As married men, we are husbanding something.
It is how we are wired.
The trouble is, most of us young men husband something other than our wife.
Often it is our job that gets our full husbanding energies. We accidentally fall into the trap of husbanding our life instead of husbanding our wife. We do it with gusto because, after all, we have been taught and had it modeled that this is our provider function. Quite frankly, it is all we know to do. And as our young marriages suffer from the pressure that “everything should be ok….look at all I am doing to make my family and marriage work!” We are left to silently conclude that the problem must be our wives.
She just can’t be satisfied so it seems.
Although you can point out to her all the specific times that you have re-arranged your life for her, spent money on her, sacrificed your time for her, you just can’t get away from the nagging undercurrent that this thing called “marriage”, your marriage, is not working out so well. Your wife isn’t thriving. As a result, neither are you.
May I suggest the problem isn’t her? It is you (and me).
More specifically, it is our husbanding. We have been husbanding something other than her; and SHE knows it.
She may not know to say it in those words, but the tension between our wives and us husbands (even if it is subtle) is there to instruct us…if we will listen and learn the unique language of our marriage.
