’s going to do it). I don’t ask “why” because I disagree with his approach or distrust his decision, but because I really DO want to know why he chose it so that I can better understand how to help him. But I can easily re-word it to come across better, so that he doesn’t think I’m questioning his decision or methods!
Also, correcting or clarifying something when he’s telling a story about us–I never realized that this could seem disrespectful! I’ll learn to bite my tongue.
But I think the most important one I found was in your “Respect and Sexual Attraction” post: to let him “chase” me, not to initiate sex too often! I was honestly shocked by that. I have been the one to initiate most often, everything from flirting to saying “I love you” to physical intimacy. I thought all husbands *wanted* to have a sexually aggressive wife–at least, that’s what they all SAY they want! It really makes sense now, but I never would have thought of it myself, so thank you (and the wives who have contributed), again and again!
I’ll check back in a few weeks and let you know how it’s going!
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Amy,
Yes, many of these things are really surprising to us as wives! Who knew?? I am so proud of you for working on this and excited to see what God is going to do in your heart. With that beautiful, humble, teachable spirit, I know it is going to be amazing! Definitely let me know how you are doing!
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Hello again! Wow, has it really been over a year and a half since I last commented here? I’m still learning and improving, and my husband and I both still make some mistakes, but we’re doing better!
My husband has stopped trying to “rescue” other women. He still doesn’t seem to understand what I objected to about it, but I’ve given up explaining and am just thankful that he stopped because it was hurting me!
I try to tell him often that I appreciate and respect him, I’m learning to be clear (but respectful) about what I want, and I’ve been avoiding disrespectful behaviors for the most part. Watching what I eat and getting enough sleep both help keep my ADD struggles under somewhat better control, so I’ve even been a little better (though certainly not perfect!) about listening to him when he speaks to me.
It’s still difficult sometimes not to be upset when he does nothing special or thoughtful for my birthday or holidays, nor ever brings me flowers “just because.” And it still hurts when he agrees to do something for me within a certain time frame, but then days and weeks go by while he finishes others’ projects… and he still hasn’t done what I asked. He doesn’t want me to remind him or hire someone else to do it, but it’s not getting done when agreed. So that’s a problem. I’m not sure I want to bring it up again, but I may soon have to, as a few of these requests are costing us more money the longer they are ignored.
We have been going out somewhat more often, and that really helps me to relax and feel loved and accepted. For our 21st anniversary, he even took me to a marriage seminar (with an overnight hotel stay!), which we both really enjoyed! I’m hoping to have a regular “date night” set at some point, but for right now, this is good and I am grateful for the improvement.
I still hope and pray that someday my husband will be the spiritual leader of our family that we need him to be. But all in God’s time, not mine! He has not yet joined us when we go to Church each week, but he has been slowly more willing to talk with me about God and religion in a respectful way, and that’s a big step forward from where we were just a couple of years ago! 🙂
Lastly, I have experienced a problem I didn’t expect when I spoke last time of letting my husband “chase” me. Over the past year and a half, I had been trying to do that… but I think either I have a much higher sex drive than he does, or I misunderstood and I’m doing something wrong, because our physical intimacy has dropped WAY down in frequency. He simply doesn’t initiate nearly as often as I did, and I’ve been really struggling with my body image as a result (even though other men compliment me, it’s only my husband’s opinion that affects me like this). But I’m not *totally* convinced that I should just give up and go back to initiating most of the time, because there have been other points in our marriage where he was definitely initiating more than me. So I’m going to try a method Mark Gungor recommends for married couples called “the Bead Method” and see if that might help him feel more comfortable initiating more often. What do you think?
Thanks for “listening” and God bless!
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Amy,
It is wonderful to hear from you! I am glad that things are better. That’s awesome. I am also glad that your husband is not rescuing other women so much. That is such a blessing. And I am glad you are focusing on taking care of yourself and your health. That makes such a big difference!
Sometimes husbands have different ways of showing love than our preferences of receiving love. It is possible to learn to appreciate the things that they do for us and to learn to properly interpret the ways they show us their love rather than expecting them to always conform to our preferences. You can certainly ask him in a pleasant way once in awhile for things you would appreciate – without pressure and without expectations. But if you maintain these expectations and allow yourself to be disappointed – you can make yourself and your husband pretty miserable unnecessarily.
I invite you to check out all the posts I have about expectations. You can search that word on my home page.
Also, please search “anniversary” and “valentine’s” for some more posts on these topics.
Does he finish other people’s projects when he promised to?
My husband does a lot of projects at our house. He tends to be quite perfectionistic. He and his dad will give a time frame – but I know now, after 20 years of marriage – that the time frame they give is not going to be accurate. I know that problems and delays will come up. So, I don’t hold them to any time frame. When we first moved into this old fixer upper house 7 years ago – they said they would have the whole thing done in 6 months. I figured it would be a year. It was over 3.5 years of constant renovations and then my hours were cut and the funding dried up. But – there are still the 3 original bathrooms and laundry room that haven’t been touched that need to be redone. And you know what? At this point – I so do not care at all if they ever get done! It just doesn’t matter to me at all anymore.
Does your husband know that these projects are costing you more money? If he does – I vote to allow him to do things in his time frame. I had a situation like that myself last year. Our new shower pan cracked last year and I knew the subfloor underneath was probably getting wet and beginning to rot. I asked Greg about it several times. But my hours had been cut so much, he didn’t feel like it was a good time to try to redo the shower yet. He felt like the floor wouldn’t be that bad. When he and his dad finally did redo it – the floor had rotted several feet beyond the shower. They replaced it. He fixed it. Everything is fine. I didn’t harp on him about it. I expressed my concerns occasionally and then knew that he would be the one to have to deal with the consequences – whatever they may be. And he did.
I’m really glad that y’all have been going out more. That is awesome!
I know that I used to resent Greg for not being the spiritual leader I thought he should be. But then, when I realized that I had been sabotaging him for over 14 years – I had to understand that I had to be patient. Imagine where he would have been spiritually if I hadn’t been undermining him, contradicting him, usurping him, disrespecting him, trying to control him, etc…? He was having to start from the beginning of being a spiritual leader way into our marriage. God showed me I needed to be very patient and allow him to take his own pace. He continues to grow and blossom as a leader and man of God. But it is in his timing and God’s timing, not mine. That has to be ok.
I would love for you to search these terms on my home page:
– idol
– idolatry
– lead
– leader
– spiritual
Some husbands don’t have as high of a drive as other men do. That has to be ok, as well. How often does he desire intimacy? Is it possible that this is not about you and not a personal condemnation of you, but just the way his chemistry is right now? Does he say what he needs or likes? Does he feel pressured by you?
Are you able to find all of your contentment, fulfillment, acceptance, identity, purpose, joy and peace in Christ alone no matter what your husband does or does not do? That is where your greatest power is, my precious sister.
I haven’t heard of the Bead Method. What is that? 🙂
Much love to you!
April
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April, thanks again for your comments and suggestions.
It’s not too hard to let go of the expectations that he isn’t aware of because they’re just in my head. It’s harder not to be disappointed when we make plans together, but he doesn’t follow through with what we agreed. Especially when it’s a special occasion. But I know I can’t force him to keep his word–he has to choose to do it. I know he has different ways of showing love, and I do try to recognize that. And I am going to try harder to recognize when he’s speaking a different “love language” than what I’d prefer.
He does finish other people’s projects on time or even early. He also finishes his own projects within his chosen time frame. It’s only the projects I ask him to do that get set aside regularly. He even told me recently that he knows I won’t pressure him and I’ll wait as long as it takes, so it’s easier to put me off than someone else, when something else comes up. It’s hard not to be hurt by that. 😦
I talked to him about the fact that a couple things on my “to-do list” were costing us money–I said, “I’m just keeping you updated so that you’re aware of the issue and you can decide how to handle it.” He seemed to take that okay. I’m just going to do my best to be patient, and “offer it up” to God when I get frustrated.
Our intimacy has dropped from about 2x/week to once every 4-5 weeks. We spoke about it a little bit last night, and he said he thought I didn’t want sex as often because I had stopped initiating as much, even though he acknowledged that I’d told him in advance that I was going to do so, so that he could take the lead more often. He said that when he initiates, he feels it takes me longer to “warm up,” so it was usually just easier to let me initiate, and that he’d “gotten lazy about it” (his words).
I’m not sure I could explain the Bead Method properly here, but it’s basically an easy way for him to let me know clearly when he wants physical intimacy, without too much fear of rejection or making him feel like he’s got to be explicit (since that can make us both feel uncomfortable). I think it might take a little pressure off him and also give me some advance notice to “transition” from Mommy to Wife/Lover, so it takes less time for me to “warm up,” as he puts it.
Regardless, I’m going to try and be patient, flirt with him, but not pressure him, and otherwise let him take the lead.
Please continue to pray for us both, and I’ll keep praying for guidance, too, of course!
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Amy,
Yes, it is much harder if he made plans and then doesn’t follow through. This is a situation where I think it is the perfect time to use that extra time to yourself to get in God’s Word and to trust His sovereignty. I also think it is an incredible opportunity to demonstrate the grace of Christ to your husband. It’s fine to say that you are sad or disappointed – probably just once. But then, if he sees that you choose to use that time joyfully to spend with God and that you aren’t resentful, bitter or vengeful – I have a feeling God may use that godly response in you to draw your husband to Himself.
It is ok to let your husband know you would appreciate him getting something done for you. You can do that in a respectful, Christ-honoring way. If he chooses to purposely slight you – he will stand accountable to God for that. I wonder if your husband might be a “people pleaser”? Does he thrive on the praises of other people, especially outside of the marriage?
Yes, when you stop initiating and wait for him and you aren’t simmering all the time, it does take longer to get warmed up for women. That is normal. Does he say heh wants you to initiate more? If so, then go for it. 🙂 But it sounds like possibly an interesting method you are going to try. You’ll have to let me know how it goes!
Praying for you, my precious sister!
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A quick update while I have a moment (of insomnia… but that’s beside the point, lol)…
The method I mentioned last year, Forty Beads, seems to be a good concept in theory. However, two things I wanted to mention:
1. I found it frustrating and difficult to implement because of some communication and scheduling issues we had at the time (which admittedly wasn’t the fault of the method). Despite that, I can easily see how this idea could be helpful for some marriages that are basically solid and just need a little “boost.” Probably not going to be a great help to seriously struggling marriages, though. We might try it again once we get our current struggles ironed out.
Now, with that said…
2. I absolutely do NOT recommend the *book* for any Christian. I was blindsided and horrified by the coarse language, and other offensive material in it! So any wives who read this and want to give the *method* a try, please SKIP THE BOOK. It really isn’t needed and I found it was more confusing than helpful, anyway. You can figure out the method easily enough without it by just the stuff you can read online (most of which is much less offensive! Yikes).
I also wanted to update y’all on my journey as a Peaceful (and more Respectful) Wife. 🙂 I have been focusing more on God, and on my spiritual life, and that has sustained me through any struggles. It’s tough sometimes to put God above my husband, and not allow my husband, or my feelings, to become my idol. And one sneaky way the devil tries to do harm to my marriage is that the stronger my faith is, the harder my *husband* seems to be hit with temptations and sin! So I’m praying hard for him lately. To any readers, I’d appreciate if you’d say a quick prayer for my husband, too, if you wouldn’t mind! 🙂
For instance, he has said some unloving, disrespectful, or even cruel things lately–sometimes out of nowhere. In 23 years of marriage, this just isn’t like him. One minute, he draws nearer to me, and the next, he’s snapping at me to get away and give him some space. 😦 Sometimes I feel he says certain things, or uses a certain tone, just to try and start an argument. So far, I’ve been self-controlled, patient, and respectful, and I’ve let the Holy Spirit do the talking in the silence… but I have to admit, each time it’s really HARD not to snap back at him or point out the flaws in his logic! Still, I know this is when I need to trust in and lean on God the most. THIS is love (Matt 5:43-46). I pray that God continues to grant me the strength to stay faithful–and with God’s grace, we will get through this.
God bless!
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I am happy to say that i am finally learning after so many years that i don’t need to allow myself to be degraded by anyone including my own Husband. I am very Thankful that God Loved me enough to show me that I am Worth holding others accountable to their hurtful actions toward me and others. Jesus died and rose again to teach us to Love one another not enable sinful behaviors.
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Mrs. Thea,
I completely agree that it is very important to share, respectfully, that it is very hurtful to you and disrespectful to you for your husband to flirt with other women.
Here’s a post about confronting our husbands about their sin.
Much love!
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I agree that you should go to whatever lengths you feel necessary–your convictions are yours, but I would humbly suggest that they aren’t for everyone, because to me it looks like it would be completely impossible to experience the family of God.
I mean, I grew up with a sister. There was no fear of being alone together or any of the things that you list that you won’t do with another man (which looks like it’s left with virtually nothing). And like most people, I would guess, there no problem with siblings. 1 Timothy 5:2 tells us how to interact with others, including how to treat women as sisters in “purity” (the letter was addressed to a man). Your list looks like it leaves next to no interaction whatsoever remaining.
Of course, please continue to do what you feel is right for you and whatever is necessary for your marriage. I’m glad I noticed this post before trying to send you a PM in some way.
Lord bless you and keep you.
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JC,
Thanks for your comment. 🙂
I do have contact with men in public places and if I need to email with a man, I copy my husband.
I worship in church with my brothers and sisters and talk with men and women. My main priorities are to try not to be alone with men. I am totally transparent with my husband so that there are no secrets.
I do try to guard my heart and my marriage. But it doesn’t mean I have no interaction with my brothers in Christ.
I love my brothers and sisters and pray God might use me to bless both.
Thankfully most siblings do fine together. I do, unfortunately, know of Christian siblings where there have been cases of molestation between brother and sister – in a very strong Christian family. But hopefully that is the exception.
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Just to point out, there are even cases when people of the SAME sex cheat with each other (homosexual interaction) when coming from a heterosexual marriage.
The possibilities for things to go wrong go on and on . . . is there really a way to completely eliminate all possibilities for sexual temptation?
Many of us have absolutely no temptation for a homosexual relationship, so we’d never need to do much of anything to safeguard against that, as it appears you have no need. Maybe others would. I only wanted to restate, your precautionary measures may be reasonable for you as you feel they are necessary for your case, but I would recommend considering that they are likely not for everyone. There are LOTS of soap opera fans out there, but a lot of times those “boundaries” are not observed and there truly is no resulting harm–and quite the contrary, we can behave like family, as we are “the family of God.”
Please do as the Lord leads you.
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JC,
Good point about possible homosexual temptation. You’re right – there are many possibilities for things to go wrong. And my prayer is for each believer to hear God’s Spirit and do what they believe He wants them to do, as well.
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Please help me pray for my marriage as much as I tell my husband how much it hurts me he continues because he thinks he’s not doing nothing wrong just being friendly.
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Goodgirly1981,
Of course I will be glad to pray with you and for your marriage.
Would you like to talk with me about what is going on? You are welcome to write to me at aprilc@sc.rr.com.
Sending you a huge hug! And praying for God to work in both of you and your marriage for His greatest glory.
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I had emailed u already
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Ok! You are always welcome here.
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I recently caught my husband flirting on Facebook with a past flame, saying things like “missing you” n teasing her if she would allow him to accompany her to sleep. There were also previous incidences where I found online pics of my husband in a party hugging girls & even giving one a smack.
I felt betrayed, hurt and upset but he thinks he is not doin anything wrong because he was just joking around. Now we have that awkward air between us because I can’t bring myself to act like nothing happened. I do not know how to patch things between us. I do not nag but I can be very quiet & hostile everytime we have a disagreement. I don’t know how to go back to how we were before even if I wanted to.
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Mae,
YUCK! I definitely understand why you feel so upset, betrayed and hurt. That was not at all appropriate.
Have you said anything to him about it?
Can you sadly, softly say, “I feel so disrespected and hurt.” “That feels disrespectful to our marriage vows to me and it hurts me.”
Then, you may not need to say much else. Just let it sink in and let him think about it for a few days or a week or so.
Are you both believers in Christ?
This is something that can be forgiven and healed by God’s power. I’m glad to walk with you through this difficult time.
Is there any history of infidelity in your marriage?
How long have you been married?
How was your relationship before these things happened?
If you get a chance, please read about respect and disrespect at the top of my home page and think and pray about whether your husband has felt respected in your marriage.
Then we can talk some more!
You can’t change him. But you can acknowledge your feelings. You can tell him you are hurting. You can ask God to change you and to heal you and give you the power to be the godly wife He wants you to be. And you can be God’s partner to breathe healing into your marriage!
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Thanks for your reply. It is very painful for me to acknowledge that I can’t change him but I’m glad you said it. There was never any history of infidelity in our marriage. We’ve been married for 7 years & were together for about 15 yrs. Things just started changing when I got pregnant w/ our 2nd child & now she’s almost 4.
I used to be in denial that I was hurt. The thought of revenge used to consume me. But now, I am trying to acknowledge that what he did hurt me. I do not wish for revenge anymore. I just wish for healing, forgiveness and recovering from pain. I do not think about what will happen with our marriage anymore. I just want to think about myself. In fact, I do not even know how to be a good wife anymore after he has hurt me for countless times.
We are both Catholics but sad to say, I have been neglecting my Christian duties because I am too busy taking care of the kids. Now, I think God is trying to tell me that I should talk to him more often and pray more often. I pray right now for strength that I may be able to heal quickly and forgive my husband in the process.
Although we have talked and he acknowledged his mistakes and promised not to do it again, I lost my trust in him. I only wish that our children will not be affected by whatever is happening between us. My main objective is to be a good mother to my children, get closer to God and let go of all the anger.
I am glad that I have found support in you. May God continue to bless all of you with good health that you may continue to help others like me. You support means so much to someone like me in a difficult time in my marriage. Again, thank you.
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Mae,
I believe that some of the most empowering truths come from seeing what you can and cannot change in this situation.
You can change you. You can change your behavior. You can turn to God and submit yourself fully to Him – making Him the most important thing/person in your life by a long shot – putting Him in the proper place of being Lord of your life. You can ask God to help you forgive your husband. He can empower you to do that if you are willing. It will take dying to yourself and your sinful nature and nailing it to the cross. You will lay down all of your dreams, your wisdom, your plans, your hopes, your weakness, your pain, all that you are and all that you have and all that you will be on the altar as a living sacrifice to God. Then you will pick up God’s will, His wisdom, His plans, His dreams, His goals, His power and seek His glory with all that you are. His Spirit can and will fill you if you are willing to turn from your own sin and turn to Him in faith. It means you cannot cherish bitterness, resentment, pride, self-righteousness, disrespect, rebellion against God’s Word (those were the things I had to repent of). It means that you have to stop trusting self or husband and setting your heart on what you want or on your husband’s behavior (these things can easily become idols in our lives, more important to us than Christ) – and it means that you will begin to trust Christ and live in faith in Him instead of trusting self.
