Archive for Being Your Husband's Help Meet
Chatting With Lisa Whelchel (about marriage)
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve read Lisa’s ideas about parenting…I’ve read her thoughts on friendship…but I’ve never read her insights on marriage. And so I asked…
Me:
I’m currently writing a series on my blog encouraging wives in their journey as a help meet to their husbands. What is something practical you’ve done to help your husband be a better father, husband, man of God?
Lisa:
Well, can I share something with you that I wish I would have done better and understood earlier?
It’s about balance. I’d read all the books about being a great help meet and I implemented all the right things. But somehow as I was offering all that I thought a good wife should be…I stopped offering myself.
If we change ourselves too much to be their help meet, we can make it too easy for our husbands and they can’t grow. We have to be honest – that’s what being a good help meet is.
Laura’s follow-up thoughts:
Eek, my notes as I scrawled frantically during my interview with Lisa were beginning to look rather scary at this point. I was trying so hard to listen well and write at the same time, but your guess is as good as mine about what I meant when I wrote, “use uhs as a good opp”. Huh? If you recall, this entire interview took place in fifteen minutes time. There was not time for neat penmanship.
Anyway, what I THINK Lisa was wisely saying to us is that being a good help meet doesn’t mean that we’re to just completely give up on what we need and desire in our marriage, just to make our husbands happy. We have to be honest and tell our husbands what we need, otherwise they can’t grow into the husband God desires them to be.
I think that there are wonderful “be a better help meet” books out there, but I do often feel overwhelmed and inadequate after reading them. That’s part of the reason I started writing my own series about becoming a better help meet…to try to be real and practical…hopefully, sort of.
So yes, being a good wife doesn’t mean that I should give up on who I am so that my husband’s world will happily and smoothly go around. It does mean that I sometimes give up what I want. It does mean that I put his needs before my own. It does mean that I love him with all my heart and work very hard to meet his needs.
But meeting his needs may mean that I challenge him to improve his life and to work to better meet my needs. I’m only truly being his help meet if I am helping him become a better man of God.
I think this help meet thing calls for a lot of prayers for wisdom.
What do you think?
Becoming a Better Help Meet: Remind Yourself!
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Today I just want to share a simple little thing I do to remind myself all day that I think my husband is awesome!
This all came about rather innocently. I didn’t intentionally create this little exercise so that I could remind myself of how much I love Matt. It just happened, and then I realized how cool it was. It’s profound…are you ready?!
I set one of my computer passwords (one that I use frequently) to say something great about Matt. I was feeling giddy one day, and I needed to set a new password…and so just like I was in junior high writing “I LOVE MATT” on the side of my notebook between classes, I set my password to say it.
(”I LOVE MATT” isn’t the password, by the way. What, do you think I’d just tell all of you one of my passwords?)
(Or maybe it IS the password and I’m just telling you it isn’t just to throw you off.)
(Wow, I just forever keep you hopping, don’t I?)
But don’t you remember those feelings you felt back when you and your husband were dating and you couldn’t stop thinking about him and you wanted to carve your initials together into a tree? And tell all your friends about how great he was? And write his name on stuff?
Somehow life takes over and reality sets in and we as a couple become comfortable and not so giddy anymore. That’s mostly okay. We don’t really have time to sit around and sigh and daydream.
But having my password set to remind me all day long that I LOVE MATT (or something else, or not), has been so super neat. Like, totally. (That would be me reverting back to junior high lingo.)
Typing in the words reminds me several times a day of how much I love my husband. And in the middle of a very busy life full of activity and just…busyness…those reminders are a valuable treasure.
So, just a suggestion: Set up a password or two to say something great about your relationship with your husband. You’ll appreciate the loving reminders!
LAURA AND MATT FOREVER XOXOXO
Lead Me…A Prayer for Your Marriage
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I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to marriage, in particular we can help our husbands be godly leaders and the kind of men we need and desire them to be. I know many of you have experienced a lot of hurt and disappointment in your marriage. Many of you want your husbands to step up and be a stronger spiritual leader in your home.
Whether your husband is leading your family the way he should be or not, I thought you might enjoy this song that touched me heart recently. I told you that listening to music ministers to me! When I heard the the words of Lead Me, by Sanctus Real, I fell in love with the message.
