This post is the seventh in my series, “Don’t Be Afraid to Obey.” You can read this on its own, but I recommend starting here. In particular, if you’ve read part 6, you’ll make more sense of this one.
“For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” - 1 Peter 3:5-6
Trusting Like Sarah
I was frustrated when I realized my husband didn’t trust me. Haven’t I been working for years to be trustworthy? Sure, I failed sometimes, but he knew I was trying, and I always came around even if I didn’t listen at first.
Then I realized that if I wanted my husband to trust me even while I was still learning how to be trustworthy or when circumstances made me look like I wasn’t, that’s the sort of trust I should be showing him.
And my actions showed I didn’t trust him.
During part of those tumultuous years of marriage, it seemed to me that every time my husband talked to me, he was criticizing something about what I was doing. This was not true, but it was frequent enough that it felt like it. I thought he didn’t think I was good at anything at least, and although I knew it wasn’t true, I felt like he didn’t care about me. I had to remind myself that he did, even though I wouldn’t have treated him that way if I cared about him.
If he told me I needed to do something different with the kids, and I responded by telling him how hard the situation was and how I tried but felt stuck (generally in a way that just sounded like excuses), he would tell me I just needed to do the right thing.
I felt unheard. I thought he didn’t care. I thought about how if I didn’t like what he was doing, I would think about the hard things he was going through, and be gracious and try to encourage him. I wouldn’t criticize him about things he had told me were difficult! (Not only do I think this, I tell him about it! As you can imagine, that isn’t particularly helpful.) It seemed to me he was merely frustrated that things weren’t the way he wanted them, not trying to help me.
I didn’t trust him, and that caused me to misinterpret him. This made it difficult to communicate or ask questions.
Perhaps you can relate: sometimes, my husband just doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t love me, it seems, or else he is stupid, or...who knows? So many times I was confused. I knew Parker loved me. I knew he was thoughtful and I knew he wasn’t stupid. So why was he doing things this way? It seemed like he was trying to make it as difficult for me to follow him as he could! He did things I would only do if I were angry or trying to hurt him. My assumption is usually that he doesn’t understand. It seemed the most charitable assumption.
Eventually, as I tried to express how I felt to him, Parker told me he had a long list of things that would make our lives better, but he couldn’t bring up most of them because I wouldn’t listen or I’d get very discouraged. So he was overlooking many, many things that weren’t even on my radar. He was helping me the way he would want to be helped: pointing out things that need to be changed and reminding me about them when I wasn’t working on doing them. He was pushing me to grow, yet kindly not giving me too much at once. Not because I couldn’t do anything well, but because he knew I could.
As I understood this, I got better at accepting this as what it was: love for me.
He was helping my life get better, helping us be on the same page. I’ve seen him with people he doesn’t think will listen or grow. He has no interest in pointing out their failures. But he was committed to me, and he had hope for me.
And he got better at seeing how to do that in a way that felt like love to me. All my arguments about his tone only made him frustrated that he didn’t have the exact right words. Responding to him “not living with me in an understanding way,” at least as I saw it, did not help him to do so.
But taking his leadership as love, however it came, and trusting God to work in him did. I learned to be quiet. When I showed a willingness to follow him, regardless of how I felt about his methods, we could address the methods with much more clarity.
I need to understand that his actions don’t necessarily have the same implications that they would if I did them. I have to teach myself to come with the assumption that he does love me, understand me, and have a purpose for his actions. Then, I can see more clearly, or I can ask the questions I need to ask to gain understanding. This helps us address better ways of getting to our goals that are helpful to both of us.
We are on the same team. We will even tell each other this when we’ve had a difficult conversation. We may disagree about how to get there, but we’re going to the same place.
If you really don’t think you and your husband have the same goals, you need to lay some groundwork. Ask your husband for a date night or a getaway and ask him questions about his goals and desires, personally and for your family. Be open and remember: you are his helper, he is not yours. So most likely, if you have different goals, yours are the ones that should change. Get yourself on his page.
Don’t worry too much if you think his goals are bad or lame or way too vague. You’ll still make more progress being on the same page.
If you are heading towards a poor goal, it is better to get there and realize it next week than three years from now. Time you spent helping your husband get to an unimportant goal is generally not wasted. He’s learning he can trust you and, Lord willing, that he needs a better goal.
If your husband can safely trust you, that will be much more powerful to move him from a poor goal than a perfectly crafted and wise argument.
He may not think he has any goals, but this is unlikely. So his goal might be to reach a level in his video game. Even if you think that’s a waste of time, if you become invested, cheering him on, that may be what you need to learn to work together and trust each other.
But time he spends fighting you to get to his goal is probably wasted, unless that’s what it takes to get you to learn to listen to him - in which case, it’s better to just start working on that.