Then He can and will empower you to have His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. He can make you radiate with His love. Then you don’t have to be afraid. His perfect love casts out all fear. Then you can trust His sovereignty to work even through this painful situation for your ultimate good and His glory (Romans 8:28) because you love God with all your heart. Then you can have a gentle, peaceful spirit that does what is right and does not give way to hysterical fear (I Peter 3:3-6) because your faith and trust is firmly rooted in God, not people – so you can’t lose. You cannot lose when God is sovereign in your life! That is the key. Then you know that He is working to make everything cause you to be more like Himself and He is working for His glory.
Thankfully, things are pretty mild at this point. And they are totally forgivable. God CAN heal this. He is more than able.
You can’t change your husband, but when you allow God to change you – that will give God access to change your husband in His way and His timing. You are not guaranteed that he will change. But you can make it easier for him to become the man God wants him to be as you become more and more the woman and wife God wants you to be.
Let Jesus be the focus of your life – having a real, living, intimate relationship with Him is the key to contentment, fulfillment, peace, joy and spiritual riches.
At this point, you can tell him that you WANT to rebuild your trust. And you can pleasantly, calmly, respectfully ask for what you need to rebuild that trust in him.
I would also be sure to praise and thank him for anything he is doing well. I’m sure he has strengths, too. And the more you focus on that (Philippians 4:8) – the more the good in him will grow.
We will pray that he will come to faith in Christ and live fully for Him and His will and His glory, too. 🙂
I’m here any time you want to talk! 🙂
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My husband has a definite preference for large breasts; I am nearly flat-chested. We have had a lot of problems with his secret porn use in our marriage… I am hoping it is behind us… but how do I heal? I feel like he settled with me. He has told me that he would be more aroused if I were more voluptuous, and that large breasts are more beautiful. I really want to feel him lusting after me and wish that I had his ideal body type… I feel he is just about perfect. It breaks my heart. How do I heal?
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Kim,
Ugh!
Porn use definitely promotes that kind of preference. 😦
I have to buy my underthings in the little girls’ department myself – so I am in your boat and probably have a similar figure as you do.
Would you please email me and we will talk about this together! aprilc@sc.rr.com
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I’m really happy to find this website coz I had similar problem with ma hubby, I’m currently pregnant & I court ma husband flirting with another women (his collegue) I was so angry coz it ws during family time so they were communicating via BBM actually, I felt dat ma husband doesn’t respect me anymore coz I know dis women ,I forgave him I’m in a process of forgeting about dis but its difficult is it normal? & everytime when I think about dis women I feel so angry pls help coz I pray everyday to move on & forget about dis
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Of course it is normal to feel angry if your husband flirts with other women! That is not appropriate for a married man. He belongs to you. You belong to him. Ideally, you would both carefully guard your hearts and your marriage.
Are either of you followers of Christ Jesus?
Forgiveness can be VERY difficult. But God can give us the power to do what we cannot do on our own. I am glad to talk with you about this!
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From a Christian husband:
The flirting thing almost cost us our marriage. I never attempted to justify it and I would have said that I would never want to break up anybody or blah blah blah. I was pretty clear that it was like a drug/coping thing – which we tend to turn to in both stressful and celebratory times. I had a major ‘outing’ back in 2009. Of course, the struggle reached a bit into porn and so forth, but it was mostly the ego-strokes and such that I got from someone thinking I’m witty or some junk like that. It’s like capturing the ‘high’ of the first few dates before things get complicated with like, you know, real life and the baggage that we all bring to the table.
Currently, I attend S groups to deal with this (a commitment I made from the outset back in 2009). I have been in a men’s group for nearly 5 years and have pretty strict accountability in there. The reason for my current blog, in some ways, is to help me have a more consistent practice of appreciating the gift that my wife is.
My accountability includes my use of facebook, twitter, and client relationships. Andy Stanley’s series called Guardrails has been a huge help – and I would recommend it to anybody about helping put a lot of distance between themselves and possible failure in this area. http://northpoint.org/messages/guardrails
There are some areas where my wife and I still need to work on regarding openness with each other, but that said, I know my responsibility is to focus on putting the right stuff in my life that will give me the best chance for success. I do wish I knew how the Holy Spirit worked in us a bit better to bring victory because it still seems that it requires WAY too many disciplines to have consistent victory if it’s been an issue.
But I know, for sure, that God can deal with this, but it’s something to be continually vigilant about. The example that you two set is wonderful: Even a good, godly marriage protects itself with the passion of a momma bear over her cubs. People who have struggled tend to want to get to a point where they feel they have it licked and remove any of the good barriers they erected so they can show the spouse how ‘good’ they are. Unfortunately, with this thing, it only takes one inadvertent or surprise attack or flirtation and it’s all for naught.
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Thank u
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Hello, my husband’s second cousin recently lost her mom to cancer. Since then he has been texting and calling her frequently (probably everyday). For some reason I do not find it appropriate since they never talked before the funeral. This was probably the first time he has seen her in many years. My husband has always been a caring person towards others. I just seem to think this is inappropriate. When I confronted him about the situation he said it was because he could relate because he lost his dad a couple of years ago. We are currently having marital problems as well and not because of this issue. Am I overreacting? I am a Christian woman and I would like Godly counsel and prayer. He has asked her for pictures and always comments on her Facebook status. He says he asks for pictures of her and her Mom. Is this okay?
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Faithfilledlife,
Well, it is impossible for me to know his motives at this point. It sounds like he has pure motives – but it is easy for pure motives to change over time.
You cannot force him to do what you want. I think it is wise that you told him your concerns – hopefully in a respectful, polite, non-demanding, non-clingy, non-desperate kind of way.
Is he a believer in Christ as well?
Would you like to talk about the other issues in the marriage?
At this point – he may not be crossing any lines. Is what he is doing wise? Probably not.
Would you like to email me and we can talk about it some more? aprilc@sc.rr.com 🙂
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I am dealing with this issue already, and we are not married or co-habitating but have a long distance relationship. We’ve discussed marriage a few times (mostly earlier in the relationship) but I seriously have 2nd doubts because of this continuing issue.
I’ve caught him with his hand in the cookie jar a few times with FB private messages, flirting on walls in middle of night, texts with ‘hey baby’ and emoticons to other women (just ‘friends’ he said), and calls on his call log and I know who they belong to at various hours. Even visits to old co-workers that he dated and was admittedly infatuated with, but he insists I should just trust him, then turns it around on me to make me look like I’m the one with issues.
I pretty much had enough. Also, I asked him how he’d feel if I did all that, and he came back with “I’d be indifferent”. Really? That’s a sorry answer. Also, some of his stories have changed over the months, inconsistency equals lies to anyone.
My heart can’t rest on someone who continually promises to stop, but starts it again, and insists a man values his privacy.
But if it’s misused, then any person (man or woman) doesn’t deserve it. I told him a few times, it’s the start of an affair, it’s secretive, and flirting with sin. If it has to be hid, then it’s something that shouldn’t be done. PERIOD!!
It’s disrespectful, and so are the women he flirts with who KNOW I am in his life. Makes me angry too, and I’ve lost sleep over this. Not any more.
Please pray for me as I decide what to do. Thanks! If I feel like I have to play detective, or feel like flirting to get even, I don’t want this.
I appreciate prayer. he’s good to me in a lot of other ways, but this issue just doesn’t rest, and my heart is not at peace. Deciding on HOW to handle this and when.
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Me again. BTW, we pray regularly together and for each other, including devotions, and I watched him get baptized recently, yet still does all this. It hurts.
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I’ve been in your place. I am married to a man who disrespected me by flirting/ working on cars of women he dated previously when we dated. You have a chance to walk away, once you are married and he continues this behavior you will be prostrate before God on behalf of your covenant marriage. Walk away, lay the ground rules and give him some time to prove he has changed. Get Godly pre marital counsel before marriage. I thought he changed ( he did briefly during our engagement ) we’ve been married just a year and he is secretly working on these women’s cars again, hiding the money from me that he earns on the side work. I am losing sleep in prayer and walking a tough walk right now. Be wise, what you see is what you will get.
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JW,
Based on the little you have shared – I am very concerned about this relationship and the long term viability of it. If your man is doing these things now – before you are married, I believe that – unless God intervenes – it will continue and likely get worse after you are married.
It is ok to say, “I want to know that I can trust you. I want to treat you with respect, admiration and honor. I feel disrespected when you flirt with other women and meet with other women. This is a deal breaker for me.”
I believe you may have to separate from him and allow him to think and pray about what he wants in his life.
It’s wonderful that he has accepted Christ. There should be some fruit from that if it is real. I pray he finds a godly mentor to help teach him to become a mature believer in Christ.
Just because he prays with you does not mean he is trustworthy. It’s awesome that he prays with you. But his prayers are meaningless and powerless if he lives in sin.
If you try to continue this relationship, you will not be able to respect or trust or admire him. You will resent him. That is a terrible foundation for a marriage.
If you were already married – I would encourage you to stay and focus on trying to heal your marriage covenant. But you are not married, and you are not obligated to stay with this man.
I personally vote to turn him over to God and let Him work on him alone.
If he changes and is willing to earn your trust in the future and there is a SERIOUS difference in the way he shows respect for you – awesome.
If not, then you will be blessed to not be married to a man who would treat you this way.
You can’t change him. God can.
I pray that God will give you wisdom and that God might open his eyes. I pray he will become the man of God’s dreams for His glory. I pray that God will draw you to Himself and that you might become the godly woman of His dreams, too!
Much love to you!
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My husband is a flirt and he says it’s fun and does not seem to consider my feelings. I told him in no uncertain terms that I hate that attitude. Now he flirts on face book and deletes the messages because I have the password to his account. I am so hurt by this betrayal and disrespect.
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Rhoda,
That is disrespectful to you and to your marriage. I’m glad you told him how you feel about his behavior. I’d be glad to talk with you if you are interested! aprilc@sc.rr.com
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Dear peacefulwife:
I found your site this morning when I googled “Godly counsel husband lies even after confronted.” I need help please.
We dated 3 years got married last June ( married one year). We had a break up during our dating days, my husband is a mechanic and works long hours 6 days a week. ( I am 46 he is 55 ) We’ve both been married before. I was uncomfortable with the women who came by his home for car repairs, they would bring him gifts, hug him close, kiss his neck, cheeks and giggle and grin. I talked with him when it first happened. He blew it off stating the woman wasn’t flirting. We broke up just before one year of dating (he didn’t really date me, our dates were hanging out at his house). I made a lot of mistakes in those days, cleaned his house, cooked all his meals, put up with bad behavior.
I pulled back in the relationship again for about 5 months at about 2 years of dating. I let him know that I could not control what he chose to do but I was uncomfortable with him working on these women’s cars, especially the women he had dated previously and or had sexual relationship with in the past. That he could make his own decision but I was going to end the relationship if it continued. About 6 6-8 months after that he proposed to me, I did not accept that day, I let him know the area’s of my discomfort, I was upfront and honest. 1) we needed to move to a new home ( his home was the one he and his wife chose together). He agreed that we would move to our own home if I could live in his current home for about a year while it was sold. 2
I would not tolerate him working on any car’s on the side (outside of his job with his employer) that were women. Again this does not include his regular job where cars are brought in by female customers. He does A LOT of side work and is rarely home : ( He agreed to never work on any cars of females whom he has dated and if any female needed their car worked on as a side job he would introduce me to her and let me know the date and time of the car repair. (he uses his workplace to do his side work). I watched as he removed these women from his cell phone and referred them to another mechanic at another shop. I accepted his proposal and we did really well through the 4 month engagement. We eloped, things didn’t go really well for us, my doubts, fears stepped in and I became a complaining, controlling wife. My husband is a quiet man, gentle, and doesn’t confront. He told me he loved me every day, prayed with me, we weren’t going to church, he isn’t a gift giver and does not compliment me. I have a challenging job in the medical field that drains me. We don’t eat dinners together that often maybe once a week. He doesn’t come home from work till late ( he works 0700 to anywhere from 6,7,8 even 9 pm) I know this isn’t all on the “clock” with his employer because they just hired another mechanic.
His work place is only a mile from the hospital I work for, I stop in once in a while (maybe once every couple months after I leave work).
He is always there when I show up.
In a nutshell he filed divorce in April behind my back, remortgaged the house behind my back. I was devestated and nearly died over it. My 21 year old son got saved in early February and started going to a spirit filled church. We had visited before my husband filed for a divorce. He liked the church although the service is long and takes up 8 hours of my husbands ONLY day off. We get ready at 8 am, drive nearly an hour to get there, service lasts till between 2:30 and 3, get home around 4pm
I went to the church the next day after learning he filed, I had gotten really upset beause I opened the mail (we have joint bank account) I thought it was just a bank statement, I didn’t notice it was addressed to just him. It was the re mortgage sealing him into a new agreement with the bank, I was outraged and called him at work, he just kept saying yes dear, I’ll look at it when I get home.”
I left that Friday night and drove 4 hours away, I was angry and hurt and confused. I called him that Saturday morning really upset and going on about why he would remortgage the house behind my back (my name isn’t on it because we were going to get our own home). He yelled out to me that he did it because he filed for divorce. I felt like someone took an axe to my chest, I was devestated. I left the hotel and drove 4 hours home that Saturday sobbing, begging, screaming for God’s help. Why would he file??? I didn’t cheat or physically harm him, I worked hard and brought an equal paycheck in, I kept the house in order even with an intense career.
We both went to my sons church that next day, I cried hysterically through the service, the Pastors wife took me into the office and comforted me, prayed for me and offered counseling to us.
After church Pastors wife asked for my husband and her husband (the Pastor) to meet us in his office. The Pastor asked my husband if he loved me. My husband said “yes, very much”. He asked how long we were married – 10 months…..Pastor said that is not enough time for you to make such a decision. The first few years are the toughest. They asked if we were willing to counsel and we agreed. Pastors wife told my husband she felt I was sincere when I said I was wiling to do anything to save our marriage. Thus my re commitment to the Lord began.
It has been 10 weeks since that dreadful day, I am learning to walk according to the Word and my son has noticed that I have changed and complimented me. I have submitted to my husbands leadership, build him up daily, we read a short devotion before work and pray together. I send him a text message that builds him up each day, he doesn’t acknowledge them nor does him compliment me back. it hurts.
I found a check in his van written to him by a women he dated in the past dated July 12, 2013 (yesterday) with a clump of cash $220 with the check. I was devestated, I feared confronting him because I fear he will go back and open the divorce case. How can I confront his sin without being a door mat or being afraid he’ll leave me? He was heading to bed and I was angry but did not show him.I did ask if all the hours he had been working were for his employer or included side jobs. He bold faced lied and told me it was all for his employer. My husband has been hiding money all along. I have hidden nothing.I stayed up nearly ALL night ( i slept under 2 hours) I prayed, sang praise and worship songs to the Lord, cried, read scripture, cried more. Gave it to God Psalm 91 and agreed to stay out of God’s way so that God could deal with my husband. I prayed for wisdom if and what I should say to my husband. Again this morning before he left to go to his Mothers (near 4 hours away — another issue he doesn’t take me with him his mother NEVER accepted me. She was angry he got married because she wanted him to move in with her and take care of her — she is 88 and has been very mean to me). I don’t get upset anymore when he leaves me home, we are working on this with the Pastor, several weeks ago when he went I stayed at a local hotel while he visited his mother, he came to stay with me late the Saturday night and we went home the next day. It’s expensive to do this every time. This morning I asked to speak to him, I spoke softly and said “Do you remember a couple months ago when I told you I was going to trust you with side jobs? I need to trust you and I want you to trust me. We need to be honest with each other and not hide anything from one another. I am not going to question you, take the money you make, scold you, or tell you that you can’t work on peoples cars. I just want you to be upfront and honest with me. He got up and started getting his things for his trip and I asked him if we were going to read our devotional he came back and we did our devotions. I noticed he was very uncomfortable about being asked about the side jobs.
How do I handle this? Please help me.
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Alisa,
Goodness! How I wish I could hug your neck and cry and pray with you.
It seems to me that you are now doing what you can to try to rebuild. I am SO proud of you for seeking to respect him and honor his leadership.
It seems to me that you handled the situation yesterday very well. I love what you said and that you said it softly this morning. I think at this point, you wait for God to convict him – but you may not be able to trust him right now.
I would definitely continue counseling. And I am VERY glad you are seeking God and crying out to Him and desire to please Him and honor HIm. He is going to be the only real source of strength and healing.
You are right, you cannot control your husband. I know God can change his heart.
I think you are on the right track right now. I wish that he hadn’t taken that side job that you found out about – that really destroys the trust that you were rebuilding.
I think this will be a long, painful process.
but I do think that God is able to heal you and is able to bring great good out of it all in the end.
Have you been able to talk to the pastor’s wife about this newest situation?
It may take some time – but I pray that he will come clean with you. If he does not – you may have to establish boundaries until he is willing to be transparent and open and safe for you to trust him again.
Lord,
I lift up Alisa and her husband to You. I pray that You might work in both of them – drawing them to Yourself – tearing down every stronghold of the enemy and every sin and renewing their hearts and minds by the power of Your Spirit alone. Give Alisa Your wisdom and peace and comfort as she walks this very painful road. Let her become the woman of YOUR dreams, Lord. I pray that You might convict her husband and bring him to godly repentance. I pray that You might give Alisa all the resources she needs to walk in faith and to be filled with Your power.
In the Name and power of CHrist,
Amen!
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Thank you so much for your prayer! I talked with the Pastor’s wife after work today. She said the same thing you did and told me a couple months ago this will be a process and to roll my sleeves up.
My husband actually is fasting today. I am surprised, I pray that God reveal himself to my hubby. Also, my husband contacted me today to ask if he could work on a car of the female bank teller’s sister at our home. I was very honored that he responded to my request so quickly, yet I am reserved as my husband does not do well in taking requests from me. He see’s it as controlling. I chose today to tell the enemy to get behind me everytime fear crept up and the thoughts came to me that I shouldn’t have said anything, that now he’ll leave me. I chose to keep my face like flint and look to God as my source. As I submit to my husband, honor him, admire him, adapt to him God will answer my prayers. It is only through obedience to His Word that His hand be released in my husbands life. I am not faultless as in the past I would have cried, yelled and screamed and threw a temper tantrum at such a circumstance. I still have to work on the trust, as I am always on edge. I am trusting God that my husband will truly give his life to the Lord in every way.
God’s Word never fails. Love never fails. As I embark on the journey to live I Corinthians 13 I will not do so without a struggle, but I will emerge purified and with a husband who is serving the Lord Jesus!
Thank you again! Alisa
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 17:16:46 +0000 To: bellas_smile@hotmail.com
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Alisa,
I am really proud of you and amazed at your husband seeking God so strongly today. That is awesome! And it sounds like he is trying to show honor to you, as well, already. That is wonderful.
Yes, this is ultimately about you and Christ and your trust and faith and obedience in Him – He can and will handle the results according to His greatest glory.
Thank you for the update! 🙂
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I jus came across this post as I am goin through a similar situation.
Where can I email ya as i need help.
Thank you.
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Sunshine,
A very interesting and eye-opening look from the other woman’s perspective. I am sure this will be very painful for some wives to read – but I actually think you offer a lot of insights that may well inspire some wives to reconsider how they treat their husbands.
Wives are not responsible for their husbands’ cheating. Husbands are responsible for their own sin.