I realize this song is directed more to men…as encouragement to let God lead them as they strive to lead their families. Maybe you’ll have an opportunity to share this song with your husband. Plus, I thought it would give us all some great words to pray as we ask the Lord to help our husbands be strong and to meet our needs. I’ve been using the words of this song to pray for several of our friends who are struggling in their marriages.
In addition and maybe more importantly, I think this song can be a heart check for each of us as wives. Are we being the kind of wife our husband needs? Are we loving our children the way we should be? Are we letting our husbands lead? Are we fulfilling the roles in the home that we should be? Do our husbands and children feel supported by us, or do they feel alone?
Just a few things to think about and pray over…
And no matter what, always remember that God is in control and that he loves you and is holding you up.
Becoming a Better Help Meet: GET HELP!!!
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I had another Help Meet post all sweetly written up to encourage you to empower your husband to be better. But that one is going to have to wait.
You know why? Because there are marriages all around me that are hurting and falling apart. If I hear of one more marriage break up from people that I love and care about, I’m just going to scream! Right now I’m mad. I’m mad and I’m sad and my heart is broken. I’m mad at Satan for destroying marriages and I’m mad at couples for letting Satan do what he loves and is so good at doing. Christians and non-Christians alike are letting Satan win. Stop it. Stop it!!! Stop it!!!!!
If your marriage is less than wonderful…you don’t get to cop out. You DON’T! You don’t get to say, “Laura, I know what the Bible says…but you just don’t know what I’ve been through in my marriage.”
You know what I keep hearing from couples who are deciding to split up? “We’ve had trouble for years.” “There have been issues in our marriage for years.” “We’ve always had really difficult things to work through in our marriage.”
Oh, really? You’ve had trouble for years? How shocking! Name one married couple that hasn’t “had trouble for years”! Everyone always thinks their troubles are harder to work through than anyone else’s troubles. And so…working through them just doesn’t seem like an option.
You want to know why your marriage is difficult? It’s because marriage is difficult! It’s because two sinners married each other and have to try to figure out how to live together in harmony with God in the center. Satan hates what you’re trying to do and he’s going to do everything he can to destroy you. It’s a spiritual battle. So yes, THAT is difficult.
If your marriage is in ANY kind of trouble…PLEASE GET HELP! Before it’s too late. Too many couples are ashamed or embarrassed or too full of pride to ask for help. Then they are divorced before anyone who loves them has a chance to help. Please, please don’t do that. I beg you.
Asking for help is hard. Asking for help means you may face the opportunity to be convicted of your own sin. Or be asked to offer forgiveness to your spouse. Or to let go of bitterness. Or to change something difficult about the way you are living. Those things are going to be gut-wrenchingly difficult. Awful. Painful.
But who are you living for? If you’re living for yourself, then by all means go right ahead and give up on your marriage. If you’re living for yourself, it won’t matter to you how much you hurt your children, your friends, your family, your church and your spouse. As long as you feel like you are going to be ”better off”, then go ahead and do whatever you want to do.
But if you are truly striving to live for Jesus, I’m going to beg you to please let go of yourself and all the fears you have about forgiveness and change…and please humbly accept help.
I’ve watched some of my friends walk through extremely difficult marital issues…and they survived! Their marriages have been in the trenches…and with God’s incredible strength…they have dug themselves out and come out on the other side with a new marriage to each other! It’s been beautiful to watch! They wanted to quit. They wanted to leave. But they worked and they fought and they sweated and they cried and they learned how to let go of the bondage that was keeping them from the kind of joy God purposes for a marriage. They did it and so can you!!
Please let God help heal your marriage. Your children deserve your hard work and so do you.
Disclaimers and some of the “Yeah Buts”: Please know that I’m not writing to condemn anyone. I know some of you have been through tremendous trials in your marriage. I know some of you are divorced. Some of you have endured physical abuse. Some of you had spouses who refused to stay married to you no matter how hard you tried or what you did to make it work. Some of you needed to get out of a marriage because your children were being sexually abused. I really am writing this post because while those are legitimate reasons to split, those reasons are VERY FEW, and the issues I’ve heard of recently are SO VERY FIXABLE!!! And that is why my heart cried out in this post.