Then when we disagree about something, we still have the same goals, we both just think we have a better way of getting there. This helps me to trust him. Our different perspectives are helpful to getting to our goals in a good way. It’s okay if we disagree, if we’re heading to the same place. We can go his way rather than mine, and I don’t need to be fearful.
Imagine if he says we should buy this car, and you tell him you think it’s not a good one. He insists, so you help him make the necessary preparations. As you expected, the car ends up costing way more than it’s worth. One day, he comes home and says, “I never should have bought that car.”
You say cheerfully, “It’s okay. It’s just money.” You never say, “I told you that.”
What has your husband found? He can trust you. Your opinion is worth taking into account, and you’ll support him no matter what he decides.
He sees that neither of you need to be afraid of him choosing a goal you don’t like. This seems counterintuitive, but it actually builds trust. He knows if you oppose his idea it’s not because you’re fearful or because you want to be the leader.
I need to develop humility. It takes humility to support your husband when you don’t agree.
I need to develop curiosity. I want to come with an attitude of “if he’s asking me to do something that doesn’t make sense to me, I must be missing something.” If I think well of my husband, assuming he’s doing the best he can and this must be a good plan I just don’t understand yet, I can ask helpful questions without coming across as defensive or discouraging him from leading.
If I give vent to my fears, concerns, or confusions, it usually leads to complaints, bitterness, and thinking poorly of my husband. (Though it is worth noting that I am not sure I have ever identified it as such at the time.)
Instead, teach yourself to turn your objections into questions - genuine questions, mind you. This has been, so far as I have implemented it, a good way of learning to trust my husband and not fear, without merely going through the actions and not addressing my heart. The right questions, I’m learning, are essential. And they require humility and trust.
The questions you ask are different when you trust. Submission is hard. But it is so much easier to submit when I trust my husband!
So if he says, “Don’t feed the kids in the van,” I can take a breath and ask myself, why does he want this? Does he understand how inconvenient it is for me? If he does, why does he still want it?
I can answer many questions myself. I know it’s important to him to keep things clean, and I’m thankful for that. Am I actually going to make sure the trash makes it inside even if we only eat plain lunchmeat and cheese sticks? He knows me. He’s seen me try and fail. And I know the kids can make a mess out of the least crumbly foods!
The questions I asked myself can lead to good questions to him. I can say, “Ok. I know you would like to make this a rule, and I’m not very good at keeping the van clean. Do you have any ideas about what to do when I’m out before lunch? The kids always fall asleep on the way home, and they won’t stay asleep if they haven’t eaten. I want to do what you direct me to, but this really does make my day difficult.” Perhaps your husband will say it’s worth it to him that you have a weekly fast food budget, and you can take them to McDonald’s when the weather’s too bad to eat at the park. Now that’s a win-win situation in my book...
(This is a bad example personally, so don’t tell my husband...we still haven’t figured this one out...)
We’re working on building this sort of trust. It is a process.
There needs to be a warning here: my temptation is to think I can just be sweet and argue my husband into agreeing with me that my way is best. That is not the point, nor will it happen all of the time. God will bless your desire to “do what is right without being frightened”. But we ought to desire to do it first because it is right. Otherwise, it’s manipulation.
If you’re struggling to obey your husband, search your heart and consider whether the issue is that you don’t respect or trust him.
I need to trust my husband by thinking charitably of him, and seeking to understand if I don’t.
Remember, God calls wives to win their husbands without a word. If you come with the assumption that he has good intentions, even in the situations where he doesn’t, your loving approach will be more helpful than irritation when he fails.
Of course, there are husbands who don’t mean well. Some men are legitimately untrustworthy. If this is the sort of situation you’re in, you need someone who knows Scripture and your specific situation to help you work through what this looks like for you. But the exception does not negate the rule. “As much as depends on you, live at peace with all men,” may be helpful.
Even if your husband isn’t a believer or is really not leading you well, trusting is essential - trusting your husband as much as you can, and trusting God in it all. Even in wonderful, godly husbands, we can only trust them because we trust God. Seemingly wonderful husbands have been known to abandon their wives after decades.
But God never fails us.
Over and over again, God works through sinful men and accomplishes His will through wicked leaders. God is able to work in Caesar and Nebuchadnezzar. He can work in your husband. Trusting him is really trusting God. He can change your husband, and you can’t. He can bless you, even in your husband’s failures.
Don’t be afraid to obey your husband. Not because there’s nothing to fear, but because God gave him to you as your head1, and He always blesses faithful obedience.
And He calls us to obey our husbands, to be Sarah’s children, women who are trustworthy. She trusted her husband, following him year after year without fear, because her hope was placed in God.
Like Sarah, we do not fear the future, though it may be frightening. Your husband doesn’t have to be perfect for you to trust him, because God already is.
“For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church” - Ephesians 5:23