But – we are responsible for our obedience to God, our walk with Christ, our sin, our emotions and how we treat our husbands. I pray we may do all that we can to honor God and bless our husbands and strengthen our marriages on our end.
Thank you!
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My Husband will chat to other girls on Facebook, now I dont have a problem with that because I dont care if he haves Woman friends because I have guy friends and he doesnt care, but there is this one lady he realy want to talk to. Every time we fight he talks to her. I dont know about what and then there is this other lady that he talks to and if she doesnt reply he sends her sad faces. It makes me wonder what why. maybe im just being silly. please give me advice and is it wrong for me to go on his Facebook?
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FlowerPower,
I don’t believe it is wise for a spouse to have private conversations with someone of the opposite sex.
You can focus on showing real respect to your husband… You may be interested to read the posts about respect and disrespect at the top of my home page.
Then, after he is feeling respected for a month or two, you might say, “Honey, I would like to do some things to protect our marriage. I want to cut out private conversations and close friendships with the opposite sex. Our relationship is so precious to me. I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize it.”
Or…
“It would mean so much to me if you share your pain and feelings with me – so I can become a better wife – instead of confiding in female friends.”
Then drop it and let him think about it.
Don’t argue.
If he defends himself, say, “I am sad that you go to female friends about us.”
Or “It makes me sad when you talk with women about our marriage.”
Don’t argue.
If he continues to escalate…
“I am not telling you what to do. You are free to make your own choices. But these are my feelings. I want you to know how I feel.”
Are either of you believers in Christ?
Dos he have any godly male friends?
I understand your concerns. This is a slippery slope for sure.
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Thank You Peacefullwife.
This realy did help me. i opended up to him without fighting. things are going beter now. he is my only friend and love and i think he understands that now. i dont want any other man in my life if that man is not family.
Yess we are both Christians and he does have other male friends but not a lot.
The biggest problem we have is he doesnt talk. he will not show hes feelings to me in front of other people and he doesnt talk about his feelings. i have to drag everything out of him. Can it be because he doesnt trust me?
or is he just a guy trying to be strong (if you know what i mean)
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FlowerPower,
Hooray! I’m so glad it helped!
I have 3 posts from the last two weeks on husbands that are quiet, emotionally/spiritually shut down or non-communicative. YOu may want to check them out!
Here is something I posted on FB two days ago:
If there is a person in your husband’s life that annoys you, irritates you or concerns you in the way they treat your husband or yourself – whether it is his mother, his father, his sister, his child, his friend, his coworker or a woman who is coming on to him – let me share an interesting little bit of information about human nature with you…
If you decide to point out this other person’s faults to your husband and try to tell him what to do about it – your husband will probably naturally feel he has to defend him/her.
NOT GOOD. This causes division between you and your husband.
He may also not appreciate the unsolicited advice – as if he is not capable of handling the situation on his own. Using directives with our men is an approach that is not very effective. They usually don’t like being told what to do.
NOT GOOD!
This does not promote unity in your marriage! You don’t want to push your husband into a position of feeling he needs to defend someone else against you. This makes YOU look bad. You want to endear yourself to your husband, not repel him. You want him seeing the best in you, not the worst.
If you do not speak negatively about this other person, but just allow your husband to make his own observations – he will probably be able to see the person’s faults and issues on his own and will begin to talk to you about what he sees.
Now his focus is on the other person’s sin/character flaws.
THAT IS GOOD for you!
As you show faith in him that he will handle the situation well – that is motivating and empowering to him – and your faith, trust and respect will generally draw your husband TO you.
MORE GOOD STUFF!
Also – here is something I posted on FB yesterday that may help:
If things are not going well in your marriage, here are a couple of things that I personally suggest you NEVER, EVER do (for whatever my opinion is worth)…
– Demand to have a deep talk with your husband about “where is our marriage heading?” Asking him to give you guarantees about your future relationship when he is shut down and already has one foot out the door will drive that final nail into the coffin of the relationship many times. I know that we women want to TALK about things – but the more you talk in this situation, the more you try to make him give you the answers you want, the more he will want to go far away – if not physically, than emotionally.
– Ask him to explain all the intricate meaning and emotion behind something that he did that was uncharacteristically affectionate, kind, generous or sweet. Please don’t do that! Just THANK him and smile. Savor the gift. Do not have a discussion about it.
– Focus on the things he “should” do – either telling him what to do or thinking about what he should do. That does not go to a happy place for you. It will turn you into a resentful, powerless, angry, bitter victim who tries to demand that he act a certain way or you cannot be happy with your life. You become his prisoner – and a prisoner to your bitterness. You lose your fellowship with Christ as you cherish sin in your heart. Then you have zero power to be content unless he does what you want. No! No! NOT GOOD! I have been down that road. Went down it for 14+ years. It is not worth it! YOU have the power to be content in your life no matter what he does because you can find all of your contentment in Christ alone. As you focus on asking God to change you and thanking God for anything good in your man. That leads to a healthy, happy, joyful, peaceful POWERFUL place where the resources of heaven come pouring into your lap.
One of the reasons that God instructs believing wives whose husbands are far from God not to use words to win their husbands to Christ – is that the farther a man is from God, the less he can hear his wife’s words about spiritual or moral things.
At that point – when our husbands are living in disobedience to God’s Word – EVERY WIFE WANTS to lecture, preach, nag, scold, criticize and try to verbally drag her husband to Christ. If we are far from God – and not filled with His Spirit – that is exactly what we will try to do. Every time.
And it will NEVER EVER work.
IF we want our husbands to be drawn TO Christ – God gives us the prescription in I Peter 3:1-6. This is our POWER in Christ – to obey Him, to trust Him, to do things His way, to allow His power to work in us to make us the godly women He wants us to be and to trust Him to be the Holy Spirit in our husbands’ lives.
Our power is NOT IN WORDS. In fact – our words are poison to our marriages and to our husbands if they are far from us and far from God and we try to talk to them about it. Our words cannot make things better in that situation. Our words about spiritual things and about our marriage and what our husbands “should” do will only repel them from us and from God.
If they are going to be able to receive anything from us when things are not going well – it will only be the Spirit of God working in us to empower us to respect the good in them, to cooperate with their leadership (if they are not clearly asking us to sin), our smiles, our encouragement, our faith in Christ and our faith in the good parts of them. As we become the wives of God’s dreams, God may use us to help draw our husbands back to Himself. And He will get us out of His way so that our husbands can hear HIS voice. Our voice has to stop first so that they can hear His voice.
My husband told me years after I began this journey:
“I knew you were close to God, much closer than I could ever be. I believed that I was a bad husband and a bad Christian. I began to believe I could never be close to God like you were.”
“When you stopped all the negative things – the criticism, the lecturing, the nagging, the scolding, the telling me what to do, the condemnation, the sighing like I was an idiot, the eye-rolling, the angry tone of voice, the angry body language… it was like someone took a bunch of static off of the speaker with God’s voice in my heart.”
“Then, when you began to add positive things – encouraging me, praising me if I did something well, thanking me for things you appreciated, showing real faith in me, respecting the good you saw in me… it was like someone added an amplifier to the speaker with God’s voice in my heart.”
Ladies,
God gives us the commands He does because His wisdom is infinitely higher than our own! He understands men. He knows how marriage is supposed to work. He is able to heal broken marriages. If we want God to work in our husbands’ lives – we MUST be willing to do things God’s way – even if we don’t like it or don’t understand it. If we will trust Him and walk by faith – it becomes the most amazing adventure ever. We don’t have guarantees our husbands will change or when they might change. But God does promise to change us and make us more like Jesus. I desire Him to find each of us faithful as wives that we might stand before Him at the end of this short life with no regrets and that He might commend us for a job well-done.
———————————–
I would also check out the posts at the top of my home page about disrespect and respect…. then let me know how you are doing! 🙂
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Thank You. Im tryning my best to not fight and it works, i also let him feel as if he is the most important one in our relationship. like they will say in afrikaans. he wears the pants in the relationship.
there is only one problem. he still wants to talk to this girl. and i dont know what to do any more. i thought sitting and talking with him really did help but it looks like it didnt.
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FlowerPower,
As he feels more and more respected by you as you stop disrespectful things and begin to show him genuine respect – he will probably care a lot more about your feelings in time.
It also may take a bit of time for him to decide how to handle backing away from this girl.
What do they talk about? How do you respond now?
WIth love,
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The One message was saying he is going to give up trying to talk to her but he is gonne try one more time. then he asks her how it is going and why is she so quiet. the she replyed and said they never talk so she is not quiet. and THEN he said but i always want to talk to you but you never reply. i did something right now because you talked to me. she didnt reply and he sended a sad face. then no reply again and he said no reply. why?
Maybe im just being over jealous. But you must see her. she is realy preddie and im just scared to loose him and i did tel that to him. more than enought.
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FlowerPower,
I don’t believe he is wise to have conversations like this with other women. I wish he had a godly male mentor in his life.
I don’t think you are being over jealous – but it is going to be really critical how you handle this. If you freak out – you may push him toward her. I pray God will give you poise, grace, wisdom, courage, strength and patience to deal with this in a calm way. I also pray that you might focus on what God might want to do in you – and find all of your contentment in Him alone so that you can be unshakable no matter what your husband does.
If you come across as needy, jealous and insecure – that will not help the situation.
Maybe God is working in her heart and she is being convicted? That would be awesome!
What are your plans today for your time with your husband? What could you do to build him up? What things do you respect about him – actually good things that you admire? What are some things you could choose not to do – lecturing, nagging, bossing, criticizing, scolding, using an angry tone of voice, etc…?
Let’s work on how you can be close to Jesus and how you can meet your husband’s deepest masculine needs so that you can become a stronger team. 🙂
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Question: I am engaged and was wondering should my fiance and I give each other passwords to Facebook and each others emails? And have total access to both each others’ FB account and email? We currently haven’t done this yet.
My fiance (who used to be a fairly well known violinist and teacher and has some famous people in his circle of friends) knows and is friends with a lot of people but I don’t have access to his facebook friends. I don’t see any of his friends. He said he has these privacy settings because some of them are kinda or are famous and other people may not be respectful to them
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Rebecca,
Well… I am so old that there was no internet when Greg and I were engaged – so, that was not an issue for us! 🙂 I can tell you that we do have access to each other’s accounts now.
I don’t really look at his stuff. He does look through my blog comments and emails – especially if there are any from men. I always copy him on emails to men. And I try to avoid emailing men whenever possible.
How is the rest of your relationship? Do you have reason to believe that he is hiding anything?
Do you both have a strong relationship with Christ?
It’s wonderful to meet you! 🙂
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Hi, A lot of the problems my husband and I have are because in the past he was dishonest with me and he also slandered me to his family. He used to drink and he lied pathologically. So now, though he is sober, it is difficult for me to trust him not to lie about anything or slander me to anyone we know.
He also looked at porn and I caught him in the act so he could not deny it. He claims he repented of it and apologized. And that was several months ago and at this time he does not have access to porn because our computer is in the living room and we have filters and he doesn’t have private access to the net at work either. So as far as I know it is true he isn’t looking at porn.
Around the timeframe I caught him looking at porn, a woman that lived across the street kept acting like she knew him and doing erotic things, like putting lotion on her arms in a sensual way right at her window when my husband went to the side of the house to smoke right across from her window. Since then he quit smoking and she moved away. He claims he never watched her window through the slats in our fence, but was just out there to smoke. He says he suspects she may have thought he was watching her only because he was out there smoking. But because of his track record of lying I never knew whether it was true or not. But what was creepy was that just before that happened I had a night mere that I caught him having sex with a woman at the side of the house where he smokes. Pretty eery.
He also has never wanted to make love to me as often as I wished he would for our entire marriage. But I thought it was because he was molested as a teenager. But now I’m starting to wonder if he doesn’t want to have sex with me because he is visually stimulated by younger women. So I’m saying I do not withhold sex from him at all, never have. That makes me wonder if he is not attracted to me at all, though he claims he is attracted to me.
Yet besides the porn and that neighbor incident there always seems to be attractive girls working wherever we go that my husband acts like he doesn’t know, and they look as though they’re waiting for him to greet them and appear as though they feel snubbed when he does not. One recently even attempted to greet him and he ignored her waving at him just after I saw him talking to her at the library counter when he was turning stuff in. I could tell she was perplexed and confused as to why he ignored her greeting because he was lightheartedly conversing with her only moments earlier. Before that there were indications that he knew some other women (a neighbor, another women working at the store, etc.) maybe just to be civil, but rather than being honest with me about the civil relationship, and saying hello to them in front of me, and explaining how he knows them, he hid it from me. Because he did that, it makes me suspicious that it was more than just his being civil. So now I’m not sure, is he snubbing them when they say hello because he is hiding that he’s attracted to these other women and had flirted with them in the past? Or is he doing that because he’s afraid I’ll be jealous although there was nothing to hide? But why he’d do that, I never gave him reason to think that I’m unreasonable about those kinds of things. Also there are other women he converses with in front of me that he does not hide from me. But they are usually much less attractive than the ones it seems he hides knowing from me.
So now as a result I start to imagine the women, usually younger than me, are laughing at me behind my back, like they know something I don’t. I start to feel like I’m a big joke and a mockery. I feel disrespected, like I’m a big chump.
I’ve tried to bring up how what he is doing is dishonest in gentle ways, in third party ways, like I was talking about it in general terms, and more directly at other times. Yet every time I bring what he is doing up he gets very defensive. Because of his defensiveness about it I am now becoming very suspicious and jealous and feel we cannot go anywhere together without him hiding another relationship and I feel I cannot trust anything about him anymore
I am shaking as I write this because I am so upset because today I caught him standing near the young woman at the library he pretended not to know. She was smiling a flirtatious smile. And after we walked away I gave him an angry look and said “how convenient,” because I was so upset that I over reacted. He got angry and left and the woman and her friend were whispering to each other and laughing. I’m so paranoid I suspected they were looking at and talking about us. I also felt embarassed that I acted so immaturely about it because I am so insecure about his dishonesty.
So now we have to go to a Christian pastor counselor, but we cannot get fit in for an appointment until November 14, like over a week away.
I must say other than all of these things he is a good husband. We read the Bible together each night and he prays with me every morning before work and helps around the house and his time is always accounted for and he’s affectionate and complimentary (though no sex) so I do not believe he is currently having any affair or anything. I only suspect he wants to flirt and maybe is wishing he could do more than flirt. Not sure.
I just really need prayer for my marriage too. I desperately need help and an objective opinion.
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Catherine,
Goodness!
I am so sorry that things have been so difficult. 😦
It is impossible for me to tell exactly what is going on. I am very glad you are going to a Christian pastor soon. I do know that men who were molested when they were young can often have MANY scars from that and issues with sex in marriage. And, men who have a porn addiction sometimes have no desire for their flesh and blood wife because porn permanently changes the nerve pathways in the brain and sometimes men lose the ability to be turned on by anything but porn.
http://www.brentriggs.com – Brent Riggs is a pastor/blogger who has an ebook on handling porn that may be helpful.
Is your husband a believer in Christ?
What is your relationship with Christ?
I will certainly pray for both of you to be reconciled to Jesus and to each other and for healing for your marriage.
Sending you a HUGE hug!!!!
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Thank you. Yes my husband is a strong believer and evangelizes at work. As I said in my post, he is a spiritual leader in our home. The prevalent issue at this time is not the porn, our sex life, or his molestation, though they may factor in. The issue is his pretending not to know these women who act like they know him and are expecting him to greet them but he is hiding knowing them. I am not sure if he’s hiding it because he’s trying to protect our marriage (poorly) by attempting to keep me from getting jealous or if he is pretending because there was something to hide, as in flirting, which is what this site is about. Is it possible you missed that in my overly long and complicated post? I was so upset that I could not sleep last night although we’re not fighting at this moment.
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Catherine,
I am so sorry you have been so upset. 😦
I was hoping to clarify a bit before I made any assumptions. 🙂
How is the rest of your relationship? How have you responded in the past when you saw him being really friendly or flirting with women? Is it possible that he is trying to avoid conflict with you?
Is this something you could respectfully bring up with him? It is easy to make a lot of assumptions about our husbands’ motives, but it is easy to be very wrong when we do that.
What if sometime when things are relaxed you could say, “You know, Honey, I really value that you are generally a very honest man. I respect that about you. I also respect that you try to protect our marriage and treat me with honor. I am a bit confused about what happened the other day with some girls at the library. I want you to know that you don’t have to hide things from me. I’m not going to freak out. It means a lot to me when you are upfront with me about your relationships with other people.”
Maybe that would give him a chance to explain. But if he does- then stay calm and do not freak out. Think about what he says. Consider it for a day or two and pray about it before reacting. Be sure there is something worth reacting about.
But it would be best, in my view, if you could get an accurate gauge of his perspective first before making assumptions.
With love,
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Also, thanks for your prayers. I hope I am not being rude, I am just so upset.
I really also think this is a spiritual attack on our marriage as well because when the neighbor in the window incident happened my husband was teaching a Bible study for the Cub Scouts, and just before he started teaching it I said to him one day, I won’t be surprised if we are spiritually attacked because you are teaching.
But thankfully the Lord is teaching me to be more prayerful through all of this doubt.
Thank you again for your support. I know it is early Sunday morn and people are going to church. But I pray maybe later some other women might give their objective opinions about my plight. Perhaps I was just over reacting or over imagining. Or maybe he loves me so much he is being overly vigilant in protecting me from jealousey.
Any thoughts anyone?
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Catherine,
The enemy would LOVE to take your marriage down, destroy your husband, destroy your marriage and you. Absolutely.
The most important thing here, in my view, is what does God think? What would most honor Him? How can you trust Him and rest in His sovereignty and love? How can you extend the same grace, mercy and compassion to your husband that Christ extended to you (and to us all)?
Grace Filled Marriage by Dr. Tim Kimmel would probably be an excellent resource to check out. 🙂
I pray that you and your husband might be able to calmly talk through this situation and that you might be able to understand his heart and that y’all might be able to approach obstacles as a team together.
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Hi, I could not get back before now to explain what has happened since I last came on.
Thank you for your replies.
You are right that we do need resources. I’ll check out the book you suggested.
My oldest daughter took the youngest kids out all day yesterday so my husband and I actually had all that time to talk.
I told him how much I love, respect, and honor him. And how much I want and need to trust him and how much I want him to trust me enough to know that I would not freak out over him greeting someone in a civil situation. (I’ve told him this before but somehow I guess it has not sank in yet) I told him how much I want him to feel he can tell me anything and I would love him always, no matter what. Then I asked him about whether he was trying to protect me from being jealous and as a result unintentionally deceiving me he did not know these girls when he did.
His side of the story is that he doesn’t know the girl at the library. But when I told him I saw him talking to her at the counter and then I saw him ignore her greeting, moments later, he said he did not remember talking to her because he’s polite to everyone at the counter and that he averts his eyes from other women wherever he goes so it was possible with the neighbor across the street, and the woman at the library, and others elsewhere he was so diligent about averting his eyes that he may have been rude and ignored their greetings.
I do want to believe him, and if it is true then I’m proud of him for being so diligent (maybe too diligent.) But there is also part of me that can’t believe him because of his past dishonesty. I cannot get into all the details, but it is difficult to trust someone, when all the times you started to rebuild the trust they destroyed, then they crushed it again. (18 years marriage.)
