When Your Husband Flirts with Other Women
(A bit about me – I only write for women. And I am only going to address things that wives can change in this post. My goal is to point wives towards having Christ as Lord and towards obeying His Word and His beautiful design for marriage.)
FLIRTING IN OUR CULTURE
Our culture thinks nothing about married people flirting with others. It’s “not a big deal.” It won’t hurt anyone! That is what a lot of us believe, at least.
But what is the real harm in flirting? Why does it matter? Where is the line?
FLIRTING IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
I believe that flirting (outside of marriage) is VERY dangerous for people who are married. It is an extremely slippery slope from flirting to infatuation to an affair. I don’t think ANYONE is above this kind of temptation. I’m not! The only way I can avoid sexual temptations is to put VERY CLEAR BOUNDARIES around my marriage and my heart and to cling to Christ.
Not only does flirting make it possible and more probable that someone will begin an affair, but it is just downright DISRESPECTFUL toward a person’s spouse and marriage covenant before God.
The Bible commands us to FLEE from sexual immorality as believers. And we are also commanded not to allow even a “hint” of sexual immorality to be among us.
A marriage covenant is a VERY serious thing in God’s sight. The price of flirting with someone else is just way too high, in my opinion. Is it possible that I might get away with flirting temporarily without becoming involved in an affair? Maybe. But it is also very likely that flirting could lead to much more than I intended and the fall out could be catastrophic.
MY PERSONAL CONVICTIONS ARE TO AVOID:
- private emails with other men
- long private phone conversations with men
- being alone with a man in a house or room with closed door
- private texting or Facebook chatting
- building close work relationships with men
- allowing men to disrespect my marriage by flirting with me
Each believer will have to pray and seek God’s wisdom and determine for himself/herself what boundaries God may desire them to have.
Very few people set out intending to have an affair. It almost always starts as a friendship or close work relationship then proceeds slowly to flirting and confiding emotional details and problems – and then, before you know it, you are feeling unloved and lonely in your marriage and you have a man just waiting to “rescue” you and shower you with compliments, romance and attention – and then the emotional affair or sexual affair “just happens.”
It can’t just happen when we stay far away from compromising situations and provide no opportunity for the flesh!
FOR WOMEN WHOSE HUSBANDS ARE FLIRTING WITH OTHER WOMEN
My first concern is, why is he flirting with other women? Obviously, all humans are sinful and- men and women alike (Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God). “Sin” is an archery term that means “to fall short of the target.” Sin is wrong in the eyes of our holy God and the person who is guilty of sin will be accountable to God for what he/she does.
But sometimes digging into the reasons behind the sin can be helpful for a spouse to try to understand what is happening.
My guesses would be that it:
- makes him feel desired and accepted
- makes him feel powerful
- makes him feel more masculine and more like a man
- makes him feel like he’s “still got it.”
- makes him feel admired/respected
- makes him feel like he is in control
- His fellowship with the Holy Spirit may be compromised because of some other sin and he may be operating in “flesh mode” instead of “filled with the Holy Spirit mode.” It is possible there could be lust involved here.
I am not responsible for my husband’s sin. He will stand accountable to God for his behavior no matter what I do.
I will stand accountable to God for my behavior and obedience to God no matter what my husband does.
INFLUENCE AUTHORITY
I can INFLUENCE my husband and make sin more or less tempting for him by my own behavior. We are one spiritually, emotionally and physically in marriage. What I do affects him. What he does affects me. Husbands have “positional authority” and wives have “influence authority.” Our power is similar to the power of an advisor to a king. And this kind of authority is often more powerful than positional authority! For more on that concept, read here.
The biggest question for me as a wife is -
how can I conduct myself wisely in this situation and how can I honor God in my marriage even as I am hurting?
WHAT DO I ACTUALLY HAVE CONTROL OVER HERE?
If my husband is flirting with other women, I would want to ask myself some questions
- do I communicate that I desire my man in a way he really hears?
- do I generally show my husband that I accept him and am not trying to change him in our relationship?
- have I been withholding my body sexually from him? (I Corinthians 7:1-5 says it is wrong for one spouse to withhold sex from the other – that it invites temptation to the rejected spouse and opens a door for the enemy). God commands me to be sexually available to my husband (unless there is infidelity or major health problems or we have agreed to abstain mutually for a short time to pray).
- do I communicate to my husband that he is strong, manly, powerful, respected and emotionally safe with me?
- do I smile at my husband often?
- do I flirt with my husband (if he is receptive) and enjoy him?
