Are you a Wife Who is Hurting Her Marriage? Let’s Find Out!
Make mistakes?
Never! ;0)
That’s what most of our girl pals will tell us.
But the reality is we can royally hurt our marriage.
Over and over again.
In over 17 years of doing ministry work (Sunday school classes, overseeing ladies ministries and even foreign missionary work) I’ve seen wives make these four mistakes over and over.
These are Common Mistakes Wives Make
These mistakes can drastically damage a marriage.
Even shatter it into a hundred pieces that are extremely difficult to sweep up and glue back together.
Just yesterday a woman in our foreign mission work spoke to me about some marriage issues she was having.
Even though she was trying to relay that her husband was doing everything wrong, and even suggested divorce, I immediately noticed she had made these very common marriage mistakes.
All of them.
And in a very short period of time.
But she didn’t view them as mistakes.
Yet, her marriage was suffering…
She Was Making These Mistakes as a Wife
And these mistakes?
They were fueling the marriage tension.
After listening to her story, I immediately admitted that we wives have common tendencies that smother the root of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
For that reason, we should absolutely avoid them.
Run from them.
Warn others about them.
Even though our minds and emotions tell us to do them, we have to let truth and facts guide us instead.
What are the four mistakes every wife makes?
Let’s dig in and honestly chat about them.
(Be sure to join our All Things Mommy Facebook Group for weekly chats on motherhood and marriage! You can find me there!)
Marriage Mistake #1: We pout.
Maybe it was cute to pout when we were two years old, but it’s not cute anymore.
Many of the romantic movies we watch (Hallmark fan right here!) relay the idea that men respond positively to pouting.
Those same movies and books have the men rushing to the girl who walks away in a grown-up tantrum.
But, in reality, husbands don’t think pouting is cute.
In fact, many deplore it.
Review over the past few years of your marriage.
Has pouting ever helped your marriage grow deeper, more intimate, or more loving?
What has pouting accomplished?
Husbands want a wife who is warm, affectionate, loving, and not easily offended.
MARRIAGE MISTAKE #2: We Assume the Worst.
My email notifications went off the other day and it was yet another wife concerned that her husband was on the verge of being unfaithful.
Another woman had been extra friendly to him at church and she was growing angry.
But she really didn’t have any proof that her husband had done anything wrong.
Still, she was becoming suspicious.
With this specific woman, she felt threatened, and most opus can relate to that.
However, feeling threatened doesn’t mean that our husband is looking for opportunities to meet up with other women.
It doesn’t mean that our husband isn’t faithful to us.
I Corinthians 13 tells us that “charity (love) believeth all things…” as well as “charity thinketh no evil.”
Many times we are way too quick to think our husband is doing evil.
And that always leads to arguments and contention!
Here’s an honest tip: If you keep bashing your husband and accusing him of evil he hasn’t done, he may just grow frustrated enough to actually do those things.
But what if he is doing evil?
What if he is lusting after other women?
What’s your best option?
That’s a sticky topic and would definitely depend on the individual situation.
But for most wives, the best route is to pray and seek help from someone you trust.
Your pastor. A Christian counselor.
A loving parent who walks with God.
Those are your top best choices.
However, we’re talking about assuming the worst before you know actual facts.
Take the safe route and believe, trust, love and listen to your husband.
Give him the benefit of the doubt.
That’s how you desire him to treat you, right?
Marriage Mistake #3: We turn away affection.
When we get frustrated, we often resort to the “ice queen” that’s buried inside of us.
You know.
The woman you become when you want your emotions to die.
We’ve been hurt and this is a defense mechanism. We choose to “freeze” our emotions and turn away our husband when he comes home and greets us with a kiss.
We pull away from his arm that slip around our waist or we turn our cheek when he leans over to plant a kiss.
Even if you’re hurt or angry, don’t push away his display of affection.
Pushing him away is the fastest route to creating an angrier, more frustrated husband.
He won’t keep coming back.
He won’t apologize for any wrongs.
He’ll just be mad and move his heart away from you.
Unless you want to add more heartache to your marriage, avoid turning away his affection.
Ask God to help you be warm, gentle, kind and affectionate.
Kissing, hugs, holding hands….
Those are powerful tools to bring your marriage back to where you want it to be.
Marriage Mistake #4: We stop communicating.
Ahhh….the silent treatment.
Wives have been trying this marriage tactic for years, only to see destructive results.
Yet, we continue to do it.
Most of the time we’re hurt first.
Then that hurt turns into anger.
Then the anger turns into silence.
Our husband asks, “What’s wrong?”
We lie and say, “Nothing.”
We choose to ignore him when he walks past us.
After the kids go to bed we watch a movie or call a friend. After that, we climb under the covers, turn off the light, and refuse to acknowledge the man sleeping beside us.
The effect?
A husband who feels unappreciated.
A husband that has no idea how to fix the marriage.
A husband that dreads coming home to a silent, unaffectionate, and even angry wife.
She smiles at other people and even laughs at their jokes.
But her husband?
He gets the look of disdain.
He gets the cold shoulder.
And doing that to another person is extremely disrespectful.
And respect is something your husband craves, needs, and desires.
When all of this happens, the marriage that the wife longs and wishes for crumbles at her feet.
Many times she’s confused why their relationship never grew better.
Or why he left.
Or why she wants to leave.
Please, for the sake of your marriage…
For the sake of your children’s future, avoid these common mistakes at all cost.
Choosing to love our husbands with a sacrificial, powerful love is a powerful, positive decision.
But you — ahem WE — can stop this vicious cycle today by choosing to be different.
Choosing to love our husbands with a sacrificial, powerful love.
Even if everyone else tells us we’re a “doormat,” we can know and enjoy the blessing of a marriage where the husband/wife relationship is still spicy, loving, affectionate and friendly.
It doesn’t just happen in made-up fairy tales.
It’s real-life for some of us.
Even if we did make these mistakes in our past.
(Blushes in shame.)
Want more marriage encouragement?