We also discussed how his looking at porn in the past played into my insecurities. And he was very apologetic and sounded sincere about his sorrow that he had hurt me. And I made it clear about how I don’t want him to feel condemnation about things he’s repented for. But I wanted him to understand why I am so insecure about imagining he’s looking at younder women.
So now I just need prayer that God will give me wisdom, and that through our counseling I’ll learn to trust him. Meanwhile we talked about ways we could work on building our marriage stronger and do more things together as a couple.
I especially need people praying for me today because it seems the enemy and my own insecurities want me to keep doubting. I’m battling it hard core with prayer.
I’ll attempt to update ya’ll after counseling.
Thank you again for your support. It really helps, more than you know.
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Catherine,
I am so glad you had that talk.
It may be wise to assume the best about your husband until some major evidence presents itself that he is lying. That is one of the qualities of agape love, it assumes the best and “keeps no record of wrongs.” I Corinthians 13:4-8.
Praying you can enjoy your man today, smile at him and savor the time you share. 🙂
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Catherine,
I am lifting you up in prayer now!
With love,
April
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You are so correct about what matters is what God wants, how we can trust Him. That is truly what is most important.
Thanks for reminding me because that is what God was showing me this morning before I read and then re read your comment.
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Catherine,
I am so excited about what God is doing in your life, that is awesome!
Please let me know how you are doing. 🙂
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Thanks for your write up.My husband flirts a lot,the most painful aspect is that he hides it from me and its killing me.He went as far as getting a secret sim card he uses when he leaves the house,the day I found out he called the service provider to block the line.He told me he wanted to keep away some people from his family.He even had a secret facebook ID he was using to flirt around.The day I found out,he cried for forgiveness and closed down the account.Then he started living one of his phones in his car permanently,I didn’t raise an eyebrow till I noticed he switchs it on immediately he leaves the house and puts it off shortly before he enters the house,eventually he started living the phone on in the car.whenever we are out in the same car,he puts the phone on silent and is worked up each time I touch the phone,so I became suspicious and started sneaking to the car at nite.Most of the contacts on the phone are ladies,I have never heard him mention and I don’t know them. the call him on daily basis.He talks to one in particular every morning on his way to work and shortly before he gets home.The day I confronted him calmly about the phone he leaves in the car and the strange ladies and calls,he refused to talks about it and plainly told me he wasn’t cheating on me,accusing me of not trusting and spying at him.we ended up in an aguement and he beat me.We reconciled immediately.Things went on smoothly till I travelled with my kids two months ago to see my parents,I spent 3weeks.I came back to notice a strange lady calls him every day at odd hours(not kidding)he now started putting mobile phone on silent,so I won’t hear when the phone rings.Eventually he deleted the ladies name from his phone,but I saved the number in my phone.He still calls the lady and lady calls him back.They talk up to 4 to 5 times in a day,he also deletes their text msgs,I saw one he forgot to delete which he deleted the same day.He is a doctor and he just started his residency, and spends a lot of time the hospital.they talk to each other at nite.when he is home early,he will look for an excuse to leave the house to call this lady.I have been praying,I am going crazy.Please help me.Are my getting worked up for nothing.
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Margaret,
Goodness.
I don’t think that this is nothing. 😦
Are you safe? Has he been violent against you before?
Can you find godly help? I think that you are going to need help. Is he willing to go to Christian counseling with you?
My precious girl! I will be praying for you. What he is doing is not right. But I am concerned most of all for your safety.
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No,he has never been violent before.He has never hit me again since then.Maybe I caused it.The only thing I want, is for him to change his ways,to stop lying and hiding things from me.He is also addicted to pornography and I have caught once or twice masturbating.We talked about the pornography he apologised and deleted the ones in his computer but was mad when I wanted to discard the DVDs.He told me he is a man I should allow him do it himself.Then he went to discard them immediately and hid one in his laptop bag,I saw it the same day when I was looking for something else.I didn’t talk to him about it.I also don’t want to talk to him about the masturbation,because I don’t want to keep discussing his behaviour.I don’t want to be a nagging wife.I married him a virgin,thinking I will get all the sex I deprived myself of,for the sake of Christ in marriage,but I am not fulfilled.We only have sex when he wants,and he hardly wants sex.Most times I try to touch him,he shoves my hands aside(while sleeping)he has sex with me anytime he wants,even when I am already asleep.If I try to touch him in a sexual way when we are together,he gives excuses on why we shouldn’t have sex or he sneaks out of the bedroom.When I feel like having sex,I just lie by his side and try to seduce him and pray he touches me,if he doesn’t,I console myself to sleep.(I am a very good looking woman,so I wonder why)We have discussed the sex issue several time,with little or no effect.He has promised to change several times.He said he enjoys sex,but doesn’t like it much.I think the pornography is affecting him.Or maybe he doesn’t like sex because it has been like this from when we got married. I love him so much and I pray he changes his ways.I know he loves me too,we have had lots of good times together.I am tired of complaining or discussing with him.I have decided to pray harder.He wasn’t born again when I met him.I converted him.He compromises his faith a times.
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Margaret,
Goodness, Such a PAINFUL situation. Pornography DEFINITELY can impact a man’s desire for his wife. 😦 It can be a very difficult addiction to break, even for believers in Christ.
Check out http://www.brentriggs.com and look at his books. He has one about pornography addiction to help husbands and also their wives. If you click like you are going to buy it, I believe that there is an option to download it for free.
I believe there may be wisdom there that could help.
This situation breaks my heart for you both! I pray that you might work as a team to overcome this.
I would also suggest “Grace Filled Marriage” by Dr. Tim Kimmel. The whole book is amazing, but there is a chapter about handling porn use that may be quite helpful.
Much love to you! I pray for God’s healing for you both.
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I have told you earlier about my husband flirting and addiction to pornography,let me refresh.I travelled home to see my parents for 3wks,and noticed that a lady calls my husband regularly,I noticed it from the night I came back.from the call log the talk to each other 4 to 5times in a day(not exaggerating)they even talk late at night 10 to 11pm(not in my presence)the day she called him in my presence,he practically ran out of the room to answer his call.Eventually he deleted her name from his phone book,but I already know the number.He did this so when ever she calls or i see her missed calls,I won’t know who is calling.He also deletes every text msg from or to her,I managed to see one he sent to her telling her he will call her back,but when I checked in less than an hours time,he had already deleted it.He also looks for excuses to go out and call this lady.Recently he started deleting the call logs from this lady,but I manage to see it from the call history. I was going thru his laptop,a few days ago and I saw the picture of a lady I don’t know he saved in his hard drive,he just used the word Hi to save the picture,I am suspecting its the strange lady. I spoke to him about his addiction to pornography a long time ago,he just apologised,and deleted the videos from his laptop,only for me to check his laptop a few days ago to see a lot of pornographic movies he downloaded recently.I don’t know how to talk to him about this lady and the pornography because the last time I spoke to him about his phone secrecy(leaving his phone in his car,putting it on silence when we are together and strange women I don’t know or hasn’t mentioned them to me calling him frequently)He refused to explain himself,he just told me he wasn’t cheating on me and told me I didn’t trust him nd was destroying our marriage etc.I ended up being the bad person.I got angry and over reacted,and he beat me. Please how do I talk to him,about this strange lady,the picture and his pornographic addiction,please reply soon,I am heart broken,and stay awake most nights thinking.I have been praying too,I am also asking God expose him with a concrete evidence he can’t deny,to give me a good opportunity to talk to him cos he lies to me a lot.I don’t want to involve an outsider to talk to him.He will be very angry with me.I love him so much.
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Margaret,
YUCK.
Matthew 18:14-16, I believe it is – describes how we are to approach a fellow believer who sins against us.
1. We go to the person in private and confront the sin gently but honestly
2. if they don’t listen and repent, we bring another person with us to confront them.
3. If they don’t repent they are supposed to go before the church and if they don’t repent at that point, they are to be shunned by the church.
Almost no churches practice step 3 anymore.
I would also consider Matthew 7:1-5 where Jesus says we should take the 2X4 plank out of our own eye before we try to remove the speck from our brother’s eye. Your husband may have more than a speck going on here, but if there is any sin in your own life you haven’t repented of to God or to him, deal with that first – then you will see clearly to confront him with the truth in love.
You may have to say, “I know what you are doing. It’s not ok. You are hurting me, disrespecting me and violating our marriage covenant. I want to work through this with you. But I need you to be honest with me about what is going on.”
If he confesses – and apologizes, great. You can then ask for him to be transparent and for you to be able to have access to all his accounts and for anti-porn software.
But many men need a godly man accountability partner.
Is he a believer in Christ?
Praying for wisdom for you!
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Wow!! I pray for marriages across the world in the name of Jesus! It seems like there is an all out attack against the marriage covenant because of what it represents. My husband is very flirtatious as well and it hurts deeply. I am a jealous wife. He knows he’s flirtatious and he feels that because he is no longer committing ‘adultery’ with other women, he is doing better than he was. I do believe at times, I might overreact. I would love you guys opinion. We were out at chuck e cheese last night with our children. When we entered, there was a young woman who worked there. Very attractive and was about 18 years old. He said a comment about her to me, that was a flirtatious lustful comment. All I could do was shake my head. The young woman was clearly flirting with him and trying to get his attention. Often when I would look at him sitting directly across the table from me, he would be looking behind me at her and her figure:(. When I asked him not to talk about other women like that to me and that I am his wife and it does not do me any good because I already deal with jealously and if its not edifying or profitable to our marriage, could he not do it. I asked if he could talk to his friends like that and about that. He did not receive it and the more I noticed him looking at her, the more angry I got and the more jealous I got. I must say that I’ve always dealt with jealously but after he committed adultery years ago, my jealously grew. I have to constantly stay before the Lord about it. I did allow his sin in that area to cause me to have a bad and negative spirit towards him. I ended up giving him the ‘eye’ or scowl because I felt really disrespected by the way he was looking at that young lady and the comment he said. Of course, this is NOT the first time he’s made comments like that and he does not know when or where to stop, as if I am one of his male friends that he can sit up and talk about other women in a sexual way with. Most time’s, I laugh and play it off and am strong enough for it not to let me get upset and bitter. I must say that I am tired of it. When I asked him last night to stop, that must have been the 5th time I’ve asked him to stop doing that throughout the years, if not more and he keeps doing it. I will take your advice April and make sure that I am free from sin in this area and in my marriage. I will continue to respect him and not start to flirt with other men out of bitterness and out of spite. His weakness is sexual sin and other women so when I do everything listed above, he still struggles with lust and sexual impurity. I pray that the Lord will equip me to be able to obey his word in that I can continue to respect him as my authority even when he acts like this because it makes it REALLY hard to.
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Nekiwa,
Hello, my sweet friend! It’s great to hear from you!
How I wish no husband ever acted like this! 😦 It is very hurtful.
Did he acknowledge that what he was doing was disrespectful toward you and hurtful?
What is his relationship like with Christ?
Does he have a godly mentoring man in his life?
How have things been since that incident?
Praying for God’s wisdom for you. It is very difficult when our spouse sins against us.
You may want to check out my brother’s post at the top of my home page “When My Spouse is Wrong.”
Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage, says “We are never more tempted to sin than when we are sinned against.”
I pray God will empower you to respond in His power and holiness and to breathe healing and life into your marriage. I pray that your husband might repent and might have godly sorrow over his sin.
I pray for God to strengthen your marriage and that He might tear down all the strongholds of the enemy. And I pray for God to be greatly glorified in your marriage and in your life and your husband’s life.
Yes, SO MANY MARRIAGES are deeply hurting. This is one of the biggest issues I am seeing wives struggle with – their husbands flirting or lusting after other women.
I pray for God to heal each of these marriages and for these husbands and wives to have unity and to protect their marriages and set godly examples for their children.
Much love to you!
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Hi,
I promised to get back to ya’ll and let you know how our marriage counseling session went. We went last night.
The counselor seemed to think I was overreacting, thinking my husband was hiding his relationships with these other women.
He also told my husband he needs to stop being so friendly with other women because, even if he doesn’t mean it as flirtation, the women may think he does and it is a green light for them to pursue a relationship further. My husband agreed to make the effort.
I was sad about the fact that his voice when he agreed to it (almost teeth gritting) and what he said, “okay, I’ll attempt to be robotic and business-like” when interacting with other women, almost seemed resentful (as though he was agreeing to it but did not really want to make the effort.)
So, now all I can do is pray for the best and pray I can learn to trust my husband.
You say I ought to trust him and the counselor says that as well. But there seems to be something blocking the trust. Like I consider my being here enough proof of my trust, considering what I have seen his efforts to have been over the years. But I don’t have the emotions to go along with it any longer this time around.
In other words I don’t see how anyone can trust someone untrustworthy without taking a deep breath and thinking “okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But I’ll be keeping a sharp eye on what you do, rather than just believing what you say, because I’ve been burned so many times.”
The word says loves does not keep a record or wrongs. But it also says not to keep company with a believer who is a drunkard or a slanderer (he was both.) I forgave him for both and stayed. Now I’m wondering how to trust him. I can’t get past the block in my mind. Also the counselor didn’t have time to address all of that and he did not have another appointment open until December. So basically I have to deal with this without any counsel until then. Don’t get me wrong. I know the Holy Spirit is our Counselor and God is a God of miracles.
I’m pretty discouraged about the way things went because I want to trust my husband with all my heart and pray every day I’ll learn how again. But for some reason I can’t bring myself to trust him, like it is an automatic reflexive block and I’m just waiting for the next blow, since it ALWAYS happens again with him and always has.
Besides prayer, Scripture study, and counsel, what can I do to get past the block of not trusting someone who has proven himself untrustworthy for years?
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Catherine,
I am super excited your husband was willing to go with you to a counselor and that he agreed – even if begrudgingly – to not be so friendly, or overly-friendly – or flirty with other women. THAT IS HUGE! THANK YOU, GOD!
It seems to me that it is important for there to be accountability and transparency for you to be able to rebuild trust. Have y’all talked about that at all?
That is necessary, in my view – before you just start trusting.
Is your husband still a drunkard and a slanderer? Or is he doing well in those areas now?
How are you doing with respecting your husband?
Are you meeting his needs?
Are you safe for him to let his guard down and share his heart with you?
What does he need from you at this point?
What does God want to change in your heart?
How is your time with God going?
Are you able to trust God now?
Much love,
April
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Hi April,
you asked whether we talked about my husband having accountability and transparency so we could rebuild our trust. He does not have accountabilitiy other than our counselor (who is a pastor but not our pastor.) This is because our church and Bible College closed down. And every church we’ve gone to in previous years seems to either end up closing down or being abusive. We want to find fellowship. But many of the churches in CA are infiltrated by church growth teachings, some are even new agey or phsycho babbley. We have not given up on finding a church home. But meanwhile, I’m the one always looking and attempting to find fellowship and support (I call the counselor, I seek the church, I came here and to other blogs for a godly female perspective.) Then he criticizes me for not having a female mentor to talk to.
To his credit he is a spiritual leader in our home. We do Bible study together with our children each night as I do in the morning with our kids before we begin our home school group lessons.
I do try to remember to tell him how appreciative I am for all he does and what a good husband and father and hard worker he is. And I pray for him each day at work. So I don’t think I’m taking him for granted. I even tried to spice things up in the area of romance. That seemed to help things a bit.
I am trying to stay close to the Lord and trusting God through all of this.
My husband did finally stop drinking after I threatened to expose him to the church (approval and popularity seem very important to him.) However after he slandered me to his family I don’t think it stopped there and suspect he still does it. Perhaps it is my own paranoia but I’m always afraid he will do it again and people act like he is doing it, though as I said, it may be my own self inflicted paranoia.
I pray each day for the Lord’s wisdom to see His truth and discern truth from lies and to see God’s light from my own presumptions or the enemy of our soul.
Appreciate your prayers on our behalf.
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Catherine,
I certainly pray for God’s wisdom for you both and for His will and His glory in your marriage and family. It sounds like there are some good things going on.
Much love to you!
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Also, I told him in the counseling office, I do not expect him to be “rebotic and business-like” with other women. I don’t mind if he’s civil and kind, I just prefer he not be overly friendly as he has been, and the counselor agreed that my husband has a tendency to talk a lot and women like men that talk a lot and so this can be misinterpreted as being flirtatious by women.
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My husband and I are into network marketing business.My husband has become desperate to bring people in to the business that he now gives single ladies ride in his car,flirts with them and doesn’t tell them he is married to get to register.The most painful aspect is that he doesn’t tell me.He prefers to see them alone.A few days ago,one of them sent him a text calling him honey pie and telling him she misses him(He saved her name with a guys name).I called the lady,she apologised and told me the were not sexually involved,that she didn’t know my husband was married,He told her he wasn’t married when she asked him. When I confronted my husband,he just apologised,and said the were discussing business,not whether he was married or not.I was feeling sleepy and couldn’t talk much,I even dozed off.I later told him,politely that we had to talk again.He refused and said I was bothering him,that he won’t come home.I eventually gave up.
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Re: The issue of riding with single ladies in the car.
Some couples have an agreement that they will not do things like this. I think family counselors are calling this “hedges” in a marriage for protection.
For a long time my husband was not willing to discuss hedges because of his maturity level.
But later he heard radio programs about it and realized he had ignored some safety measures that could have protected him from temptations that could have been avoided.
One of the safety measures was to not ride in the car alone with the opposite sex unless absolutely unavoidable. Another would be to not have lunch alone with a female co worker. Another would be no business trips alone with a female co-worker etc.
This is because we see in the Bible not only to resist temptation but to flee it, like Joseph did his master’s wife’s sexual advances.
I know some realtors that work as a couple in business and they have it where the wife works more with the women and the husband works more with the men.
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Hello peacefulwife,
I am a single mother and seem to only attract married men lately. I do my best to stay away from everyone, but I can not stand the fluid line these husbands play with.
Some married men even get offended that I refuse to cross that line. I have never really hung out with females, even as a child. I enjoy a good conversation and a platonic friendship.
Recently I had problems with a gas pipe that was a potential hazard for my child, so I asked for help. The man that I asked was an acquaintance, married and very out spoken. Once he fixed the pipe we sat and chatted as we had many times in the past. However this time I began to realize that he was pushing the line toward flirty. I did say that I am flattered, however I do not play that game. I told him in many different ways no. (I am not a home wrecker, I had a husband that cheated on me, also that he had a beautiful family)
So my question is do I stay out of it or do I say something to the wife? Although I believe that she has suspicions because I am now getting nasty looks from her friends.
Not sure what to do. I feel unfairly judged, because I did send him on his way.
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Corneliussen,
UGH.
What a difficult position!
I think it would probably be best not to have a man over to your house without his wife from now on. I am not sure that platonic relationships are completely possible in many situations. The fact that you are attracting so many married men tells me that it may not be possible with you.
PRAISE GOD you turned him down!
I would not say something to his wife.
I would just avoid any kind of private conversation or meeting with this man.
Yes, they may get offended that you won’t have an affair with them – that is OK! Not a problem to hurt their feelings on that one.
