The One Reason Why It’s So Hard for Wives to Respect Their Husbands

If you’ve been a Christian wife for any length of time now, then inevitably you’ve read or heard about how a wife is to respect her husband as stated in Ephesians 5:33.  Right?

Let the wife see that she respects her husband.

When we were dating our men, most likely our respect for them came quite easily, at least that’s how it was for me. The relationship was new and exciting and it’s not like I was sniffing out all of Eric’s sins, therefore, giving him respect was simple.  I mean, let’s think about this….

Man shows up to take girl out to dinner.

He looks and smells great.

He tells her she looks beautiful.

He is kind, affectionate, and compassionate.

He is attentive towards her and can’t get enough of her companionship.

Clearly, the woman sees him as Mr. Wonderful.  She knows he has flaws but she’s in love and because of this, overlooking his failings is a piece of cake!  Keeping a record of wrongs and having a critical spirit is nowhere on her emotional radar because life is blissful!  Cue the cartwheel and confetti!

The woman in love continues down the path of respecting him because her emotions are driving and dictating her thoughts, words, and actions.  Then the hands of time move in their relationship…

Eventually, he’ll make her cry.

At times he’ll emotionally disconnect from her.

He’ll snap at her out of frustration.

Soon he’ll make poor choices like all humans do.

And even in his good intentions, he’ll still make mistakes.

All of these things will cause the respect we once had for our husbands to plummet because the scales have been removed from our emotion-based eyes.  We are now emotionally let down because of our husbands’ choices and attitudes.

In walks Ms. Disrespectful Attitude which resides in every wife’s heart.  She’s a part of our DNA which is why it is so hard for us to respect our husbands.

After the honeymoon period has worn off and the emotional high dissipates, a wife’s natural default is to view a husband with disrespect if we continually walk in our flesh.

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.  Galatians 5:14,15

It’s so difficult to train our thoughts and emotions to not be critical and condemning of our men, after all, they fall short just like we do. Yet, for some reason, we hold them to a higher standard than the standard we hold for ourselves. Why is that?

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Romans 3:23

I have learned that I need to be intentional and mindful to be respectful even when I’m not feeling it, otherwise I’ll be sliding down the slippery slope of being a disrespectful wife.  This is not a place where I want to live because I know it will have a negative impact on my man and my marriage.  But ‘self’ and ‘pride’ are always taunting me to walk in my emotions rather than the Word of God.  Of course, this path is the more natural path, hence the reason why it is so difficult to continue respecting our husbands as the years go by.

It’s funny how the Lord knew what we would experience as wives.  In fact, He knows us so well that He even put in the Bible a command for us to respect our husbands.   Yeah, God’s smart like that because He knows our natural flesh tendencies.  God knew we would be so apt to place a higher importance on our emotions rather than the Word of God.

Okay, I’ve uncovered the ‘why’ to this whole respect your husband thing, but perhaps you need more help?

• You might be wondering what do you do when you’ve lost respect for your man?
• Or how do you recapture respect for him?
• And what exactly does respecting him really look like?

I’ve addressed all of these questions in 1 of the 14 sessions at the Wisdom for Wives Online Conference.  You can find out more about it here.

Live a poured out life for Christ,

Jolene Engle