- do I tend to take over control of the marriage or treating him like a little boy instead of a grown man? Do I think I have to lead because he can’t/won’t? Could I step down out of control and cooperate with his leadership instead of bossing and ordering him around? (Ephesians 5:22-33 = God’s design for wives to respect their husbands and follow the husbands’ God given leadership) If you struggle with trying to control your husband (like I used to), check out this post
- do I treat him with disrespect? (This is a LONG list of behaviors for most men, check out this post - it is surprising to most women all the things that can make men feel disrespected. This is important because men need respect like women need love!)
- do I treat him with respect in a way that is meaningful to him as a man? (Ways to Show Respect to Your Husband)
- do I make an effort to make myself attractive for my husband (not just wearing a pony tail and sweats all the time and never shaving – for example) – could I fix my hair the way he likes it sometimes and do my makeup nicely for him to make him feel like I think he’s worth the effort? Could I dress in a feminine, beautiful way that he would enjoy? Am I eating a healthy diet and getting a reasonable amount of exercise? I am not saying we need to have surgery or implants or have anorexia or be a size 2 or obsess over our looks. But the fact is that if we make NO effort to look attractive to our men, they will feel disrespected. Remember when you were dating, how you spent an hour or two dolling yourself up to impress your man? I doubt he expects you to spend 2 hours per day now, but 15-30 minutes might be a nice gift to give to him – to show you respect him and you respect yourself and take care of yourself.
I may have work to do on my end of the equation depending on my answers to these questions.
Beth Moore talks about (and this is a paraphrase) ”What wife, by jealousy, has ever won back her husband? What husband says, ‘Aw! My wife is so cute when she is so angry and jealous, I’ve GOT to go back to HER!’”
There is no power to attract our men with our anger, jealousy and bitterness.
I think a wife can and should pray about her approach carefully then calmly, sadly and respectfully share her feelings and pain (some possible suggestions):
- “I want you to flirt with me, Honey! I don’t want you to flirt with other women.”
- “Please do not flirt with other women.”
- “It is not ok for you to flirt with other women.”
- “It is really disrespectful to me and our marriage when you flirt with other women.”
- “I miss you.”
- “I miss you flirting with me.”
- “It hurts me so much when you flirt like that.”
- “It’s really hard for me to respect/trust you when you flirt with other women.”
- “I feel unloved when you do that.”
- “Are you feeling disrespected in our marriage?”
- “Is there something you need from me that I am not giving you?”
- it’s possible there could be such severe situations that a wife may have to say, “I can’t be with you if you continue to do X. It’s up to you. I trust you to do what is best for our marriage.”
I do think that if a husband feels greatly respected by his wife – that will draw him to her and make it much less likely that he would want to flirt with other women. We are always either drawing our husbands closer or pushing them away. A wife can certainly make sure SHE is honoring her husband and God and the marriage covenant on her end. And she can pray for God’s Spirit to convict him and bring him to repentance.
But even if a wife does everything “right” a husband still has free will and may chose to continue flirting and disrespecting his marriage vows and his wife. If you are in that situation, my heart breaks for you. If you’d like prayer, you may leave a comment and my prayer team and I will pray for you. I also hope you will seek godly, biblical counsel.
JEALOUSY
Jealousy is a complicated thing. It’s not all bad. God is jealous for our worship and praise. He says he is a jealous God and will not share His praise with another. If we are a believer in Christ, we are in a covenant with Him and our praise should ONLY be going to Him alone. We should not be serving or worshipping or sacrificing to other things as god. We should not be flirting with other “gods/idols”.
The marriage covenant does create certain rights and expectations. Part of those rights and expectations are that we belong to our spouse alone to have and to hold – and I think that includes flirting. A spouse is rightly jealous when his or her spouse dishonors the marriage covenant and flirts with or entertains lust for someone else.
But we must also guard our hearts against unwarranted jealousy and false accusations against our husbands – that will push their hearts far from us! Sometimes we as wives read impure motives into our husband’s every word or glance toward another woman unfairly. Sometimes we judge our husbands’ motives as sinful when they truly are not.
IF MY HUSBAND IS FLIRTING WITH OTHER WOMEN
He may not think it’s a big deal. He may think he’s just being friendly. My husband may have not really thought about possible negative consequences of flirting or he may think he can handle the temptation.
This is a sin problem and he will have to be convicted by the Holy Spirit to be able to repent and seek reconciliation with God and with me. I am not the Holy Spirit and I can’t make my husband repent!
I Peter 3 teaches us that when a husband is disobedient to God’s Word, a wife’s most powerful move is to be silent about spiritual things and about God, allowing God’s Spirit to speak to him directly without her interference. Yelling, nagging, preaching, lecturing, shaming, pouting, whining, demanding and criticizing are NOT effective methods to create motivation in men. It still comes back to respect.