Thank you for sharing. I hope this might be helpful.
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Gods blessings and thank you!
I have no problem turning the unwanted advancements away and am very grateful to God that he has given me the courage to be a single parent with values that have no compromise.
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Corneliussen,
Sounds like a great plan to me! 🙂 May God richly bless your walk with Him and your sweet little boy!
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I am secure with my husband of 2 years and he makes me feel very special and tells me so. I hate the fact that he sometimes feels the need on Facebook to tell women when they are beautiful in their pictures they post. Usually they are women that were in his high school graduating class. We are in our 40’s now but I know his 20 yr reunion is coming up. I don’t know if it’s coincidence but the 2 i’ve seen him commenting on are single. I don’t realistically have any reason to think he is trying to develop any relationships but I do think since he’s a strong alpha male, he likes to compliment women so he gets some reaction/attention back. I praise him all the time and I know we have a great relationship but I worry about what these women think when he comments on their pictures. I don’t think that most married men do that and I don’t want some women to disrespect my marriage by even engaging in texting or messaging him.
Makes me think I’m so insecure but I want to feel that women know our marriage is ironclad. His profile pic is one of the both of us and he has posted beautiful messages to me on my page. Just these little things irk me.
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Maria,
I would love to see husbands only compliment their wives myself.
I can understand that this would frustrate you.
My suggestion – is to focus on respecting your husband as God commands you to, focus on finding your total identity, purpose, joy, peace, strength and power in Christ alone – and on blessing your husband.
As he feels genuinely respected – I believe he would be able to hear you say something like, “You know, it feels disrespectful to me when you compliment other women.” And then just leave it – don’t tell him what to do. But let him marinate on that for awhile.
You can’t control him or make him stop. The more you try to do that, the more you will repel him. But you can influence him and inspire him toward godliness.
Ultimately, only God’s Spirit can convict of sin.
If this is the only issue you have – PRAISE GOD!
This is something that is certainly forgivable and fixable, in most cases.
Praying for God’s power and wisdom for you! 🙂
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I must admit this is very hard to do, it will take a lot of patience to do this. I am currently undertaking such situation though with my fiancee, and guilty of spying, the hurt is too much to bear especially still seeing them sitting together at lunch breaks with their fellow colleagues. It has taken a toll in our relationship and though I pray I feel the sense of defeat. It is true I cannot change him and could only look up to God for strength and guidance surrendering all to Him. To all those in this position I feel your pain and may God bless you all and Merry Christmas.
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Sue,
😦 I am so sorry!
I am praying for God to give you strength and wisdom.
Sending you a HUGE hug precious girl!
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The enormous hurt that most of us wives feel is because we ARE there for our husbands, and yet we’re here on this site. Confused, angry, hurt beyond measure and conflicted between our Christian hearts and our wanna run for safety minds. Pease dont ever get on any site such as this to give us wives advice. My husband strays for his own selfish,fleshy reasons. So tell me, what do u do when even your best is not good enuff??
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Vree,
I am SO SO SO sorry for your pain! I took the other comment down. I don’t want to create more pain for you.
Would you like to talk about what is going on?
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Thank you for reaching out to me and taking that down.
if this were the first, second, or third time he crossed flirtatious boundaries then it would be easier to forgive him, hope for the best again, and reopen my heart to love him once more. but its not. I see clearly his character and I have compassion for the conflict and pull he must feel to behave in such a manner but it doesnt soften my fear that this man, if he hasnt already, will cheat/abandon me eventually. After all, it is he who baits and opens the door in such a way that encourages women to seek after him. i havent any hardcore proof of his physical infidelity but it does seem as if the Holy Spirit allows me to find out before it blooms. but truthfully who knows what he has done or is planning to do. i know he loves me but i also know that he lusts for other women. I hear him and others say that this is how men are. “He’s taking care of home, putting you at the top so don’t trip.” He says, that if we lived in ancient days he would more than likely have more than one wife because it was optional then. I say that if i lived then and in today I would rather be alone at peace than to settle. So thats where I am now.
He is working in another state, his home state, seeing and doing who knows what with the woman i found out about two days before he left. i dont want to talk to him bcuz i kno he’ll tell me he loves me and work to charm his way back into my heart. i will get comfortable once again and then Boom, i’ll be right back here once more in sorrow. i get angry bcuz of how i submit myself as his wife and compliment him, sacrifice for him, team build, give affection, try to be an ideal companion, yet its not enough to fill in his desire to be with some1 else. i cant compete. i dont want to compete. i want to grow old gracefully not on edge when a beautiful woman is around. i have no problem his appreciating the beauty in women. i take issue with flirting in such a way that opens the door for further communication/action to take place. im hurt. im scared. im mad at God for how women are so valued less. Adam had one eve and i tell my husband this is God’s og design. but he and others see the multiple wives of the patriachs and kings and feel entitled/excused to want the same.
i just keep praying and surrending the outcome of this situation to God but being real with myself, i know that i am scared to love him fully again.
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Vree,
Goodness… what a miserable situation. 😦
What was his parents’ marriage like?
What was your parents’ marriage like?
What is your relationship with Christ, my friend?
What is your husband’s relationship with Christ?
God does not value women less at all, my sweet girl! All people are of equal value in His sight and all are image bearers of God. The God I know greatly values, loves, cherishes and cares for women well. It breaks my heart to hear that you believe God doesn’t value women.
With love,
April
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His parents have been married for several years and are still married to this day. My father-in-law doesnt esteem his wife or women overall highly. He’s not a brute but he’s most definately not romantic or considerate of her. He has told me that he wished he was more hands on with his sons and she tells me that he has apologized to her for their past. Overall, they raised their family in the Christian faith but didnt impress any of their three boys on the value of a woman beyond to serve their needs. They had no daughters.
I was raised in a family of divorce. My mother was the opposite of my mother-in-law. I seen her put heartfelt effort in her marriages, but divorced three times because of emotional/physical abuse of some sort.
i liked that my husband was an alpha-male with a passion for God and ambitious so i ignored red flags and set out to practice loving him uncondtionally. The imbalance has challenged me several times, humbled me more, and ive seen him grow to appreciate me as a wife, mother, and friend but not as demonstrativly as in flowers and “let me celebrate you” attitude but with his words and affection.
Right now im in a place of building my faith relationship with God. i wish i was more solid and strong but times like these i feel the rug pulled fromunder me and i start to question everythg. im glad to testify tho that i kno God has heard every prayer bcuz the next day there is a msg i see to help me keep going positively.
His relationship with God seems gravy. He meditates often and he always seems to be in tune to hear God’s voice as he’ll tell me about revelations he’s had on this or that. i wish and have asked him to pray more with me and with the family. ive asked him to lead bible studies, but it doesnt seem to be an interest. its as if his relationship with God is his not ours. When i ask him he says, yeah, but thats where it ends right there. When i do initiate family bible study he will come in and likes to take over but since he hasnt prepared anythg, the response/excitement from the kids is not as attentive as he would want. When he hands it back to me, i’ll get going and he eventually goes back to what he’s doing.
A big challenge for my husband is to listen to ANYONE. Its nearly impossible to get him to humble himself and listen to sum1else. That makes counseling kind of out of the question and leaves prayer for the Holy Spirit to teach him. Thats his choice but im getting weary and prefering to love him from a safe distance while/if he allows that to work.
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Vree,
What does your husband say about why he flirts with other women?
Does he talk about what he wants in the marriage, or is he happy with how things are?
That is actually pretty amazing that he comes over and wants to take over during Bible study. Maybe a bit of encouragement from you to support him and encourage the kids to listen and pay attention could give him the confidence he needs?
How long have you been married?
What were the red flags you ignored?
That is amazing that he has a huge passion for God – wonderful!
What do you do when he doesn’t meet your needs?
How do you ask him for the things you want and need?
What do you believe you need to be happy?
Words and affection sound pretty good! What does he do to show his love?
What are your greatest fears?
Is it possible that there could be anything more important to you than Christ in your heart right now?
Much love!
April
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yeah i think he has been more important than Christ. i wanted to be as close to perfect wife as i could according to biblical standards. clean house, nutrient rich meals, one-one time, homeschooling mom ( im failing there too), companion, and business partner. My plate gets full and i know i dont have God in the proper order of things tho i do listen to biblical teachings while im around the house alot. My issues stem out of fear of abandonment. it manifest chiefly in not speaking up for what i want and self-sacrificing to not be too much trouble for anyone. i got so focused on keeping him happy that ive slowly drained my self joy. I okayed the sacrifice so we can reach our goals, and thats another reason for why im angry/bitter bcuz he’s not on the same page.
We moved to a new state approx one year ago and two months after we got here he went back to his home state for work purposes and was there for almost 10 months. i held it down w four boys to be supportive. for almost 2 of those months in the summer we went out there. it was during his time there that i discovered the blurred client relationship between him and a woman and i told him then that he needed to establish clear boundaries and keep to them because i wouldnt go thru this with him again. he lasted (to what i kno) for approx. 5 months until this new blurred line i discovered. Weve been married 3 years and he tells me that his behavior is something he ‘s prayed to stop and be taken away from him and he doesnt like that about himself but it is natural as he is a man and men as in ancient times could have and handle more than one but are strained in todays time to be faithful. Short of two weeks ago we were in the market and for time’s sake i seperated to grab something while he went elsewhere. i walked up to him from behind to catch him staring too long at a young woman browsing next to him as if he was hoping she would catch his gaze and offer him some type of postive response. Now this may seem harsh but im going to tell u the truth. Had she been model-esqe type i wudda been mad but not as much assuming he just got caught up in her beauty, but she wasnt..at all. Just a young woman in too tight stretch pants. i asked abt it when we got back home and he went into “who, what, i dont know what youre talking about”? and basically excused it off. but as a woman i know what that thing is that guys do to catch your glance to gauge if youre interested. i didnt press it but after this latest incident a week later and all my other experiences, it adds up to the fact that i am not feeling secure with this man. im growing weary of him and my life in all! it wud be better if i had friends and a sociallife here bcuz it gets lonely, overwhelming, and my kids are young to be away from me long. but lately im thinking to look into how much care would be for drop-ins and since im a stay at home mom it means i will have to go to him to persuade him to pay for it. This wud be a good time bcuz hes in ” u kno i love u” mode which is code for “im sorry”. He ‘ll use his wallet to speak for him but for how long i dont know because he ‘s not comfortable with me out alone; i suspect he thinks a man will gawk for my attention as he is willing to do. sumthgs gotta give if im going to stay in but honestly my luv for him is turning cold. its an involuntary reaction for guarding my heart. im not even sure what he can do to win my trust.
Thanks for hearing me out. tho i sound like a scorned, bitter woman, i am hopeful that ALL things are working for both of our goods and we’ll come out on the other side of this a better person than before regardless of what is the outcome. i remind myself daily that i surrender. i repeat it till i believe it. ive asked him to not contact me so i can get my head/emotions back at peace, but he is open to talk to the kids whenevr. So, we will see what will be. Thank you for your prayers and your ministry. God Bless you and yours truly.
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Vree,
I am so sorry for how difficult things have been!
A fantastic resource to help understand our husbands better is Shaunti Feldhahn’s “For Women Only” and, if you want to really understand a man’s struggle with lust, “Every Man’s Battle” goes into great detail.
Another amazing book is “Grace Filled Marriage” by Dr Tim Keller. He explains how we can extend the grace of Christ to our spouses.
I have many, many posts here that I believe may bless you.
My greatest concern is your walk with Christ. That has to be SOLID and strong and He has to be your biggest priority – your main focus – the source of all of your contentment. He is the greatest treasure in this life – and if you try to build your life on anything else, it will collapse because it is built on sand, not Solid Rock.
Fears are often the opposite of our idols.
You may want to search my home page for:
idol/idolatry
bitterness
forgiveness
worry
dying to self
And, you may want to check out many of the posts at the top of my home page – I think a lot of them would be very helpful.
Your husband is a sinner. That is for sure. We ALL are.
Are Women Morally/Spiritually Superior to Men?
God, Don’t Waste My Time
I Want to Feel Loved!
When I Shut Up, My Husband Heard God
Are You Just, Um.. Well… Better Than Him?
Praying for Our Husbands So That God Will Hear
Praying from an Obedient Life
Praying with Respect
Praying in Faith Not Fear
Why Should I Have to Change First?
We Have All Been Greatly Affected by Feminism
Stages of This Journey
I can’t wait to see what God has in store fro you my precious sister!
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I have a question. On my husband phone, I saw a text message calling another woman that he works with smiley. I find this disaproriate. He is a christian man and father. You can have cute flirt name for you wife that longs for you.
Am I wrong?
Jennjenn
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Jennjenn,
I am not sure I know enough of the story to be able to judge whether he is wrong. How are things going with you and your husband in your marriage?
How is your relationship with Christ?
Much love to you!
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Well, my relationship with Christ is wonderful. My husband has a relationship also with Christ, but he is still in his early stages. As far as our relationship, things are not bad but always could be better. I feel that I do not get much affection from my husband, and certainly not any pet names. He said he does not feel that he was flirting, and I trust him. Its just that I do not feel that he should be using terms of endearment with a woman that I am unfamiliar with.
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Jennjenn,
Is this something that other people call her too? If you trust him, is this something that may not be a big deal that you might be able to let go?
What are you doing to bless your husband this weekend?
Much love to you!
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I used to flirt with men (married, single, whatever) and I enjoyed it. Until I flirt a man that showed me his wife means more to him and my attitude was dishonorable. How surprised I was. I felt ashamed and I was proud of him. I understood how beautiful is to have a relationship like that with no space to a third sexy good looking woman (or man). I decided to act like that man.
Nowadays when men flirts with me I just give a warm look to my husband, take his hand or touch his face and I give all my attention to my husband so that man can see there is some respectful relationship in this world. When my husband is not with me I put my head down and my hand on my head with my beautiful wedding ring on my finger.
It`s easy to do it, when I`m not hurt, when everything is all right.
My problem is I constantly see my husband flirting. When it happens, everything in me wants to give him a lesson. Instead to feel sad and unloved I want to flirt and have my self-steam up again.
And this is the moment that, once more, I have to be strong and don`t go back to my old nature. I use all my strength to try to forgive my husband and to fight against my old bad habits and all my strength is not enough. I need God, I need to hear (or read) people like you girls.
Once more I found help to go on in my good purpose towards my better relationship and don`t be evil. Thanks to God and all you who shared your experiences here.
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Lucy,
Thank God you saw that flirting was wrong! How wonderful!!! What a powerful example that husband showed you. I love it!
I pray for wisdom for you about your husband. That would definitely hurt. I assume you have shared with him that it hurts you when he flirts with other women?
Much love to you!
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He knows but he thinks I`m over reacting, I shouldn`t feel unloved because he loves me, I shouldn`t be an insecure person. So I am the problem, not him, in his mind. He said last night: “but I came home with you, if I don`t love you I wouldn`t be with you”.
For my husband everybody flirts, his friends, his brothers, his father. They sit together and talk about adventures they had, like a trophy.
Wives shouldn`t cut off their fun. The perfect wife just ignores it, and she knows she is beloved somehow.
Thanks God I understood His beautiful plan for relationships and I found strength to go on following his plan.
April, I really like your phrase:
“But my obedience to God and faithfulness to my husband DO please God no matter what my husband does.”
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Lucy,
Well, you probably can’t change his perspective since he sees it as normal. But you can obey God yourself and you can pray for God’s will and. His glory and His voice to be clear to your husband as you obey I Peter 3:1-6
Much love!!!
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Hi, I bumped into this site when I was googling for suggestion and spiritual help . And like all the ladies here, I am also suffering from being married to a flirtatious man.
I find the articles, the stories and your suggestions very powerful and uplifting, I hope you don’t mind that I’m from the Philippines , I guess it’s a BLESSING to finally find this forum which is more like a ” support group” for women who need spiritual help and sense of coping up from their painful experiences.
My husband is not that BAD at all. Others would actually say that he’s a very kind and considerate person ( You’ll hear these from his colleagues and friends) but behind his Mr. Good Boy / Comical image lies a provoking, flirtatious acts, plus the fact that he is alcoholic ( Can I use the alcoholic term, since he is drinking 2 beers every night ? which he considered to be “normal”.
But my TRUST on him and even my SELF- CONFIDENCE are ruined when the his flirting escapade continues and actually became worse even when we are already married. It started from constant calls / text messages from her “younger girl who are working with him ” even in wee hours ( He is working as a manager in a fastfood restaurant) , until he became more hideous about it when I already confronted him, and like most men , he had also promised to stop it and I thought he understood how it affected me as a wife , after all, I explained that I’m giving those restriction to protect our marriage ( especially that we have a child)
But it was a devastating cycle, the situation will subside for the next 3-6 months and it will happen again ( so, just imagine that I’m always dealing wit the same issues over and over)
I tried different strategies, tried to be more respective and just try to ignore the signs and just be extra caring of his needs but since these issues Keep on coming back from time to time, would you blame me for being paranoid, cold, insecure and bitter?
At first, he would listen and try to compromise to win me back until he became defensive , much worse is that his new set of friends at work tolerated him to be more drastic in flirting with girls , after another confrontation / arguments, I cried myself to sleep while he’s sleeping soundly beside me , until one day, he finally had the guts to be meaner to me to the extent that he decided to leave us because he said ” He wants to clear his thoughts”. We always ended up getting back together , setting expectations …
But the worst happened last year when I found out that he courted this younger girl ( one of the crews in the restaurant) I don’t know how it happened but the WEIRD PART was my instinct gave me those irky feelings and I was having nightmares of him being caught with another woman.
The saddest part was he was in denial ( instead of asking for forgiveness, he always divert the issues or twist them) and I felt that he chose to have the liberty to be away from us to do those nasty things.
l I feel like I am always the only one who initiates all the reconciliation , settlement etc., and it’s giving me the worst feeling ever – “unworthiness” because of his unchanging behavior.
I am crying while I’m typing this because the PAIN just couldn’t go away despite the fact that we decided to work it out again to save our marriage. But for me he only agreed to do this because of our CHILD. ( because our relationship was way different now compared before )
I asked God to give me strength for I know as a Christian we take pride in valuing our marriage but sometimes it feels that things are so UNFAIR for I could ADMIT that I am not a perfect wife but I’m trying to be , in his case, it’s like a LOSING BATTLE.
I even tried to get to the roots of his malicious acts, even tried to talk to him intently and figure out what’s causing these and what more could I do, but he’s always mum about it. My speculations are probably because I gained weight after pregnancy ( so I am not as attractive as other girls especially the younger ones) I have basis on that since I saw a message about it , like he’s shared this issue to one of his friends, or could be because I’m his first girlfriend so he feels like he hasn’t explored enough, like he was deprived of enjoying his single life , since we got married at the age of 23 (me) 25 ( him) but I HONESTLY think these are just lame reasons to be disrespectful and insensitive of my feelings.
I apologize for this long letter. I just want to be more specific , as other wives out there could have experienced he same thing. I just want to share that the emotional turmoil that we have experienced couldn’t easily be healed and there is NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED of our struggles.
Until now, I am UNCERTAIN if I still need to hold on to this relationship for I am getting the same hints of his betraying behavior again.