And now, I’m going to go hug and appreciate my precious husband. If we’ve learned anything by watching friends and loved ones break up and divorce, it has been that we MUST go to great lengths to protect and nurture our marriage together. My husband and I are prayerfully clinging to one another right now…and I’d like to encourage you and your spouse to do the same. Your marriage depends on it.
Becoming a Better Help Meet: He Can’t Read Your Mind
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I remember the first time we celebrated my birthday as a married couple. It was one of the most disappointing days. Growing up, my mom had always made my birthday all about me. I would wake up to gifts and a special breakfast. We usually went out for a lovely lunch. I got to pick what I wanted for dinner and we all celebrated with a cake.
So naturally, Matt should have known all of that. He should have thought ahead and planned ahead and baked me a big cake and planned the whole day around me because hello…it was my birthday.
I believe the day went something like this: I did not wake up to presents or a special breakfast. Lunch? Well that would depend on what I chose to make. There was no cake. Matt didn’t even mention my birthday until late afternoon when he said something like, “I have to go out for a little while because I haven’t had a chance to shop for your present yet. What do you want for your birthday?”
What do I want? What do I WANT? I WANT you to know what I want! I want you to spend hours thinking about how to make my day special and about what would be a wonderful and romantic gift for me. And what do you mean you “haven’t had time to shop yet”? You had 364 days to shop!
Mature, wasn’t I? Expecting a little too much from my new husband? Um, yeah. Especially since I hadn’t expressed one bit of my desires to him in the first place. I didn’t want to have to tell him what I wanted. That wouldn’t have been romantic at all. I wanted him to just KNOW what I wanted. I expected him to create a magical day for me when he had no idea what I had expected. His birthdays growing up had been much more “low key” than mine had been. He didn’t know that the world had to stop and that everything had to revolve around me on my birthday.
That’s just a silly little example of how not sharing our needs or desires with our husbands can cause unnecessary frustration. But the big point is this: Our husbands can NOT read our minds. Your husband probably has no idea what you want until you tell him.
Hey, you can’t read his mind either. This marriage thing takes communication.
If you want your husband to help you more around the house, you need to tell him. And you need to be specific. You can’t just say, “I need you to help me more around the house.” He’s likely to look around the house, feel completely overwhelmed and not help at all. Remember, he can’t read your mind. He probably wants to help you, he just doesn’t know what it is that you need help with. While YOU see the pile of laundry that needs to be folded, don’t assume that he KNOWS that you want him to fold it. Instead of, “I need you to help me” say something along the lines of, “Hey, would you be able to get those clothes folded for me sometime this afternoon?” (And then you give him a flirty look, a smile and a wink – but that’s another post for another day.)
Don’t just sit around waiting for him to figure out what you need or desire. He doesn’t know. He’s probably not insensitive and uncaring. He just doesn’t know. Because your husband can not read your mind.
If you expect your husband to read your mind and instinctively know what you want…you are going to be constantly disappointed. Disappointment can lead to resentment. Which can lead to bitterness. Which can lead to a big sinful mess. The kind of sinful mess that rests in your heart, not in his.
Gently and lovingly share your needs with your husband. Be specific. Think about what you are going to say before you say it. Decide if it truly is a need (or just a selfish desire). Express yourself calmly. DON’T NAG.
Which leads me to this: Even if you share your needs with your husband in all the right ways…he still may not be able to (or willing to) meet all of them. You may be able to try talking through it with him again another time. You may be able to express yourself differently to help him understand what you need. Or, this may just be a time to shut-up and pray.
And through prayer, you will learn that there’s only One who can truly meet all of your needs sufficiently. And joy of joys…He can indeed read your mind. :)
Becoming a Better Help Meet: Expectations
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When we got married, we had quite a few expectations about what we thought marriage would be like.
I personally had quite a blissful view of what it would be like to be a wife and homemaker. My kitchen would always be clean. My chores would always bring me joy. I would always be rested, organized and cheerful. My husband would always say and do exactly the things I needed and wanted him to say and do. We would have beautiful children who were well behaved and quiet and who never argued. Oh, and of course, some of those beautiful children would be of the girl variety.
Fifteen and a half years later, I am a (very happily married) woman with a frequently dirty kitchen and a large list of unfinished chores that occasionally make me feel very grumpy. I could use a nap and I have to pray and put forth quite an effort to continually be cheerful. My husband certainly doesn’t always say and do exactly what I need him or want him to do. None of my children are of the girl variety…and hardly ever are they quiet.
