At OneFamily we hear from and get to speak with a lot of women looking for insight into parenting and marriage.  They are often seeking advice for a strong marriage, creative strategies to maintain intimacy, how to support their spouse surrounding challenging issues related to being a father and husband, and the like.  Yet, it boils down to this:  What can I do that would motivate my husband to engage with me and energize him to fulfill a positive family vision?

  • “What is the best way for a wife to bring up potential conflict without making her husband defensive?”
  • “How can a wife help her husband feel like they are parenting together?”
  • “What is the best way a wife can encourage her husband to be the spiritual leader by initiating marital prayer and attending church?”

These are not small or easily answered questions, to say the least. The teeniest step toward a response might help only a few categories of moms among dozens. A category includes age, stage of marriage, income, childhood background, health, friend group, etc. For example, a 26-year-old new mom with a 6-month-old baby who’s been married for 3 years is in a different spot than a 36-year-old mom with 3 kids married for 13, to take a very simple distinction. Each additional factor layers in a level of complexity that makes answering such questions either too superficial to be helpful or too complex to write out in less than a book.

But that’s where we start. The thoughts that follow are organized into two parts. Since there are as many male categories as female, it would be prudent to not get stuck when one thought expressed here doesn’t serve you. Our OneFamily format is to keep the Letters short, so we’ve broken this topic into 2 parts. Part 1 is for before approaching your husband about a sensitive subject. There is some preparatory work you should do. Part 2 is about talking with your husband, along with some Do’s and Don’ts.

Internal work

The questions above indicate that there have been multiple discussions between husband and wife that remain unresolved and are still in play. The questions imply that the wife has a vision for the relationship and for the family that requires the husband to behave differently. She wants him to actively share a vision where each comes to the marriage willing to engage in figuring things out as a team whatever the issue may be – conflict resolution, parenting, or spiritual development.

Before you come to your husband again, it would be beneficial to refresh your perspectives with wise counsel, prayer, and marriage context so that you’re ready and open to the way forward. Matthew 7:3-5 states this plainly, “take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  The way in which you proceed here could influence all future conflicts, so take your time getting yourself in the right place first.

Wise counsel, someone sufficiently experienced in life who has demonstrated success in a quality relationship, would be great to have coffee with. Do you have someone in your life to play that role? Maybe your own mom might not be best if she can’t be objective, but she might be better than nothing or better than someone younger who might just echo your thoughts. Wise counsel would promote the important over the urgent, would give opposing perspectives to help you avoid tunnel vision, and would provide personal examples of where she struggled and grew. The perspective here is you’re open to wisdom.

Seeking guidance from God opens up personal and relational pathways. Praying for wisdom and discernment, guidance for your words, strength for the marriage, and personal growth that will open your heart to your husband’s perspectives. If you were to pray daily that your heart and mind would open up to the best path forward, eventually you would see things differently. Maybe you’d come to understand your husband differently, or the challenges of being human differently, but regardless, consistent prayer does open you up to ways of seeing things from a new perspective. God’s influence and peace can guide you in ways unimaginable.

One assumption that wise counsel and prayer may lead you to reevaluate your current perspectives. Marriage context is a term we use to describe the current snapshot in time where you are where you are because of all the factors that have led you here. Plus, your husband is where he is for all his factors. You both come together today in marriage with some of those factors in harmony and some in conflict, some neutral, and many unknown. It is a process, a long process, to work through all those factors to make a marriage increasingly successful. For example, love languages. It took a dozen years of marriage before we realized that for Dave to feel loved, he wanted Lis to come to the marriage bed desiring intimacy. Whereas, though Lis did desire Dave, her internal sense of intimacy wasn’t innately physical but rather having quality time together. Add to that the many unfinished tasks hanging over the day clouded Lis’ readiness for intimacy. The dozen years leading up to understanding and resolving this conflict was filled with frustration and misunderstanding. We didn’t understand all the factors that were in conflict in our marriage context. So again, it is a long process to identify those factors, understand them, and work through them.

The questions above are about sharing a vision for the family and “working through the factors” to achieve that vision. Therefore, before approaching the same issue with the same perspectives as the last few times, do the internal work to renew your heart and mind with wise counsel, prayer, and a deeper understanding of all the factors that have brought you to where you are today.

Then engage with your husband… Part 2.

Many Blessings,

Lis and Dave

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