I am asking for a prayer and any beneficial insights so at least I would feel I’m not ALONE. THANK YOU.
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Ella,
It is wonderful to meet you! I have a number of sisters from the Philippines here. One is a guest blogger for me, Nikka, her blog is http://www.peacefulwifephilippines.blogspot.com. 🙂
Goodness, what a difficult, painful, awful situation.
I can understand why you are hurting and why you are feeling bitter and cold toward him.
My greatest prayer for you is that you will find all of your acceptance, love, identity, purpose, peace, contentment, joy and hope in Christ alone – no matter what your husband does or does not do.
He is obviously a sinner- as we all are, unfortunately.
How is your walk with Christ going?
I invite you to look around and comment whenever you would like to.
I would also recommend “When My Spouse is Wrong.”
And Stages of This Journey.
I am totally confident that our God is able to heal your marriage. You don’t have a guarantee that He will do that. But I pray most of all for your spiritual healing and for God to empower you to be the wife He desires you to be and that God might draw your husband to Himself. You can’t verbally drag your husband to God. But God does give wives a powerful way to help their husbands hear His voice, if you are interested.
Praying for God’s greatest glory in your life, your husband’s life and in your family!
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Hi Ella!
If you want to talk about it in private, maybe you can email me at peacefulwifephilippines@gmail.com. Let’s walk through it together. Being a Filipina myself, I may be able to shed light in some issues that are particular to our culture.
God bless you!
❤ ,
Nikka
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My husband seemed very flirty with another woman when we were out with friends last night, he paid more attention to her than he did me and this is the 2nd time this has happened with this same group with the same girl. I confronted him and told him it hurt me, it was inappropriate and very dangerous. He simply said, I’m sorry. Then, the conversation ended and we went to sleep. Today I am wondering.. Why didn’t he say something like honey I can’t believe I made you feel that way I am so sorry that was not my intention we were only talking about -blank- it was nothing serious, I had no intentions of flirting with her and am not attracted to her, i’m sorry. Why didn’t he say that? I want to ask him today after it’s cooled off a little, if he thought he was flirting with her? Because he never even got defensive saying no I wasn’t! Or anything like that. I also want to ask if those were his intentions since I wasn’t being very friendly to him because I noticed it right away. I want to pick his brain a little more about this because it’s weird to me he would do something like this. Maybe he likes this woman. I don’t know. Any advice from anyone?
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First, thank you so much for writing this!
My heart is just broken. My husband has been coming home from his job for months talking about this other woman. “So and so did this today.” “So And so said this today” and i knew something was up. So he comes one day a couple months ago and tells me he flirts with her just to make the day go buy faster. And how is because I’m not there and he can’t text me so he feels lonely. Then yesterday he tells me yeah i call her my kryptonite and she knows it. And i ask him why and he tells me because if anything were to ruin him or our marriage it would be her. Needless to say i just woke up from awful nightmares about them together and finding her naked in my house. I’m so scared Idk what to do and we’re expecting a baby in September. I’m heart broken. He used to call ME his kryptonite …..
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Help,
Hello dear sister, I am so sorry your heart is broken. I feel for you and am praying for you. First I would say I am thankful your husband is telling you these things and not hiding them from you. He could possibly be wanting attention from you, how is your respect towards your husband? How do you handle it when he tells you these things? Is there any part of you as a wife you feel you could be better or any sin you are struggling with? How is your relationship with Christ and how is his relationship with Christ?
Dreams can be so painful and scary and feel so real. I pray your husbands heart can be changed, I feel you guys can fix this and work through this before your precious child comes! Everything will be okay, friend. Hope to hear from you soon!
Nicole
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I am so encouraged and humbled by this advice. Am proud of you for speaking out openly about the christian faith and standing for it. This has guided me in the right way I needed. God bless you abundantly
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Hi April! I know it’s been a couple of years since you wrote this blog, but I just found it today. I have a problem and need some advice. My husband has become a very, very heavy drinker the past 4 years (an alcoholic I would say). And every weekend he goes out to bars and doesn’t come home until 4, 5, 6 a.m. I spend all night, practically, calling him and he ignores my calls. When he finally picks up he says very, very hurtful things. When he gets home, i question him and where he’s been and with who and he continues to disrespect me. The next day he apologizes, but then proceeds to do the same thing the following weekend. Now the main issue that I have is that there have been many times that he accidentally called me and I heard him flirting with other women. Two weeks ago really, really hurt me because he was talking to this women the same way he talked to me the first time we met (FYI we didn’t meet at a bar). I confronted him that night and he said I was lying and that that conversation never happened. I know what he said and what she said because by this time the bar was closing and there was no music so I heard the conversation very clearly. I’m ashamed to say this but this is not the first time. He has done this several times and I have even checked his phone at times (I know it’s wrong but I don’t trust him AT ALL) and he had contact with other women. One time he went out to the bar and while he was out he texted a bartender and asked her what she was doing that night. Another time I heard several voicemails of a women and she said “I am at a bar, wasted, and can’t stop thinking about you”. He dismissed me by saying it was just his friend and it was totally innocent (which to me was not). I’ve asked him to stop going to bars (and drinking), but he said no and if I don’t like it (or I think he cheated on me) to just leave/get out of our home (I haven’t been working the past 4 years because I’m a stay at home mom for our 2 children). I don’t have any money or any where to go, and he knows this. So for me I feel like he’s saying, “I pay the bills here and, therefore, do what I want. If you don’t like it then leave”. I feel very disrespected, unappreciated and unloved. He refuses to stop this behavior because he says he’s not doing anything wrong. But even if he isn’t doing anything “wrong” (which to me flirting and having contact with other females is wrong) he should stop because I’ve asked him to (should do it at least out of respect). I would really like some advice (from anyone) in what to do. Please help.
Sincerely
Jennifer
P.s. When I met him (13 years ago) he was not a drinker and he know I never liked it. This has really drove a wedge between us.
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Jennifer,
Oh goodness! What a painful situation that I wish no wife ever had to face. 😦
Please, please get in touch with Al-Anon and a trusted pastor or Christian biblical counselor. What he is doing is not ok. You can find posts here on this site about how to pursue Christ with all your heart and how to be close to Him and find joy in Him and how to become the woman God calls you to be – but you are dealing with some very significant issues here.
I don’t think that calling him constantly is going to change him. You can’t change him. I don’t know if you realize that.
You can’t change him.
He probably can’t even change himself. It will take God opening his eyes for him to change.
What is your relationship with Christ?
And, please don’t just take advice from “anyone” – but only someone who will point you to God and His truth, my precious girl!
Much love to you!
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Thanks April for your quick response. Yes, I have a very, very close relationship with God. In fact, when I started my reconciliation with God is when my husband started his heavy drinking. I know the devil has used my husband to perhaps interfere with my relationship with God and perhaps try to take my focus off of God and put it on my husband. And although you might think that the devil has succeeded, he hasn’t. If anything, this situation has strengthened my relationship with God these past 4 years (I have realized that only God alone can love me unconditionally, even when I make mistakes. I know that no matter what I deal with God will always be with me a console me). But when my husband does do these things he makes me act out of character (I get very angry and don’t act very Christ like). Of course, when I calm down I feel horrible and then feel God might be disappointed in me. I pray and pray every night for my husband to change, but I feel God can only change a person if they want to change (correct me if perhaps I’m wrong). I just don’t know what else to do. Thanks for your insight.
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Jennifer,
I am so glad to hear about your walk with Christ being so close! What a blessing!
Your husband can’t really “make you” act out of character. You are the one who gets to choose how to respond to him. I don’t know the extent of your husbands issues, but there can be times it is unwise or unsafe for a wife to stay in some situations. I pray God will give you wisdom about that and about how not to enable his addiction, but also how to respond in ways that honor Christ even when your husband is very, very wrong.
Only God can open a person’s spiritual eyes. We are all spiritually dead before God wakes us up. Your husband, in his current condition, can’t even want to change. He is spiritually dead. But God is able to change him and wake him up. Only God can do that. You cannot. You can’t argue, nag, criticize, demand or explain enough to make him want to change or to open his eyes. Those approaches will probably only repel him even farther from God and from you.
I am praying you might seek godly, wise, biblical counsel from someone you can trust who can get to know you and walk with you through this great trial.
Sending you a huge hug, my precious sister!
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You’re right, he can’t make me act out of character (thanks for putting that in perspective for me). And no, I don’t have anyone that I can get to help us and counsel us (I also don’t have any friends who can give me advice). I don’t talk to my family about it because I’m to ashamed about it (as far as they know we have a perfect relationship). I love my husband dearly and I don’t want to give up on him. I’m going to ask God to help me approach my husband in a way that will honor Him (it’s going to be VERY VERY hard, especially when I feel I’m being disrespected, but I know God can do all things). Please pray for my marriage and for my husband to turn to The Lord. Thanks April for your time and advice (I really appreciate it). Take care
Jennifer
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Hi April- I have a quick question and would like your opinion on this since you aren’t emotionally invested and know way more on this topic than I. My husband lies to me often, medium-sized things I’d say, like stopping off to have a drink somewhere real fast and lies but I catch him. Then later admits. His reasoning is I wouldn’t like the truth or I would just get mad, nag and complain. He continues even though I say how it hurts me. I hold our marriage to a higher standard then him and take precautions. He does not or does not seem to. I do not like to put myself in situations where temptation might be greater. He seems to not care. I am a believer and he claims to be yet doesn’t show it in his life besides going to church.
I asked him the above question in this blog- “was there something you needed from me that I was not giving you” and his answer was “I wish you’d show me more affection and tell me you love me”. NOW this is where I need your help to dissect that for me b/c my first and only response is “WHAT?!” YOU are not showing ME much affection and YOU are the one not being the loving affectionate person you once were years ago and how in the world can i be affectionate to a liar?!?!”.
I did not respond b/c I wanted to ask you first before I assume he is just lying and trying to manipulate me. Why in the world would he say that if on my end it seems to me that he has no love for me anymore (lies/distant) and is not overly affectionate anymore and when I am affectionate it seems there is a wall up/it is not truly wanted. Is this him asking for admiration? Is it possible he can desire that truly all the while seeming like HE himself isnt that into it?! So confused. Can you give me some insight and maybe some respectful ways to respond especially since you know how I feel on that comment? Thank you!
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Confused,
There are multiple issues here. Let’s address them individually.
First, what things are you doing that seem disrespectful to him? Have you read the post Husbands Share What Is Disrespectful to Them and Signs Your Husband May Be Feeling Disrespected? If not, please read those and then let me know what God is speaking to you about.
Second – How would you respond if your husband was transparent with you and told you the truth about all these things you want him to to tell you the truth about?
Third – How is your walk with Christ going? What are your greatest fears?
Fourth – Is it possible that your husband is just different from you, not that he “doesn’t care” about your marriage? My husband and I have different boundaries that we use to protect our marriages. I am much more vigilant and cautious than he is – but, I also had a time when I was infatuated with another man 18 years ago and I know that I need to very carefully guard my heart. He has not had an issue like that. I copy him on my emails to other men. I try not to be alone with other men if possible. My husband doesn’t have the same standards I do. But you know what? I totally trust him because he has given me every reason to trust him and he is transparent and accountable. Sometimes he has to ride in a car alone with a female coworker. I ask him about their day. I don’t interrogate him or freak out. I don’t lecture him. I don’t assume he has evil motives.
One of the things I learned on this journey is that so many times when I assumed my husband had evil motives because he wasn’t doing things the way I would do them – I was dead wrong. I misjudged his heart and misunderstood his paradigm and masculine perspective and condemned him many times when he actually had GOOD motives if only I had been able to try to understand his way of looking at things.
If your husband has a history of infidelity, you may have more reason to be concerned. But if your husband is generally trustworthy – it may be that you can relax a bit.
Fifth – labeling your husband. I don’t believe it is productive to label your husband “a liar.” There are probably a lot of sins in your own life, I am guessing, because there sure were tons in my life when I started this journey. Do you want your husband to label you by your sins?
As you focus on the sins in your own life, you may just make your marriage a safe enough place for your husband to feel comfortable sharing things with you without being afraid that talking to you will be like going before a firing squad. You are not responsible for him lying. That is his sin that he owns before God. He shouldn’t lie. But you shouldn’t be sinning against him either.
Take I Corinthians 13:4-8 and put your name in the place of “love.” Are you loving your husband the way God commands you to perfectly? What areas does God want to work on in your heart?
Sixth – Isn’t it possible that your husband may be telling you the truth? Why would you immediately assume that he is lying and trying to manipulate you? Here is my suggestion. Take his answer at face value. Work on those things. Maybe he feels very disrespected and unloved by you. Maybe he is responding to the way he feels you are treating him? Maybe if you were more affectionate and verbal about your love, he would feel more loved by you? If you focus on his failures, you will only destroy your marriage. Focus on your walk with God and your obedience to Him and let God change your husband. You can only change you.
Check out this post “Why Do I Have to Change First?”
And
Do I Have the Right to Punish My Husband?
Much love to you! I’m right here if you want to talk more. I’m REALLY proud of you for not saying anything right away to your husband. If you had said all of these things, you could have really caused a lot of damage to your marriage and your husband.
I’m praying for you!
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Thanks for the response April!
First- I have read that. There are a lot of nonverbal disrespects on my part, mouthy things like comments or low blows, yelling, etc., Those would be the main things. I do admit them, see them and am working on them/praying about it a lot.
Second-if he was honest I would probably be very mad. I’ll take the stop for a drink one b/c that recently happened. If he had called and said he was stopping for a drink really quick somewhere I would have been fuming mad. I would have appreciated his honesty for once but I would have been very mad. I probably would have told him not to bother to come home (in all honesty). I would not do that and I do not feel its good for him as a man to be sitting somewhere alone so it bothers me extensively and if I tell him it does it seems he does it more/does not care.
Third-my walk is going good. I am always in the Word and praying. I just recently have started praying about myself as the focus and my sins. I’d say for the past month maybe. For a new heart, new way of thinking, conviction where needed,etc. I am truly wanting to change. Yes I do struggle with the fact I am wanting this and then my husband does something very inconsiderate in my opinion or flippant. There was a time 6 months ago I saw a text on his phone from a lady in his work asking to bring her a soda. He did. I think that is so wrong and I felt very unloved. Left my mind wandering. He works with all men except in the office part are a handful of women. he is not side by side with them but they are there. If I had done that, he would have been very mad. he even says he would. Yet he makes excuses for it….such as…she’s married, she’s just the office lady, i was on my break and had been in there all day for work related things, it was no big deal, etc.When i’m trying to work on myself and these things rear their ugly head or get brought up again, I do not know how to handle it. I then start feeling as if no matter what I do, this is what I will deal with. He will never love me enough or hold our marriage to a high standard. It gets me frustrated.
Fourth- no history of infidelity. None that I know of or think. but that’s the thing in my eyes he isnt transparent/honest so I cant trust him like that. I feel if I do, then I look like an idiot b/c then i’ll find out about the lady he brought a soda to or he will lie about something. I end up feeling stupid. Or i’m having the wool pulled over my eyes. I can’t stand to think something is going on behind my back OR to keep my mouth shut if I do know he’s lying. I find it EXTREMELY hard. All the little lies in the past and past things just are there at the forefront and so I find i can’t just trust him. No he’s never actually cheated (that I know of and I dont think he has) but still.
Fifth- no i wouldnt want him labeling me by mine! good point! and he never does! big difference in us. Thats the part I struggle with- im working on myself meanwhile I catch him in a lie. I know his sin is not mine but it kills me to the core. God wants to work on EVERY area lol he has a lot of work to do in me for sure.
Sixth-See that’s where I get scared and put walls up. If I act affectionate and loving and then a week later I catch him in a lie or he does something I feel puts down our marriage- i feel 20 times more hurt. If I act that way and show it and he messes up and I dont feel like being affectionate b/c im upset, I never know how to balance the two or go back. If that makes sense. I know I cant show affection based on his actions or lack of sins, b/c then it would be conditional but I just dont want to be hurt. I feel way more hurt when ive been so affectionate and open and he hurts me.
I will read those posts. THank you for your input.
I did not respond until today and I just said that the reason I wasn’t lately is b/c I felt he was distant and also when he lies to me or something of the sort, I dont feel like being affectionate but I will work on it. And he said ok.
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Confused,
Well, the good news is, you are on the right track, especially in the past month. You have a LONG, LONG way to go, but you are now moving in the right direction by focusing on your walk with Christ and your sin.
I don’t know if you have read Sacred Marriage or Sacred Influence by Gary Thomas? But he says, “We are most tempted to sin when we are being sinned against.”
Your husband is more tempted to lie to you – which you hate – because of your sin of control, distrust, and lack of respect for him. And then there is a vicious cycle. You feel more justified to sin in return when he lies. Then he feels even more justified not to be honest because you will flip out.
I have a Youtube video about nonverbal disrespect on my channel “April Cassidy.” I think if you could see yourself and hear yourself on camera, you may be shocked just how scary you may come across to your husband. Lying is a sin that people often commit because of fear. Fear of the other person’s response. Instead of labeling him a liar – look at why he is afraid to be honest with you. Seek to be a safe place for him to be honest. If you pummel him for being honest, he is a smart man. He won’t make that mistake again!
Ok, the taking a soda to a woman at work thing. Wow. There is some serious, serious insecurity going on in your heart here, it seems to me, my precious sister. My husband works with women, too. His boss is a woman. If I found out that a coworker of his asked him to bring her a soda on his break, that would not phase me at all. In fact, I would probably think, “That was thoughtful of Greg to take her a drink.” Your response to that tiny, most likely extremely insignificant issue is quite telling to me about where your heart is and the work that you have ahead of you at this point. And, your response if he did tell you that he was stopping to get a drink on the way home is very over the top. If he was honest with you and you told him not to come home – wow. How is he suppose to be honest with you if you refuse to let him come home even if he very likely isn’t doing anything wrong?
The history you have with your husband tells me that he probably isn’t doing anything wrong. Yet – you feel that it is necessary to treat him as if he is guilty of adultery at all times. Why is that? What is in your history in your life that makes you feel that insecure and afraid?
What would happen if your worst fears came true? How would you deal with that?
Do you see that you could be creating the very thing you fear the most by the way you are treating your husband like a criminal even though he is probably innocent?
Is self-protection your greatest concern?
What if you opened your heart and allowed yourself to risk pain? What would happen?
I think you are seeing clearly that your love is conditional for your husband. That doesn’t honor God. Loving the way God loves means you WILL get hurt at times. Keeping yourself from being hurt cannot be the greatest goal. Honoring God, loving Him and blessing your husband is the greatest goal!
Much love to you! I am so excited to be on this journey with you! 🙂 Praying for you today!
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Confused,
Here is a post I wrote for our single sisters in Christ, but, I think it may bless you. It is about insecurity in relationships.
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well i thought different. I was thinking if you have to lie to your spouse, maybe its something you shouldn’t be doing to begin with. Not so much fear. And if you fear they will be upset, shouldn’t that tell him it is wrong??