Am I disappointed with all of these expectations that have gone unfulfilled? No way. I’m still doing everything I always wanted to do…I’m just living within the realm of reality now. The fact that God gave us four boys has been joyful beyond my wildest dreams. I could never keep a perfect house because well…we’re all living in it. My husband can’t possibly say everything and do everything perfectly because as great as he is, he is also human and for goodness sake..sometimes I don’t even know what I want. How is he supposed to know?
You know the way life always turns out so perfectly in books that you read and movies that you watch? Yeah…those aren’t real!! Books and movies are stories written by people. I have to be very careful when I’m reading a good Christian fiction book that I don’t suddenly become dissatisfied with my own husband and my own life. Somehow the main male character in those books knows exactly what his woman needs and wants and always says the perfect thing. (Funny isn’t it that these books are usually written by WOMEN!)
I am going to suggest then that while we absolutely should aim high and desire a wonderful life with a wonderful man of God…we also need to recognize that there is no such thing as a perfect life with a perfect man. If there was a perfect man out there…he wouldn’t be choosing the likes of me because well…I’m not perfect.
I have more to say about expectations, specifically with our husbands, but I’ll share that another time.
For now I’ll stop with the simple idea that as a help meet to our husbands we need to learn to be joyful while we live lives that are less than perfect. Lives that may include spills, mistakes, socks on the floor, stains on the rug, bad breath, hurt, death, sickness, sore backs, misplaced documents, dried out markers, toilet seats left up, squishy bananas under the table and lost library books.
Embrace the life God gave you with the husband you chose. Let go of perfect expectations…and choose JOY!
Becoming a Better Help Meet: Pray for Your Husband (+ a Giveaway!!)
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Be sure to catch up on the rest of this series here.
Last time, we talked about working hard to make sure our relationship with God is strong and alive so that we can be readily equipped to meet the needs of our husband.
Today, let’s talk about praying for our husbands.
Besides making sure your relationship with God is what it should be, praying for your husband is one of the most important things you can do as his help meet. You may not be able to change anything about your husband. You may not be able to help your husband be successful at his work. You may not be able to make your husband become a stronger spiritual leader.
But God can.
God loves your husband more than you do. God wants your husband to be spiritually minded. God wants your husband to love Him and serve Him. God wants your husband to meet your needs and the needs of your family.
You can talk to your husband about these desires. You can hurt for your husband when he struggles. You can encourage your husband to do more of the things you want him to do. You can beg your husband to become more of the man you want him to be.
But most of the time, you just need to shut-up and pray.
Love your husband. Respect your husband. Take care of your husband’s physical needs. Listen to your husband. Be kind to your husband.
And pray for your husband.
Pray for his role as a father. Pray for his role as your husband. Pray for his work. Pray for his other relationships. Pray for his struggles. Pray for his weaknesses. Pray for his strengths. Pray for his spiritual growth.
The prayer of a righteous [wo]man is powerful and effective. (Read James 5:13-18.)
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Going right along with this idea of praying for our husbands…Taraleigh of FBS Books (take note of her sponsorship button on my sidebar) is offering to give away one of the books from her shop, Prayers of an Excellent Wife.
Prayers of an Excellent Wife appears to be a fantastic resource to help us learn the art of praying for our husbands consistently, faithfully and according to scripture.
I’d like to encourage you to take a good look around FBS Books as it is filled with wonderful resources!! Thank you so much Taraleigh for offering to share Prayers of an Excellent Wife with one of my readers! This book is sure to be a blessing!
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For a chance to win a copy of Prayers of an Excellent Wife:
- Leave a comment here on this post letting us know something you pray for your husband about (or would like to begin praying for him about).
- For a second chance at winning a copy of this book, join me in becoming a facebook fan of FBS books! This will be a great way to keep up to date with their sales and new products! Once you become a fan, be sure to leave a second comment here letting me know!
Everyone sign up to win this book…then get on your knees for your husband. Your marriage will be blessed as a result! Thank God for the chance to lift our needs up to Him!
Becoming a Better Help Meet: The Most Important Thing
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So, what’s your marriage like? How do you feel about your relationship with your husband?
