Ask Angie: We have been married only 4 months and my husband engages in bash sessions with his family, friends, and grown boys about me and all the details of the marriage we are trying to build. How can I feel safe, loved, and protected in this? We are going to counseling…I just don’t think he is willing to see this behavior as abnormal. I think it is just what his family does. Negative and tearing us down at every turn.
Marriage Guidance: If any of your friends, family and grown boys have any sense they will surely see right through your husbands criticism. We should never allow what others say about us control our own behavior, even if it is from our loved ones. Many times it is our loved ones that will be the most disagreeable.
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sister –yes—even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his own cross cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26
Scripture tells us that some of our family will follow Jesus Christ and some won’t and because of this, conflict with our family will be inevitable. But we must not allow unbelief of our own household pit us against God too. In other words, do not undermine your faith and love in Christ because of your husband’s unbelief
Your husband is battling with his own internal war. A man of God would not talk about his wife to others. Your husband is emotionally and spiritually unwell. Your husband has some issues that desperately need tended to, much like a sick baby who needs its mother. Not only that, but you, his wife is taking in all of this negative abuse and it can surely cause inner turmoil within your spiritual self.
This is a very discouraging situation in marriage. This is why you must pray about it and ask Christ to give you the peace you need to get through this trying time in your marriage. Keep your focus on God at all times and get out your bible and read the Word daily. God will comfort your soul.
The truth is you will never feel safe, protected and loved by your husband as long as he remains wrapped up in himself because he needs inner healing. Essentially he is unable to love properly because he does not love himself. He does not know Jesus Christ who gives us the ability to love ourselves and to love others. You must seek inner peace from God through the Words of Jesus Christ.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated how own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the Church. Ephesians 5:28
You can be sure of one thing, you cannot change your husband and neither can some stranger behind a desk. The truth of the matter is people of the world go to the world for help with their problems and because of that they never truly get the healing they need. WE NEED GOD. Everyone needs God even if they don’t know it. God is our Healer, Protector and Savior! A person without God is like oatmeal cookies without the oatmeal.
The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2
Your husband has to want to change himself through Jesus Christ and repent, seek forgiveness and turn his life around and walk in the Lord. You or a counselor cannot do that for him—its something he must want to do on his own. You are basically living with an unbeliever, a person who do not live their life for God through Jesus Christ, but a person who lives to please self.
Your husband’s addiction is putting down others to feel better about himself. For those of you who are single, please take this marriage problem with seriousness. If we are preparing to be married someday, preparation starts now, not two weeks before the wedding day. Most character traits in others come out when we know what to look for, such as what their relationship is like with God and with parents and other family members; or what do they do in their spare time? As Jesus says, “Look for the fruits”!! Many people can save themselves much grief by marrying in the Lord and marrying people they are compatible with.
By their fruits you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. Matthew 7:3
Most people don’t change after marriage in fact they sometimes get worse. Be careful, during the dating period because people will put their best foot forward, but after the wedding they begin to show their true selves. The best way to get to know someone’s true self before marriage is look for his or her fruits. What do they give, create, generate, and or have within them that come from God through Jesus Christ??
This isn’t to say that people such as your husband can’t change; on the contrary, anyone can change through Christ if they are willing to change. But people do not change for others, and if they do it is only on a temporary basis. For instance alcoholics will stop drinking for their spouse for a time,
but months later will start drinking again.
Relapse happens because the alcoholic believes he has the will power to control his or her drinking—but alcoholics do not have the will power to control their drinking without God. God gives us the gift to never crave a drink ever again, and all we have to do is follow Him. God takes cares of people who truly have the faith to believe that God will do what He says.
In other words, your husband must be willing to change his attitude through Jesus Christ and God will help him to become the loving husband that God meant for him to become. We do not have the will power on our own to love unconditionally—we must allow God to come into our life and heal our heart and mind! He will make us new people in Him if we only humble our life to him. But if we have too much pride how can we humble our lives to God and let him help us!! We have to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus—there is no other way!
The Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:24-26
Indirectly you can help your husband by not enabling his behavior through being spiteful or letting his behavior control your faith in Jesus Christ. He can’t hurt you with his words unless you allow his words to hurt you. He can say anything he likes about you, but that does not make it true. This is your husband’s problem so give your husband back his problem and don’t have anything to do with it. Don’t think you have to do anything or be responsible for his behavior—because that’s nonsense. This is not your problem but your husband’s problem.
When your husband does talk negatively about you or your marriage to others, pray for him and ask Jesus to come into his heart and show him the Way that leads to God. This is the best thing you can do for yourself and the marriage. Your husband is walking on the wrong road! Only Christ can steer him in the right direction and put him on the right road, but your husband must walk that road.