I am finding an increasing amount of men that are just plain mad. They are mad about their marriage, the treatment they receive from their wives, and what they view to be an uneven playing field when it comes to marriage.
Below are few reasons why I believe this to be occurring.
Some Men Have Fallen Into A Pit of Their Own Making
Mankind in general is prone to sabotaging his own own success and then loathing the negative repercussions that follow. Here are a few verses from Proverbs that undergird this thought:
Proverbs 26:27 – “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.”
Proverbs 11:17 – “The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.”
From my experience of dealing with men, many a man has dug a pit of anger, bitterness, and laziness only to end up falling in himself. He often does this by:
Failing To Lead His Family Toward The Light
If a man is not leading his family toward the Light, darkness will prevail in his marriage. It is that simple. Though his accusations will be hurled at the disrespect he is receiving from his family, many times, the darkness of disrespect is only present as a result of his leadership away from the Light of God’s Word.
Being Loose With His Words
A man’s words are like a boomerang. What he gives out will always find a way of coming back to him.
Failing To Protect The 3 Parts Of His Household
Marriage is more than a paycheck. A husband should be looking out for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of his family. If he is not loving his family in these three areas, negative repercussions will follow, and his temptation will be to get mad at the trouble that his lack of care in all three of these areas has caused. We deal with this in chapter 8 of our marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another.
Some Men Are Still Carrying An Emotional Debt of Sorts
Many wives are still paying off the emotional debts that wayward fathers and bitter mothers charged to their spouse. However, it should be noted that this is why we teach that a happy marriage is comprised of happy spouses. That is, I like to say that my wife and I do not have a great marriage because we have one another, we have a great marriage because we are filled with God’s love and joy before we even see one another.
We often say that people have a God-shaped vacuum, but they also have what I call a Dad-shaped vacuum. That is, many men go through life trying to get out of others what they never received from their dads and moms. Thankfully, God is a father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5), and only He can succeed where our earthly parents failed.
A wife cannot fix what others have broke. Only God is able to do that. Although her love can help to display what I call God’s love with skin on it, ultimately, God has to do the fixing.
Some Men are Dealing with Relational Injustices
Many men complain to me that they feel there is an unequal playing field when it comes to marriage. Some even feel that an unbalanced emphasis on Ephesians 5:25 without mentioning Ephesians 5:24 is almost empowering women to withhold their love and affection toward their husbands.
I deal with this aspect in our marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting with One Another, as I wrote:
“Throughout time, women have been tempted to withhold their love and affection toward their husbands because they fail to measure up to their expectations. A woman that has given in to this temptation must realize that when she holds back from loving her husband because he doesn’t meet her standards, she is simply holding her love as a ransom until he comes up with the appropriate payment. This is actually a form of manipulation.”
For Individual Study Or Use As A Couples Devotional
Our marriage book, How to Fight For Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another, has been designed for individual study as well as a couples devotional. With thought provoking questions at the end of each chapter, couples find our book a helpful resource to encourage healthy, forward-thinking conversation. For ordering information, visit our online resource center.
Prefer listening rather than reading? Check out our audio book or listen to a live recording of one of our How to Fight for Your Marriage – Marriage Conferences. These are great options for the non-reader in your life.
Oops! Almost forgot. There is a that Amazon option also available to you.
The man is NOT the spiritual head of the wife. Christ is. Otherwise unmarried women or women with an unsaved husband have no spiritual head. Any saved woman is a part of the body of Christ, add scripture is clear that the head of the body is Christ. The husband is the head of the home, but we are each told to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Making the husband the spiritual head leaves the man trying to do a job only God can do and leaves the wife headless. Please get and read ‘The Woman Question’ by Kenneth E. Having.
Kenneth E Hagin. My phone apparently doesn’t like his name.
I would like to tell women that they should lead themselves to the light. Be strong, be educated, have your own career, property, “thing.” If you wait for a man to lead you, well then you get what you deserve – that is led around (like cattle, which is where the word “chattel property” finds a common origin). I am not a rampaging feminist who hates men either, but I am most definitely a feminist as was the writer of Proverbs 31, which I like to refer to as the Proverb of the Understanding Husband Who is Not Threatened by a Competent Woman and Also Secure in His Masculinity. Once a woman understands her own identity and realizes she can be complete in God by cultivating a relationship with Him HERSELF and not through another man, or church, or Bible study, she won’t be NEEDY. A needy person, no matter the gender, is a suck-hole of despair, and will not bring anything to the table in order to formulate a harmonious relationship. Needy women attract one kind of man – the kind who is weak, passive-aggressive, and sometimes physically violent. So women, find and be yourselves in Jesus. Don’t let anyone try to manipulate or intimidate you out of being assertive and capable either. Seek God and be fulfilled in Him, and you will not only find the right guy, you will always find the right people too! Don’t do these things for a man either; do it for yourselves!
There’s away that seams right unto to man that’s leads to death. God is a God of order. We are to follow Him in every way. The answer is to keep praying and letting Him lead and be our Savior. Trust in Him with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.