Do you feel as though you’re struggling to even like the guy you married? Do you love your husband deeply, yet long for him to grow into more of the godly man you desire? Do you crave more joy in your marriage, more peace, more contentment?
Or are you feeling pretty satisfied with your married life? Are you feeling like your marriage couldn’t possibly get any better? Are you overjoyed with your husband and love every minute you spend with him?
No matter what season you are in with your spouse and in your married life, there is one thing that is crucial for your marriage to thrive, grow and blossom:
Your personal relationship with God needs to be your top priority.
If your relationship with God is strong and growing, you will be bringing more joy into your marriage.
Why? Because having a dedicated relationship with God will bring your heart peace and joy…making you a better person, a better friend, a better wife, a better help meet .
That’s the result of choosing to put God first in your life. Peace. Joy. Contentment.
Will you always be happy? Will things always go your way? Nope. Will you be able to change anything about your husband? Maybe. Maybe not.
But if your relationship with God is what it should be…you will have joy in your life. You’ll have peace in your life that passes all understanding. You’ll be content knowing that you’re doing just what God wants you to do.
Don’t you want that kind of wife for your husband? Doesn’t it give you a little thrill thinking about the kind of wife you can be to your man, just by learning more about God and His desires for you?
Let God teach you and transform you into the wife you need to be.
Spend time daily (constantly) with God, reading His word, meditating on what He’s trying to tell you, talking to Him about what He needs you to do, listening to Him, praising Him.
I know many of us struggle with spending special time with God each day (and we have all kinds of excuses). It takes effort. It takes discipline. It takes desire.
Be intentional. Your marriage depends on it.
Share with us: What are you doing each day to spend time with God? What are some of the tricks you have discovered for carving out time for God in the midst of your busy days? What works for you as you juggle day to day tasks with building a stronger relationship with God? Please share with us so that we can all learn new ideas!
Challenge yourself: Is your relationship with God what it should be? In what ways do you need to grow in your relationship with God? Are you spending time with God each day as you should be? Where is your heart? Are you making God your number one priority?
Becoming a Better Help Meet: Make Him or Break Him
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You know how the husband of the Proverbs 31 Woman is “respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land”?
Why do you suppose he was so highly respected? Because he’s just that cool? Yeah maybe. I’m sure he was a pretty neat guy.
But here’s what I think:
I think he was respected by others because he was first respected by his wife.
If his wife didn’t respect him…didn’t talk respectfully to him…didn’t talk respectfully to others about him…why in the world would others respect him?
I am not an expert. Nor do I think that the following statement is absolute across the board without exception.
But.
I believe we as women have the power to make or break our man.
Without a doubt, a big part of who a man becomes is completely up to him. You can not change your husband because ultimately he must make his own choices and decide who his God is.
But.
I believe that the way I treat my husband; the way I respect him, talk to him, listen to him and talk to others about him can have a huge impact on the choices he makes and the man he becomes.
If I am constantly being sarcastic and negative to him…putting down the things he does…rolling my eyes at him…doing things opposite of what he asks of me…questioning everything he says and does…letting him know that he is annoying me…ignoring his needs…
If I am griping to others about him…laughing and joking to my friends about the ridiculous things he does…whining about all the ways he just doesn’t measure up…making fun of him in front of his friends…
I think I could slowly but surely break my man.
But.
If I show respect in the way I talk to him and listen to him…in the way I talk to others about him…and in the way I talk to him when we’re with others…
I can build him up and make him into more of the man and husband God wants him to be.
These are the some of the things I try to consider about how I talk to my husband or talk to others about my husband:
- Would I want him to talk to me like this?
- Would I want him to look at me this way when he’s talking to me?
- Would I want him to talk to his friends about me like this?
- Would I want him to talk to me in front of other people this way?
Hey…I don’t want Matt to talk to the guys about what a dork I was when I forgot to pick up the stuff he asked me to pick up at the store yesterday. I don’t want him to gripe to his buddies about how annoying I am when I leave cabinet doors open time after time. Why in the world would I think it would be okay for me to whine and gripe about him to my friends?
