Posts Tagged ‘husband’

Don’t Attribute Wrong Motives to Your Husband

Friday, February 28th, 2014

wrong-motives-to-your-husband

Don’t attribute wrong motives to your husband. In the same way that you are a new creation at salvation, your husband is also a new creation. Deep down he desires to please God. Even if he is trapped in his flesh and sins out of habit–usually through some form of selfishness–so do you. None of us who are true believers wants to do the wrong thing. Our conscience makes us feel bad, and we ask God to help us overcome sin.

I used to attribute wrong motives to my husband without even realizing it. My husband would make a statement, and I would twist his statement to make him seem like he was attacking me when he wasn’t. “Susan , you’re just hurting yourself by making up something that I didn’t say,” he told me one day. I stopped in my tracks and realized that he was right. He had made a statement that was not positive or negative, and I had extrapolated a negative motivation behind it. And there he was, refusing to defend himself because I was the one causing the problem.

“I don’t know how to stop doing it,” I said to my husband, referring to the fact that I would subconsciously attribute the worst motive to him instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt and expecting that we were on the same side. “What should I do? My brain automatically makes you out to be the bad guy, and I don’t want to do that any more. Help me figure out what to do.”

We sat down, and he prayed with me. We asked God to break this pattern of negative interaction. Do you know what? From that day forward, I stopped doing it!

Most areas of sin in my life take years for me to overcome, but this one was resolved in an instant. I’m not sure if God just fixed the negative pattern in my brain through a miracle, or if realizing that I was twisting my husband’s words and hurting my marriage caused me to be aware of what I was doing. In any case, I praise God that this destructive pattern is gone from my marriage!

I talk about this a lot more in my free audio about how powerful praying with your spouse can be: How to Get Your Husband to Pray with You

How to Get Your Husband to Pray with You

Friday, February 7th, 2014

how-to-get-your-husband-to-pray-with-you

How do you get your husband to pray with you? What if you have gotten into the habit of never praying together? How do you break this cycle?

How to Get Your Husband to Pray with You

  • Love and accept him for who he is. Ask God to change you so that you have a high opinion about your husband.
  • Don’t guilt trip your husband during your prayer. (I explain this more in the audio.)
  • Be vulnerable. An atmosphere of vulnerability deepens your love for each other.
  • Get rid of all bitterness toward your spouse.
  • Don’t use religious language, but pray the way that you talk, especially if this is the way your husband prays. This will make him not feel out of place while praying with you. Honesty trumps religiosity of language. Just be real so that he can relate to you.
  • Don’t characterize your husband as evil because of habits of sin in his life. He is a new creation and wants to please the Lord, but he is trapped in his flesh. You don’t want him to characterize you as evil because of your sin that he sees that he will not tell you about, because you will defend yourself. Look up to your husband and respect him, even if he sins. (I tell you how to do this in the audio.)
  • Understand that your husband is not inferior to you spiritually. Looking down on others is sin. Philippians 2 commands us to see other people as better than ourselves.
  • Admit your own shortcomings.
  • Pray that God will help you to draw together spiritually through prayer.
  • Allow your husband to lead you spiritually by following him spiritually. Even if he is a new believer, God has equipped him to lead you spiritually. If you allow him to lead, he is more likely to pray with you.

Here is the 30-minute audio workshop to help you pray together as husband and wife:

Right-click the link, “Save as,” and choose “Desktop” to download the audio. To listen to more audios on prayer and get a free e-book on prayer, like my Prayer Page.

Listening to Your Husband

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

listening-to-your-husbandIs listening to your husband something you do naturally? Does your husband ever say, “You’re not listening to me!?”

The most important part of communication is listening. If you don’t understand your husband, how can you expect to influence his heart and to have true oneness in your marriage? Join Alan and Susan Evans as they talk about marriage once again, and the importance of listening. This topic applies to homeschooling, because both the husband and wife should be in agreement about what you do in your home. Listening is not something that comes naturally to most people, and it is crucial to having a good marriage.

Join us on Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 3:30pm Central (1:30pm Pacific). Click here to join us live on the Homeschool Channel.

If you missed our previous marriage webinar, “Don’t Let Homeschooling Ruin Your Marriage,” you can watch the replay here.

Here is an outline of what we covered:

  • Listening is crucial to understanding another person, especially in marriage. In order to have oneness in your marriage, you need to know how the other person is thinking about something.
  • Many Scriptures mention the importance of listening. (James 1:9, Proverbs 12:15, Philippians 2:3, Romans 12:3, Galatians 6:3, Proverbs 18:3)
  • When I’m interrupting, it’s because I’m putting myself first. So listening really requires you to esteem the other person as more important than yourself. (That’s what love is.)
  • Pride causes you to plug your ears to the other person, so humility is required for listening.
  • Before listening fully to what somebody is saying, if you’re formulating in your mind what you’re going to say next, you are not listening. (Scripture says it’s to your folly and your shame to act this way.)
  • Why do men stop talking to their wives? They want to avoid conflict.
  • Be positive in your interactions with your husband instead of negative.
  • If you have not listened to your husband in previous conversations, there is no reason that your husband would want to talk to you, because you don’t listen to him anyway. Or we haven’t followed through on what our husbands wanted us to do because we didn’t prioritize it. We just forgot because it wasn’t important to us.
  • Both people in a conversation have an agenda. This is what makes communication difficult.
  • Expecting people to behave in a certain way and then getting angry when it doesn’t happen is not constructive. It’s selfishness.
  • The only person you can change is yourself.
  • Ask questions to fully understand your husband.
  • You need to create an environment where your spouse feels safe and loved and not judged.
  • Women sometimes inadvertently attribute wrong motives to their husbands, thereby hurting themselves. They twist what their husband is saying. I give a humorous example (but I was deeply hurt at the time).
  • When you are talking to a man, try to get to the point and not go on and on. Otherwise it’s so much work for your husband to listen to you, and he doesn’t have the mental energy to do it.
  • We talked about what to do when you have opposite views on something.
  • Just because your husband is not doing things your way doesn’t mean he’s not listening to you. He can be listening to you and walking by the Spirit and choose the opposite of what you want. That can be godly and correct on his part. (It ended up that the opposite of what I wanted was better for me in the example I gave.)
  • Try to see the situation through his eyes. This will help immensely in listening. You will have a greater influence on his heart and mind.
  • If you are sinning (with gossip, slander, anger, complaining, etc.) and your husband refuses to listen to you, he is doing the right thing to stop you from sinning further.
  • Rely on God to make you a better person in your marriage. The couples that cling to God as the only strength they really have are the ones that will make it, says my husband.

 

A Getaway with Your Husband

Friday, February 10th, 2012

getaway-with-your-husbandFind out how to have a  getaway with your husband on a small budget. I will be sharing about how God gave me back the honeymoon I never had, and how God provided miraculously every step of the way on my perfect getaway to the Bahamas. I will also give you ideas on more local getaways that are doable, and how your marriage needs this kind of refreshment.

Join me with Beth Jones on February 13th at 1pm Central (11am Pacific) for a live radio show, where I will share how to have “A Getaway with Your Husband.” At the right time, click here.

For those of you who wanted to come but missed it, here is the recording: (Length: 1:37:59)