My respect of what is good in him will do more to convict him than my contempt and condemnation ever could. My willingness to continue to treat him with respect, and to look for the good in him will pile burning coals upon his head. I do NOT respect his sin! But I find what is good and respect that. And I respect our covenant before God. The more godly I am (by God’s Spirit in me) and the less I sin against him, even when he is sinning against me, the more convicted he will feel of his own despicable behavior and the more loudly the voice of God will resonate within his soul.
I may have to confront him. If so, I will need to take care of any sin in my own life first (removing the “log” in my eye before addressing the “speck” in my husband’s eye – as Jesus commands.) But my confrontation should be done with self-control, manners and respect. There may be times when I need to confront his sin. Please see this post
http://ninaroesner.com/resources/when-it-doesnt-work/
PLEASE REALIZE THIS! If I sin against him because he was sinning against me - I am repaying evil for evil. Jesus says I can’t overcome evil with evil, I must overcome evil with good! Jesus commands us to bless those who persecute us, pray for those who despitefully use us, you do good to those who do harm to us and love our enemies – so how much more should we love our husbands.
If I sin against him by berating him, emasculating him with words, raking him over the coals, attacking him, screaming hateful things at him, looking down on him, detesting him, rebelling against him, continually spying on him, expecting the worst of him, refusing to cooperate with his leadership and disrespecting him – he will be thinking about MY AWFUL BEHAVIOR AGAINST HIM. He won’t be thinking about his own sin. He’ll have plenty of ammunition to use against ME because of all the sin I’ve now committed against him. He’ll be thinking about how crazy I am, and how smothering and controlling and disrespectful I am instead of thinking about his own sin. When I keep sin out of your life by living by the power of the Spirit – all he will have to think about is the purity and respect I show him, my godliness and his sinfulness. THAT is how he will be convicted, ladies!
WHAT ARE MY GOALS IN MARRIAGE?
In my mind, the goals God desires us to acheive are things like:
- spiritual, emotional and physical unity and oneness
- bringing great glory and honor to Himself
- living out the very great mystery of Christ and His church
- drawing others to Christ through our marriage relationship
- being an example of the grace and mercy of Jesus
- meeting my husband’s needs for respect and for being the leader in the marriage and depending on Christ to meet my needs when things aren’t going well
- my holiness, not necessarily my happiness
- my obedience to Him no matter what the cost is to me
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You may contact me at aprilc@sc.rr.com.
Related posts:
A reader shares helpful resources for pornography addiction
When Your Husband Sins Against You.
Handling Our Husband’s Visual Temptations.
Great Ideas – Ministering to Our Men.
Exploring the Depths of Bitterness
My Husband Doesn’t Deserve My Respect – Peacefulwife VIDEO
BRENT RIGGS TACKLES THIS TOPIC
http://www.brentriggsblog.com/2012/08/marriage-man-or-hormonal-boy/
NINA ROESNER FROM THE RESPECT DARE
http://ninaroesner.com/resources/when-it-doesnt-work/
RESOURCES FOR PORNOGRAPHY ADDICTION
www.isthismodest.com here:
http://isthismodest.com/2012/09/27/handling-our-husbands-battles-with-pornography/
(my post)
Another helpful resource is www.affaircare.com
and for pornography issues… http://www.xxxchurch.com help for wives of addicted husbands…
http://www.xxxchurch.com/women/spouses/what-do-i-do-when-i-catch-my-husband-looking-at-porn.html
And many of the authors on the Christian Marriage Bloggers’ Association also handle issues of pornography use, flirting and infidelity at
http://www.upliftingmarriage.com/cmba-members/
If your husband is flirting, you should walk up, kindly introduce yourself as his wife, and take over the conversation by asking her all kinds of friendly questions.
Great idea!
You know, there can be a really fine line between friendliness and flirting. Some women get upset when their husband is being friendly. And some women get upset when a woman is flirting with their husbands – but their husband really isn’t trying to flirt back. We definitely have to be careful about assigning evil motives when there may not be any!
What about wives that are being friendly to other men? I’m married to a women who feels there is nothing wrong with being friendly to the opposite sex. This would included; private conversation, emailing…etc. I witness her being very friendly to a single guy at our bible study cell group, sitting next to him almost every meeting, joking and playing with his ear’s. I’m obviously not the only one who notice, the whole group begin joking about their relationship, in front of me. I notice after coming back from a mission trip that this same young man had a problem talking with me face to face, I mention it to my wife, but her reply was she didn’t know. I know I need to make a decision whether to leave or stay, but I really don’t know…help anyone?
Jock,
I would be glad to talk with your wife if she is interested. Flirting is very dangerous – not to mention disrespectful to one’s spouse and to one’s marriage covenant. I am asking a godly man who works with men to respond since I don’t counsel men. He will hopefully be answering shortly. