I’ve received a number of comments from wives in response to last week’s blog titled, “Wives, Help Your Husbands Stay Pure!” Several emails emphasized the point that the responsibility to be affectionate in marriage cuts both ways. Here’s an example:
“Bob, Please write a future blog which addresses a husband’s obligation to help his wife stay pure. I think this may be a bigger issue than most people realize. In my women’s Bible study class, four out of the five of us who were present at our last meeting admitted to being sexually neglected in our marriages. I am one of these women.
Although I did choose to stay married and faithful to my husband, his lack of interest in me resulted in me never being able to have children. It’s been difficult to say the least. My husband has since left our marriage, but I’m too old to have children now. Please forgive me if I have told you more information than you would have wanted to know. I just wanted to make the point that it’s not just husbands who are neglected, wives are, too.”
She is right of course. A Godly husband has a responsibility to show love and affection to his wife. The Bible commands, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5).
Christ sacrificed for the church. He gave up His life for the church. When we sacrifice time, energy, attention and money for our wives we are being Christ-like.
Christ overlooks the church’s faults. He sees the church as blameless and without stain or wrinkle, washed in His blood. When we love our wives in spite of physical flaws, weight gain or abrasive personality traits, we are being Christ-like.
Christ nurtured the church. He makes sure His people’s needs are met.
As the Good Shepherd, He feeds, protects and guides His flock.
Willard Harley in his book, His Needs, Her Needs listed the five primary needs of wives as:
(1) The need for affection. Her primary need is the security of knowing that she’s of first-importance to her husband. She needs to be confident she’s more important than his job, his hobby and his other friends. She needs to be valued above all else.
(2) The need for conversation. She wants her husband to talk and share his thoughts and feelings. When she says, “Let me know what you’re thinking and feeling”, she really means, “Please listen carefully when I tell you what I’m thinking and feeling.”
(3) The need for complete trust. Security is crucial to most wives. That’s why lying, deception, affairs and pornography are so devastating to the marriage relationship—that undermines trust. She wants a husband she can have total confidence in.
(4) The need for financial security. She doesn’t necessarily want riches but she doesn’t want to worry about how the bills will be paid. She wants the feeling of safety and protection.
(5) The need for family commitment. She wants a husband who will be a loving, dependable father and who will relate well to her extended family.
If husbands are sensitive to and nurture the wife’s needs she usually will reciprocate. If we fail to be affectionate and show no interest, we are neglecting our God-given responsibility and creating a spiritual and physical vacuum in their soul that makes them vulnerable to outside interests. That’s why wives take off with some stranger they met through social media or some old high school flame who shows them some attention.
The Bible says, “…husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares ford it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28-29).
Husbands, that sometimes requires that we go counter to what we feel at the moment. But Christian maturity obeys God’s commands regardless of personal feelings and immediate desires. Christ didn’t feel like going to the cross for you, but He did so…even though you didn’t deserve it. He unselfishly humbled himself and became obedient unto death for your ultimate good.
William James, father of modern psychology suggested, “If you act the way you wish you felt eventually you’ll feel the way you act.” It’s easier to act yourself into a way of feeling than to feel yourself into a way of acting. As Christians we are to behave according to God’s commands not according to our personal desires.
Gary Thomas in his book, Sacred Marriage, says: “The primary goal of marriage is not happiness but holiness. God uses marriage to humble us at times. It may be heavenly sandpaper to polish and smooth the rough edges of our lives.”
“This is a profound mystery but I’m talking of Christ and the church. However each one of you must also love his wife, as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:32-33).