I believe it stems from it seeming to be this way from the beginning. Like I have always caught him in little lies, etc. He always has come off to me as though he doesn’t value the marriage a lot or at least not as much as I do. I just feel I have been dealing with that for the majority of our relationship so that in and of itself makes me insecure. I feel I get no security from HIM. Also- my past relationships that were serious involved a lot of cheating/lying and 1 with physical abuse that I quickly got out of. The men who didnt lie to me I never dated or dated quickly and stopped b/c they were “boring.” Insecurity stems from that as well and the whole attitude of you arent going to get one over on me. Because back when I was younger and dated… I did not question as much, I did not “know” they were lying, I did not get so angry so quickly. Then after having that happen to me with a few men I did care about and love, I have developed into this and then with my own husband now getting caught in lies or whatnot, it just made it worse.
If my worst fear came true, which would be him having an affair and being caught or leaving me for another women- then I would be devastated. I would probably rip him apart and kick myself for “knowing” and “seeing” signs all along that he lied easily, etc. I’d be torn.
I totally see how I could be creating the same thing I fear will happen and do not want to happen. Great point. I have heard that before. Since you pointed it out, I know see it. I am going to pray about that. Thank you.
Self-protection could be my greatest concern, yes. If not greatest, then its up there. I say from the past relationships but also how my husband is now with me does not help either.
I’m just scared if I allow myself to risk pain I will definitely experience it and it will rip me to shreds and I will lose all my joy and lose part of myself. Like I cannot possibly take anymore (due to ex’s and my husband). I’m afraid if he does things and I say nothing, he will think something like “ha ha what an idiot she doesn’t even have a clue” and it pains me to think of him doing that or anyone. I dont want anyone to think they can get one over on me. Maybe it is b/c so many people did in the past. I do not know.
Lots to think about! This is for sure. and to pray about as well. Thank you.
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Confused,
Sometimes people lie because what they are doing is wrong. Sometimes people lie to avoid a massive conflict even if what they are doing isn’t wrong. You have decided that your husband stopping to get a drink on his way home from work is sin. Can you give me a Scriptural reference for that judgment you are making on his spiritual life, please?
If we are not careful, we will take our own convictions and decide that whatever goes against our personal convictions is sin for everyone on the planet. As if we have the right to decide what is sin and what is not sin for other people. I have done this. I did this with my own husband and with other people for years. I had my personal convictions on areas that are gray in Scripture where there isn’t a specific command given, and I labeled other people “sinful” when they did things that were against my personal convictions. Romans 14 is about this. I was very wrong to put myself in the place of God and condemn other people for things that God Himself didn’t even label as sin. I had as much or more pride than Satan. I elevated myself ABOVE God, thinking I knew best. I knew better than God. I had more wisdom and more right to dictate to people what things were right and what thing were wrong than God did. This was not conscious. But this is what I did. Satan just wanted to be equal to God. I put myself ABOVE the Most High God. I seriously believed others should submit to me. I wouldn’t have said that out loud or to myself. But I expected God and people to submit to my will. Wow. My self-righteousness was through the roof. Immeasurable. I looked down on my husband as if he was such a sinner and I was so holy and spiritual. I didn’t forgive him or other people because I was above having to forgive anyone. I held on to bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness. I was controlling because I had SELF on the throne of my life not God. I had idols in my heart above Christ – being in control, my husband, marriage, feeling loved, being happy, having my way…
I used to condemn my husband because he was so “unloving.” He was shut down. He would barely speak to me, barely look at me, barely touch me for long periods of time. I railed against him and blasted him for being such an unloving, ungodly husband and such a terrible spiritual leader. I beat him down. You can see the damage I did to him in my interview with him years later. And you can see his perspective as God began to change me in this post.
Who was the “bigger sinner”? My husband or myself? He avoided conflict with me. He didn’t tell me how he really felt. He didn’t confront my awful sin against him. I wish now that he had done those things. Maybe I could have woken up from my blindness earlier. But, he forgave me, he was patient, he took care of me, he provided for me, he never left me, he didn’t condemn me and look at all of the sin in my heart!?!? I didn’t just have a 2X4, I had a FOREST of sin in my eyes. Yes, he had a speck of sin in his eyes. But whose sin did I need to deal with first?
I used to believe my husband didn’t love me as much as I loved him and didn’t value our marriage as much as I did. Then I learned about how different men are and about the whole world of masculinity that I knew nothing about. Their perspective, their way of thinking, their priorities, their way of expressing themselves, their paradigm is totally different from ours. Turns out, most of the time, it is not that men don’t value their marriage as much as we do. They just express it differently. The book by Shaunti Feldhahn, “For Women Only” helped me to understand this.
Your husband is not a woman. He won’t say the same things and he doesn’t have the same needs that you do exactly. But just because he doesn’t talk and act and think just like you do, doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you or that he isn’t invested in the marriage. What may look like him not caring about the marriage may actually be him trying to protect himself from you. Maybe he doesn’t feel safe with you like Greg didn’t feel safe with me? It took 3.5 YEARS into my journey into being a godly wife before Greg began to feel safe enough to share his heart with me again. That is how much damage I had caused. 😦
Where is God in this picture if your worst fear came true?
Self-protection is part of worldly love, not godly love. God didn’t protect Himself, He sacrificed Himself for those He loved. Godly love costs. It hurts. It doesn’t protect itself, it seeks the best for the one who is loved. If self-protection is your greatest goal and priority, you may help to destroy your marriage.
Are you willing to let go of that and do things God’s way? Are you willing to trust and obey Him no matter what your husband does or says or thinks? Are you willing to trust God with your husband and focus on you and your walk with Christ?
No one can take your joy away if you are in Christ. Not unless you allow them to.
What if you can do things God’s way, and it brings healing to your marriage? What if your way is destroying your marriage?
“A wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish tears hers down.” Prov. 14:1
What do you know about God and His character?
Are you willing to lay everything down and trust Him with it? What are you holding back?
Much love to you!
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Let me clarify that if a husband is truly being abusive, is involved in infidelity, or there are very serious issues, there can be times a wife may need to separate from her husband for her safety. I don’t condone abuse, infidelity, drug or alcohol addictions, actual abuse… A wife (or husband) in such a situation may need to get somewhere safe and may need specialized, experienced, godly, appropriate help.
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and also just so you know I’m very analytical, organized, straight forward, etc. I go through the grocery store calculating the items in my head as I go all the while talking to my kids, so as to stay on budget and be exact. I can calculate how much time it will take me to go somewhere almost down to the minute and i’m usually always right. I’m very figure oriented…. It can be a good thing but also bad for me… b/c when my husband says he is leaving somewhere I already know when he should be home almost down to the minute- then when he isnt I know something is up. So i call and investigate and usually i’m right, like recently, when he stopped to have a drink and was lying about it at the beginning. Its like a good quality but also my worst enemy. My husband is NOT like that at all. He’s more fly by the seat of your pants, let’s go do this today with no plans… i have to have a plan, have it all figured out, know how much money im spending down to the penny, etc. Definitely an over-thinker.
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Confused,
You may try to find security in being in control. I did that. But, you actually can’t control everything you think you can. Control is an illusion. You can’t control your husband. You can’t control most of your circumstances. You can influence your husband. You can make wise or foolish choices. But you are not God. You are not sovereign. And you cannot make things happen the way you want them to. You don’t have that much power.
Check out this post:
Fear Fuels Our Need to Control
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Confused,
I have been praying for you so much! I know I dumped a LOT in your lap to prayerfully consider. Please take all the time you need.
I love you, my precious sister. I am excited about what God is about to do in your life. Once you are ready for it – it is going to blow your mind! 🙂
Sending you a huge hug.
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confused,
I’m a lot like you are. And my husband is much more spontaneous. I have learned to give a lot more grace. Actually, God uses my husband’s different personality traits to help sanctify me and to help me learn to stretch and grow. I have learned to loosen up and not have to plan and control and have everything all figured out. I can go with the flow a lot more now – and it is very freeing.
Praying for you. 🙂
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I appreciate your post but reading what I should change because of my husbands infidelity is very disheartening. I see your point but not all situations are the same.
My husband is a deejay, very into the night life. I caught him flirting with multiple women when I was 6 weeks pregnant through someone messaging me via social media. I asked him to go to counseling with me and church, both he said he would do but never did.
He started deejaying again recently and last night I woke up to a very surreal dream that led me to his phone where I again found him flirting with multiple women. I’m 7 months pregnant and just beside myself because on top of being the one who keeps everything together in our home I now have to deal with this. I have gained so much weight and don’t want to have sex because of the pregnancy and how I feel. I’m really at a loss for direction. I am not saying I’m perfect but I gave up that lifestyle and I feel cheated, lied to, betrayed, & abandoned. Although I know it isn’t my fault I want to do something I just don’t know what. Thank you for sharing this blog in the mean time. I will reference it through this unexpected journey.
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bellaabeautifull,
My heart breaks so much for your situation!
If your husband is truly involved in infidelity – and is having an actual affair – that is a very different situation than if he just flirts occasionally but doesn’t get involved at all with other women. Of course, both issues are sin. But the degree is much more significant with actual infidelity and adultery.
Sin is never ok. It is not ok for husbands to flirt with other women. It is not ok for husbands to commit adultery. It is not ok for them to lust. And it is not ok for them to be involved in porn. We can and should ask for what we need. We can do that respectfully. But we cannot force them to change. We only control ourselves. I talk on my blog about what we can do in our own lives to move toward healing for ourselves spiritually and to seek to bless our marriages. If we respond in sinful ways, we only make the chasm wider and the hurt deeper.
How is your relationship with Christ?
Does your husband have a relationship with Christ?
Is he repentant for what he has done?
Does he have a godly mentoring husband he can talk with?
Our greatest power comes when we look at our own lives and our own walk with Christ and allow Him to radically change us. As we become the women God desires us to be – we have so much more influence to heal our marriages by God’s power.
There are times when we do need to confront them. Here is a post about confronting our husbands about their sin.
I am so sorry for your pain!!!
What does your husband say he needs? Has he actually had sexual affairs with other women?
Do you have a godly mentoring wife or Christian counselor you can speak to?
Much love to you!
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I have so much anger against my husband. He’s been cheating and disrespectful for as long as I’ve been married to him. I deeply regret marrying him.
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Regina,
Oh goodness! I don’t see where I responded to you. If he is involved in unrepentant infidelity, I assume you are no longer living together? So heart breaking! 😦
What kind of spiritual support do you have?
How is your walk with Christ going?
Sending you the biggest hug!
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Hi Peacefulwife I amnot a wife which may seem odd me comenting, but as I have dated in the past I remembered an icident when a guy I was seeing was a player and he would lie in such a profound way, at times I confronted him lovingly and at time I confronted him with a lecture.
I realise now thanks to your posts that no matter what I have to show respect I have to stayobediant to Gods word in all areas of life and not try and do it in my own will as thats when we fall down,but the power of the holy spirit and grace of God will equipt us to make the right move, the right decisions that bring life and not death.
Even when a relationship is severed God can heal and if its his will for us to move forward permanently from a relationship, marriage or boyfriend girlfriend relationship he brings healing and he brings life to our situations he gives us beauty for ashes everytime when we place our situation and lives in his hands. And he WILL give us a renewed happiness and joy in him that no man or job title, or thing on earth can give us like he can.
Thanks for your inspiring posts I have also readyour submission post to prepare myself as I’m going on a date soon so whatever God has for my future marriage or not I’ll be prepared just incase , thanks again 🙂 (I’m 29 yrs old).
WordPress.com / Gravatar.com credentials can be used.
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Becca,
I’m glad that these posts have blessed you. I’m also glad that you realized that guy was a player and was lying BEFORE you thought about marrying him. So thankful you did not go down that road! I love your heart for Christ and your desire to bring glory to God and to walk in obedience to Him.
Let me know how you are doing! 🙂
Much love to you!
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Indeed you are no expert or physiologist. In fact, you are positively clueless. I beg you to switch to maybe a recipe blog . . . I am guessing you have been married for all of five minutes. In short, you have no idea what you are talking about and your words do more harm than good. Please cease and desist!
“INFLUENCE AUTHORITY
I can INFLUENCE my husband and make sin more or less tempting for him by my own behavior. We are one spiritually, emotionally and physically in marriage. What I do affects him. What he does affects me. For more on that concept, read ”
Yeah, because it is totally the woman’s fault when her husband acts like a jerk.
Here’s a clue, Christian women are NOT punching bags or doormats!
Respect for the headship arrangement is important for Christian wives; but it does not mean they can change their husband’s behavior. Nor do they bear any responsibility for it. What your blog suggests to healthy women is a recipe for self destruction! Ask me how I know . . .
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Oh Please,
It’s a pleasure to meet you. 🙂
I’m so very sorry that you have experienced so much hurt and pain – presumably because of your husband’s misbehavior in your marriage. That breaks my heart for you!
We are NOT AT ALL responsible for our husband’s sin. I apologize if that is how you read my words. My focus here is that we cannot control or change our husbands. We can only control ourselves. We are only responsible for ourselves. We can influence our husbands – but that is not the same thing as being responsible for them or controlling or changing them. I explained this a number of times in the post, but perhaps my words were somehow not clear?
I completely agree that Christian women are not punching bags or doormats. I have a number of posts about that.
– Can a Wife be Too Submissive?
– Do I Condone Marital Rape or Abuse?
– My Beliefs about Marriage
It seems to me that you are hearing me say things that I am not saying. I am totally open to suggestions about how I can make the message more clear.
Much love to you, my precious sister!
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Your suggestions for women here are extremely passive aggressive. I seriously cannot believe you see your advice as helpful to anyone. This is NOT good (or appropriate) counsel for Christian women. Please stop giving advice, as you are doing more harm than good. Leave it to the professionals. Again, you clearly have been married for five seconds . . . Flirting – seriously . . . the horror. . . My first thoughts reading your shaky advice was that you a) are a man or b) are submissive under sharia law. . .
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Oh Please,
Thank you for sharing your concerns. I’d be happy to hear your suggestions about what would be appropriate biblical counsel and what you believe I am sharing that you find to be so destructive. I see where I mentioned several times in this post that we cannot control our husbands and that we are not responsible for our husbands. I’d also love to hear about your relationship with Christ so I can have a better understanding of where you are coming from. It sounds like you are in tons of pain. I’m so very sorry to hear how much you have been hurt. I don’t want any one to be sinned against by their husband or wife. Sin always causes so much hurt and destruction.
PS – I’m 42 and have been married for 21 years.
Much love to you! May God richly bless your walk with Christ, my dear sister.
My definition of biblical submission.
Biblical Submission Does Not Mean a Husband Is Always Right
Husbands Are Never the Absolute Authority
Righteous Jealousy and Anger
“Confronting Our Husbands about Their Sin”
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Oh Please,
I will concede that a woman’s motives and whether she is Spirit-filled or not would greatly impact whether this approach I suggest would be healing and helpful or not.
If a woman’s motives are sinful, or she is filled with bitterness, resentment, hatred, contention, unforgiveness, pride, self-righteousness, etc… then she will be attempting to approach the situation in the power of the flesh – and the results will not be good. Of course, no matter what approach a woman takes, if her sinful flesh is in control, she will create further destruction. In this case, if she tried to do the things I talk about – she may well be very passive aggressive which is not going to help anything – and will probably inflame the situation.
If, however, she is Spirit-filled and Spirit-led (which I talk about in the post) – and she is not cherishing sin in her heart – God can empower her to approach her husband without sinning herself and He can give her wisdom about exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it – and He can bring healing into the situation. He can help her treat her husband with honor and respect and He can convict her husband of his sin. In this case, she is not being passive-aggressive, but is acting in the power of Christ with godly motives.
My prayer is that women listen to God’s Spirit far more than listening to my suggestions. He is the only one who ALWAYS knows exactly what the best approach in any specific situation might be.
Godly Femininity – Part 1
Scripture references for how to treat those who sin against us:
Our husbands – I Peter 3:1-6
Others (including our husbands) – Matthew 7:1-5, Matthew 18:15-17, Romans 12:9-21, I Corinthians 13:4-8a
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Goodness. This response makes me want to weep, both for you and for April. I’m so sorry for the pain you must be experiencing. I hope you have been able to take some time to read some more posts and get to know April’s heart, her beautiful walk with Jesus (who else do you know who spends hours in prayer and study of scriptures in a day?), and her boundless love and concern for her readers. And you don’t have to read too many comments to see that God is using her in mighty ways to open people’s eyes, change hearts, and improve marriages. Speaking for myself, I have been encouraged, challenged, and changed by April probably more than any minister of the gospel, and I’ve read and heard a lot of teachers! Not only does she speak truth from the scriptures that she studies so intently, but she is ALWAYS gracious and kind and this is what has made the biggest impact on me. She is quite possibly the most beautiful soul I’ve ever known (albeit, online) and there is a massive crown awaiting for her in glory.
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I need help please. I’m pregnant with our third child. My husband is fond of chatting with his ex girlfriends. About two years ago I got access to his Facebook account and he was telling one of the ex he is afraid she is gonna break his heart. I confronted him and he told me he was just bored since he was not working then so he got into a conversation with her and that he would not do it again. But he insist that his ex girlfriends are his normal friends and that he has nothing to do with them and that he sees no wrong communicating with them. For me I find it not correct. Last night one of his married ex girlfriends sent him a message “hello treasure”, and he replied, “baby why have you not been communicating with me, give me your number so I can call you”. I confronted him and he told me she’s just my friend, meanwhile he cheated on me with this same girl 5 years ago. What do I do, I’m pregnant and have been crying most of today. Help me please
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Cynthia,
Goodness, such a painful situation! I wish I could give you a big hug!!!!
I don’t agree with having close friends of the opposite sex for married people. It leads to so much temptation. I personally don’t email or message men unless I copy my husband. And I try not to be alone with other men. So, that is where I am coming from.
Does he have a relationship with Christ?
Does he have a godly mentoring man in his life he would be willing to listen to?
How do you usually respond when you see him flirting or communicating with other women?
How is your walk with Christ?
Much love to you!
April
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Thanks so much for responding. God bless you. He does not go to church but I do with my children and we believe in Christ. He would remind us about prayer studies every Sunday night but he does not go. I will not lie, I was angry when I saw the mail and I was screaming and crying and telling him he had no conscience. I was not so nice saying it. When he communicates with his exes I get so annoyed but with other females, it’s ok with me.
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I told him in the morning I was going to tell one of his friends to see if I was on the wrong or he was because he kept insisting it’s ok to communicate with exes with no strings attached. He didn’t really like the idea because it was his friend
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Cynthia,
How is your walk with Christ going?
What do you want in your relationship with God?
What do you want in your marriage?
What do you believe God desires you to do?
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Cynthia,
If he is not willing to stop and be transparent, pleaae reach out for experienced, godly help and counsel to help walk you through this.
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My wife doubts me that I shall be trapped by other ladies in my own family especially my sister in law. I treat my sister in law as my sister. I have told this to my wife, she doesn’t agree to it. We just start our arguments and there is a total misunderstanding between me and my wife. I love my wife more than any body else in this universe. My wife has given me two beautiful daughters in my life. Still my wife is precious for me, but my wife doesn’t understand me. What to do?
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Sami,
Great to hear from you.
