What Do Couples Need From Each Other?
by Angie Lewis
Heaven Ministries

 

What does a wife need from her husband? I can’t answer that question for all women, but I do know what I need.  I need my husband to be supportive of my endeavors and ideas. I want my husband to realize that the marriage does not center only around him and what he needs, but on what we both need. I want for my husband to make time for me. I want to be put on the top of his priority list, after God, and not on the bottom. Does that sound selfish? It’s not selfish when you know that he gets the same treatment from me.

I want for my husband to enjoy spending his time off with me and so I often encourage fun and creative things to do together when he does have the spare time away from work.  I have to remember this, though, if I am not acting on my marriage obligations the way God wants for me to, I should not expect that my husband would be too happy about it.  So then, I shouldn’t take advantage of my husband’s loving kindness or take our marriage for granted. Because my first priority should be my husband’s happiness, right?

I believe God has put me where I am at for a reason. I have been blessed with the man I married because that is who God put before me 23 years ago. I didn’t change the course of events to marry the man I married, because the events became the course. In other words, I did not put a gun to my husband’s head and tell him to marry me or else. What became yesterday is what is today.  Not that we cannot change or improve on our marriage, but that we ought to be content with the person God has blessed us with.

Once we get rid of the idea of divorce and we get rid of the bad attitude is when we can begin to reflect upon who we are in the marriage and begin living our God fulfilled purpose. Once we get rid of the selfishness we can start to fulfill the roles and responsibilities that have been given to us when we got married. But we cannot get rid of these ideas until we choose to follow Gods plans for our marriage. We are the ones who fail marriage. Marriage does not fail, people do!

We fail marriage because we give up. We give up on God and we give up on what we can do to change ourselves. You’ve heard the saying; patience is a virtue, right? Well, we have given up on patience because we feel that time is running out. Time does not run out, but people do.  The messages from society run amok and tell us to do things that are not from God but from selfish desires and arrogance. If that is who a person is than they have every right to continue listening to and believing those messages. But if you are a part of God’s family then you have your own messages to listen to.

Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lords will is.  (Ephesians 5:15-17 NIV)

I know what I need from my husband. I need to know that he is devoted to our marriage that we started 23 years ago. I want him to accept me for who I am, because I cannot guarantee that I will never make mistakes. I need to know that my husband would never act on a bad attitude, turn against me, and ask for a divorce like many spouses in marriage do. Because what is that?  That is not a marriage, that is people being wishy washy with each other, allowing feelings to control the outcome of the marriage.

I believe a husband needs the same thing from his wife. A man needs his wife to respect his position in the marriage above everything else. If a man is allowed to be the man in his home, then everything else should just fall into place like clockwork.

 …However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33 NIV)