Now…is it ever okay to vent to a friend and share concerns in your marriage? Absolutely. I think women sharing with women can be healthy and helpful. But I think it is VERY important to pray about it first and consider the outcome of the conversation. You want your friends (and family) to still have respect for your husband after your conversation. Speak wisely.
Share with us: Not only is it a good idea to NOT SAY negative things to others about your husband, it’s also a great idea to say lots of positive things about him to others! Please take some time to share with us some of the great things your husband does for you and your family. Go ahead…start bragging! If you aren’t in the habit of sharing great things about your husband…this is a great place to start!
Challenge Yourself: What are some ways you might need to improve when it comes to talking respectfully to or about your husband? Would your husband “be respected at the city gate” (Prov. 31:23)? (You’re welcome to share your thoughts on this too…but please don’t feel like you have to. This is more for your reflection and prayer.)
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This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday.
Becoming a Better Help Meet: Let’s Get Real
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I loved all of your responses about how you are a helper to your husband. It was wonderful to establish that our role as wives is simply to be our husband’s helper. Thank you. I think we can all be encouraged to read how each of us work to meet our husband’s individual needs.
I’ve read a quite few marriage books, both from Christian and secular perspectives.
They were all pretty good books…but after reading them and trying to apply them…I often felt guilt and frustration. Guilt because after studying and learning about how to be a great help meet…I STILL fall way short of perfection. Frustration because there were still parts about being a help meet described in the books that I just didn’t get. How do I do this again? Why can’t I do a better job of this? What is the matter with me?
Why can’t I smile at my husband adoringly every time he’s in the room? Why can’t I always meet him at the door when he gets home from work, throw my arms around him and give him a big affectionate kiss, hand him his slippers and the newspaper and massage his shoulders for thirty minutes on the sofa? Why do I STILL sometimes act irrationally about some of the things he does that frustrate me? For that matter, why…when I’m trying to do all these wonderful things to be a good help meet to him does he still do some of the same things that frustrate me? Shouldn’t the way I’m being such a good help-meet make him change all his frustrating ways?
After much prayer and reflection sprinkled in with strong urges to kick, scream or break something, it has finally occurred to me that while I’m still striving toward being a perfect help-meet, I am never going to be perfect. My husband is never going to be perfect. Our marriage is never going to be perfect. We are two imperfect individuals, designed by God to be and to think very differently.
Wives, some days we’re going to have sad hearts. Some days our husbands are really going to make us mad. Sometimes they will say something that hurts our feelings. Some days we will have given so much of ourselves to our home, work and children, we will feel like we have nothing to give to our husbands at the end of the day.
The problem then is not in our emotions and feelings. We will all continue to occasionally feel sad, tired, mad, hurt, frustrated, over-worked, annoyed, some of the above, all of the above. None of those feelings are wrong or sinful. They’re normal, because life and marriage are full of real moments and real hard work.
The problem and sin comes in how we respond to those feelings and emotions. We can say something ugly to our husbands. We can have a pity party for ourselves all day and sulk and pout. We can be short with our children. We can ignore our husbands or try to “punish” them. We can whine to a bunch of our friends about “men” and “just wait till I tell you what he did this time”. All of these responses are wrong and sinful. They may tend to be our natural responses…the easier responses…but, they are sinful.
Instead, get on your knees and beg God to show you how you can respond to your feelings with grace and mercy. Anything less will just throw us into a well of self-righteous pity. I’ve been there and done that. While choosing to be merciful is A MUCH HARDER DECISION, in the long run (and because we’re trying to let God help us do things His way) our marriages will be so much more peaceful when we choose what is right.
Share With Us: Just like we did in this Real Mom post, let’s all reassure each other that none of us is perfect, nor do we have perfect husbands or perfect marriages. Leave a comment to let us know that you, your husband and your marriage are all real…with bumps and road blocks (and times of bliss and merriment too). This is NOT A MEN BASHING OPPORTUNITY. This is a time to encourage each other and to let each other know that as Christian women, we are all in this together.
Challenge Yourself: Think of some of the ways you respond to your husband when you are frustrated about something he’s done. Pray! - and start planning NOW for how you can handle that these situations with mercy and grace.
We’ll talk more soon about some specifics and “how-tos” of choosing mercy and peace in our moments of frustration. In the meantime…let’s all take a quick moment to share that we are all real so that none of us feels like we are the only ones in a real marriage.