Let me be sure I am understanding. She thinks that the ladies will “trap you” to keep you talking with them? Or that you will fall in love with them and leave her? Does your wife believe there is flirting going on? But you don’t think there is?
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We got married in 2011 against our parent’s wish. All our friends and colleagues witnessed our marriage. We have lot of opposite gender friends and never had any problem. Infact, he had lot of female colleagues and friends never doubted anyone of them as they are very open.
It all happened in 2012 when i was ill and away from him (2months) for treatment. During that time my husband cheated me. He was alone at home and started speaking randomly to people. Even after my return he speaks to a girl every night after i go to sleep. As i was recovering from my illness, i didn’t know what was happening around me. One night, i woke up in the middle of night and came to drink water in the kitchen. I found him talking to that girl by locking the main door. I heard his flirts and didn’t ask him anything at the moment and was continuing.
One evening, i was sleeping in the bed and he was next to me and kept messaging that girl continuously. I woke up by the beep of his mobile. When he went to the loo and i picked up his mobile and saw all the messages exchanged in WhatsApp. Nothing was official and they were chatting each other likes. I was so irritated and asked him what was going on. He replied that they were just chatting officially. He yelled at me as if i am wrong. I took back his mobile and messaged her “Stop messaging at my husband”. My husband couldn’t able to digest what i did and he was blaming and blackmailing me.
I was really scared at the moment. I didn’t share my feelings with anyone. He started behaving so weird and moved away from me. I talked to one of our friend and at first she didn’t believe me and later she understood and advised him. He later felt sorry for what he did and promised me that he won’t talk to her to hurt me. Next month he alone moved to different state to join a new job. I was on the thinking that he is good and keeping up his promise.
We met in March 2013 in Goa and had good time. I found so weird that he number locked his mobile phone. I couldn’t stop to know what is there inside the mobile. I somehow cracked the password. I found messages but this time to different girl. It was sort of flirt and she is trying to avoid him. I asked him what’s the story and he just replied that she was his earlier office colleague and he needed some job to be done by her. But i dint understand why there was this flirt. He thrashed me in Goa and i left in tears. I never seen him so presumptuous and arrogant and didn’t want to listen to me. I wanted to teach him a lesson and posted in FB that ” *****won and Mo lost”. All his friends started pestered him and finally he deleted the account. He tried to convince and messaged me that “Last time he was flirting with that girl and felt bad and ashamed, but this time no such things”. I couldn’t believe his words, so i diverted my mind in to work. I hardly trusted him. It created some sense of negativity around me and hurted myself more.
Later i forget the whole incident and in late 2014, i left my job and joined him. I accepted him whole heartedly. Things were going smooth until one day, i found that he is still in touch with that old girl. He sent money when she was in need. I asked him and he replied that they have to be in touch as professionals and can’t stop that. I don’t have anyone here in this place to share my anxiety. Finally i mailed her to go way from our life. The anxiety was haunting me with episodes and diverted my mind to studies. It was in April 2015, i found his old phone bills. The s*** has come out in open. They called and messaged everyday (in 2012 when i was ill) for more that 20-30 times even after he promised that he won’t be touch with her. It was continuing even after he moved to Pune. He hardly called me in those days. She was in touch with him even after i warned her twice. When i encountered him, he said that she worked with him on a project, hence they have to call each other. It was lie. She was in another team and working on a different project.
I was very clear, either i have to leave this guy or correct things. I decided to correct things. I mailed to his one his close female colleague with all proofs who is good friend to both of us. She admitted that he flirt with all but not harmfully. I don’t have any problem in accepting his unharmful flirts and I knew that. But this was a different one. He came to knew that I shared everything with her. Finally he came in terms with me. He spoke openly after 3 yrs. He said I was one of the reason for his move.
His reasons:
I was not around there for 2 months when I was ill. He was alone and needed someone to speak to.
I treated him badly when comes home untime everyday by drinking too much (not in a steady state, someone has to drop to his home). I didn’t allow him to sleep next to me with that condition. I made him sleep in another room. So he shared everything with that girl. He also shared lot of personal things which should be between us.
If she is good friend of him, she should have called and talked to me what he feels like. Instead they hide their relation from me. If she is good woman, she wouldn’t call him back after my warnings. They continue to be in touch. Now he says she is married but you know what she is still unmarried.
It was not about affair I worried now about but his lies. I got married to my best friend who cared me so much. But it is him who is lying. I dont trust him completely and feel so insecured. I am a very bold person and never shrinked at all. I love him so much and will love him, but same time this hatredness is accumulating other side
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PLo_GISExperience,
I’m so very sorry to hear about what a struggle this has been in your marriage. 😦 Breaks my heart! I would be glad to walk beside you on this journey. If it is okay, I would like to better understand what the current situation is by asking a few questions, please:
Is he willing to stop flirting now?
How is your relationship with Jesus Christ?
How is his relationship with Jesus Christ?
He was upset about your drinking? Have you stopped doing that?
How do you generally speak to your husband?
What would you like to see happen now in your marriage? You would like to be reunited?
Has he said what he needs for that to happen?
What do you believe you need for the marriage to heal?
Have you spoken with a trusted, godly counselor?
Much love to you!
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Flirting, being overly friendly and personal with a person of the opposite sex is disrespectful in any marriage. This behavior shows interest and attraction to the other person. My husband and I have struggled for years with the concepts of being overly friendly. I have no problem working with and interacting with people of the opposite sex. The test should be whether the interaction would be the same if the spouse was standing there. Our problems stem from my husband interacting with other women and a less than than friendly response when I meet them. I’ve had women blush, refuse to look me in the eye, rush off, rude commentary and even one that still retaliates passive aggressively. Unfortunately for me, all the women look very similar; he’s obviously attracted to a different type than me.
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Mary,
I think that is a good test, usually – would the interaction be the same if the person’s spouse is standing right there. And I agree that flirting and being overly friendly and personal with someone of the opposite sex is disrespectful to one’s spouse and marriage. It can be difficult to agree on where the line is, at times. But I long for every wife and husband to feel respected by her/his own spouse.
I’m so sorry that there seems to be an issue here with your husband and the way he is interacting with other women. 😦
I’m not sure that means that he is not attracted to you. But I pray for God’s wisdom for you and for healing in your marriage.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and your insights!
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I like this post, enjoyed this one regards for putting up. The goal of revival is conformity to the image of Christ, not imitation of animals. by Richard F. Lovelace.
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I came from a background of focusing on what my husband should change for me. So it can be helpful for me to focus on what I can change to bless my husband in a healthy way – not an obsessed or idolatrous way. But not all women are from that background.
Here is what a dear sister in Christ shared – and has given me permission to share. She used to believe she had to be a “trophy wife” and when she approached some Christian books, she thought she was hearing that message reinforced. Sometimes, certain women are very sensitive to such triggers. I think this woman’s approach may be a blessing to women who might struggle with balance in this area. Check this out:
Some Christian studies on marriage can tempt us to feel responsible for our husbands sin, our marriage, to stay together, and a whole lot of performance on our part to make sure he is never tempted and we are always enough for him. The problem is we are never pretty enough, exciting enough or wonderful enough to hold our marriages together. Our husbands could still sin even if we were.
So we need the truth – We are not going to be enough to keep our husbands faithful or keep them from sin. We are not their savior. Their sin issues were there before we were in their lives. Only God can set them free from lust or anything else . And only God can set us free from fear and worry and performancing.
I am already beautiful in Christ and I need to be filled up with His love and truth about me. Only Christ is enough for my husband. If he is focused on Christ, Jesus is enough for him. So the answer for my husband to be free is Christ. I can pray for him. And the answer for me is Christ.
I don’t have to be a victim – worried about my husband’s sin or potential to sin. I can grow with Christ in any circumstance including one where my husband is sinning. My hope and joy and identity is in Christ, not my husband being perfect. I don’t have to pressure myself and feel constant guilt and fear to perform or he will leave me. I can rest in Christ’s love and grace for me and for my marriage and husband. I don’t have to worry about the future and what-ifs. I can enjoy my husband and think of intimacy and beauty as a good gift from God rather than a heavy, impossible duty I will never be good enough at (a lie from Satan).
Rather than be fearful and jealous,(Beth Moore said jealousy and fear has never won back a wandering husband) and looking at my lack, I can look at all the good already in my husband, all the love and blessings Christ has already given me, and the hope that God is fighting for me and my marriage. I am not the Holy Spirit and I can quit trying to police my husband and be free to give him respect and prayer and be listening to God and staying out of God’s way if my husband does need convicting.
Sometimes my husband isn’t even struggling and it is just me being paranoid that is the problem! I need to ask for God’s wisdom, and not try to figure out what is right in my own eyes.
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My best friend is recently divorced and also recently called a six month relationship off after godly counseling concerning a few issues. My hubby is a friendly sort of guy and weve had issues in the past along this line Ive just recently been able to trust him little by little… now this!
Our kids both play on separate baseball teams. sometimes they play on the same day at the same park. We usually join her after our daughter’s is over and watch her son play. He is always respectful of letting us chat and just a hello here and there. Now that she has no more male attention, it seems to be directed towards my husband! Once i had to leave to pick up my son from work. I came back and couldnt find my hubby. I found out that they had been talking and interacting while my daughters game was still on, meaning she left her sons game to come and talk with him, while I was gone. he had her redo my daughters hair because the way I had it was bothering her. Now they are at her sons field sitting next to each other chatting so much that he doesnt get my text asking where are you!!
I start to get some very bad familiar in the pit of my stomach feelings. Am I being too sensitive? I’m feeling a sexual pull in the air and when I leave my belly is in knots. She can barely look me in the eye as I say goodbye. The next time we see each other at a game its the same vibe in the air when they say hello to each other, like an on screen chemistry!! I have prayed a little but to be honest its so hard to pray this way. I know I need to say something,its just how do I do it, and what about the friendship?
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Nicole,
You can certainly let your husband know respectfully, humbly, and gently, “Honey, I think X is hitting on you. It would mean a lot to me if you could limit your time with her, please.” Or, “Honey, I have a really bad feeling about X. Maybe it could be wise to limit time with her? It seems like a potential temptation for her to fall for you.” And, you could, if you believe God desires you to, address her and humbly, gently, respectfully ask her to limit her time with your husband. But the main thing, in my view, would be to address your husband. Probably only once. In a calm, non-controlling, very respectful way after much prayer.
How is your walk with Christ going?
Much love to you!
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April, I was just wondering why you would advise to probably ask only once. It seems to me that it would be quite appropriate and fine to keep prayerfully and respectfully bringing the issue up if there is still an issue. Obviously allowing appropriate time in between to show change….but if no change is occurring, I don’t think there would be anything wrong with continuing to speak the truth in love (about how the situation is making you feel, about the danger that you see, etc.).
Just curious about your thoughts here. Thanks, sister!
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Jennifer,
Nagging does not work. Most of our men have an excellent memory about these things and won’t forget that we asked them to stop flirting with other women. If we begin to talk about it often – that approach can actually sabotage what we really want to happen. Men don’t tend to respond well to being treated like little boys.
If the flirting continues, yes, there may be times when it may be necessary to bring it up more than once – but I would want to keep the frequency of confrontation down as much as possible. If the situation continues, there are other steps that can be taken that would probably be more effective than continuing to confront. Here is a post about confronting our husbands about sin.
I would want to be sure that my husband was actually crossing the line into sinful flirtatious behavior if I were going to confront him, and I would not want to make a big deal out of him simply being friendly.
Much love!
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Jennifer,
Also, a husband and wife have very different ideas of words like “occasionally” – a wife may think that mentioning something weekly is occasionally. But a husband may feel that once a year is occasionally. I think, too, it may make a big difference how severe the situation is. Here we are talking about flirting. That could mean, a man just smiles and speaks to other women in a friendly way to some. It could mean he is seriously acting like he is going to take another woman out on a date – that is a different level. Obviously, if a husband is sexting or in an emotional affair or a sexual affair – those are more severe situations that may require more action on the part of a wife.
Ultimately, what matters most is that we are sensitive to God’s prompting and that we speak up when He wants us to speak up and that we wait and pray when He wants us to wait and pray. But it can take some time to learn to hear God’s voice clearly and to be sure that it is God’s voice and not another voice we are listening to – like ourselves or the enemy.
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Thanks, April, for your replies. I just know that with my husband, it can take several conversations at different times for him to understand my heart. At least that’s the way it’s gone down so far in our marriage. 🙂 And, I’m sure he would say the same about me! 😉
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Jennifer,
That is totally fine with me if that works for y’all. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
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Hi,
My husband was in deeply in love with a girl before marriage and had very long affair. But somehow they didnt get married. We got married in the year 2011 and was arranged marriage. but after one month of marriage ,he had long nite conversation with her when i was at mother’s home. I got to know from mobile bills or through god’s grace. He said it was just normal talk. But 50 calls in a day n night seems no normal.. well we settled the issue as he said we dont have talk further and i have trusted him.
But there are many instances when i am not with him.. he does chat with girls… and see porns sites..
But i cant do anything i told him many times that u watch wrong sites but he dont accept.
As a girl you have to sacrifice so many things..I still feel ok because i cant do anything and he is such type of man.
Now my issue is , i am 36 years old and he is 39. We dont have baby. I push him but he is not keen .. its now going 5 years of marriage . I dont know i have told him so many times. whenever i tried to do something..he disrespect me and shouted me.. I feel so so bad… i also have respect…i am his wife and have right to do anything… But nothing is there. He has little care for me.
I dont know..where is my life going. I am not bad and i am very loyal …and i love my husband but i have to take step now.
I know at the end , i have to suffer but i have decided to break this relation . I have given 4.8 years and i am not working ….I was thinking i will work once we will have baby but my bad.
This is my luck 😦 it hurts a lot… And i am not working…
These days i am searching for job. I pray, my husband understand my concern. I love him a lot.
thanks for reading.
God Bless All
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Rahul,
Oh no! Such a painful situation, my friend! 😦 I wish I could give you a big hug.
What is his parents’ marriage like?
Does he have a relationship with Christ?
Does he say why he believes it is okay for him to talk with other women and to look at porn? Is he willing to seek help for this?
I’m glad you let him know that you believe this is wrong. I’m so sorry he has not apologized and not stopped this behavior.
I want both of you to feel loved and respected in this marriage. It doesn’t sound like pressuring him is going to work. How do you treat him when you are together? How much do you see him?
Do you have a relationship with Christ?
My heart breaks for you! I am praying for God’s healing for each of you and for your marriage. I have seen God heal hundreds of broken marriages. You are not beyond His reach. 🙂
Much love to you!
April
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My older sister was running around our back yard our dog was running behind her he tried to pinch her tail my husband yelled out bite her tail, was that comment inoproperate ? Was it flirting or what?
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Sometimes a husband is definitely in the wrong with flirting. Other times, a wife is addicted to snooping or trying to control her husband – even though her husband is trustworthy. Sometimes a husband is wrong and a wife is also addicted to snooping and trying to control her husband.
For wives who are struggling with wanting to snoop and be the “police” for their husbands, this post and the comments on it might be helpful.
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http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/four-ways-to-kill-the-sin-of-habitual-suspicion
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This was so very affirming….
Thankyou for allowing the Lord in you to speak out about this painful issue..
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Mandy,
This is such a painful topic! I wish no spouse ever had to face this. But I am thankful God used this post to bless you. 🙂
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My dear sister, to behave and what to do now, I don’t know….
I am following your blog for some two years now and through this God gave me the great knowledge about this topic and saved my marriage. I am so thankful to Him and also to you for doing this. But…..
My husband had friends, let’s call them G and D, they were couple. G was much older then D, he could have been her grandpa, He left his family to be with her. Over a year ago, sadly, G died and D became very close with my mother in law and even more with my husband. Where ever we went as a family, they allowed her to come with us. She tried more and more to take my place. She has no life obligations whatsoever, nothing to worry about, just what she can do to please my husband and how could she spend time alone with him. She inherited a lot of money from G and she started to spend it buying stuff to my husband. Sadly, he accepted that and last sommer they spent a lot of time together alone. That was apsolutely heartbreaking for me.
But reading your blog, I knew that only God can do something about that situation and only if I stay out of His way. I did my best to listen to Him and to be Godly wife to my man.
In all that period, my husband was telling me that D is just his good friend, that he is not at all atracted to her and that he never had anything but friendship with her, that he loves me and is atracted to me. But for me it was unbareable that they are spending time alone. It was unacceptable! So, after many months of great suffering, I told him peacefully that I can no longer go on like that and that he has to decide does he want to be with me or with her. Again, he said that he loves me, he wants to be with me and our family and that he’ll stop seeing her and have contact with her. But, by that time, D became almost best friends with my mother in law and now she is present constantly. I know that she still have contact with him, sometimes she still sees him, calls him, texts him….and he is trying his best to hide it from me.
I know that he is very atracted to me, we do have a beautiful intimacy, he tells me that he loves me, but this….If I would have a place to go, I would just leave. But I don’t have that option. And yes- I do love my husband.
If you can tell me something, anything, I would really appreciate it. I am open to all the opinions and prayers. Thak you so much for your time and please excuse my english, it’s not my native language.
May God richly bless you and everybody on this blog. Your sister in Christ, Irena
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Irena B.,
How I wish no husband or wife would spend a lot of alone time with someone of the opposite sex whenever it is possible to avoid it. This can lead to so much heartache. I don’t believe it is wise to have close friends of the opposite sex for those who are married. Proverbs talks about the importance for a godly man to avoid the street that an adulteress lives on and not even going down that road to purposely make sure to not have any contact with her (of course, the same would be true for wives avoiding men who pose temptation to them). It is certainly appropriate to share with your husband that this is not acceptable. He has a marriage covenant with you, not with her. Please check out the post on Righteous Jealousy and Anger.
Is he willing to drop contact with her and be transparent with you? Is he willing to ask his mom not to allow her to be there whenever you or your husband are there?
How is your walk with Christ going? What spiritual support do you have? What do you desire to have in your relationship with God?
What is your husband’s relationship with Christ?
Have you and your husband been able to have a respectful discussion about what you both need to move forward toward healing the marriage?
Lord,
We lift up Irena B and her husband to You. We pray for healing spiritually for each of them in Christ. We pray for Your wisdom and guidance as they try to heal their marriage and as he needs to drop contact with this other woman. Help him realize what he is doing and what he can lose if he continues on that path. Help him see the gravity of this kind of sin and the slippery slope he is on and let him repent and return to You and to his wife. Give Irena Your Spirit, Your perspective, Your wisdom, Your grace, Your truth. Let her stand on Your promises and find her contentment completely in You. Let her love and honor her husband to please and honor You. But help her to stand against sin and stand for the marriage covenant being respected. We want You to be reverenced, the marriage, Irena, and her husband to all be respected and honored in this situation and that he will be willing to put away this relationship that could threaten the marriage. Help Irena respond in holiness and in the power of Your Spirit not in the power of the flesh. Help her to know whether to stay or go and how to approach this difficult and painful trial. Help her see the real enemy is Satan, not her husband. We pray against his plans to destroy this marriage and we pray for Your plans to prevail for this marriage to be saved and reconciled and for Your greatest glory.
In the Name of Christ,
Amen!
Sending the biggest hug to you!!
Much love!
April
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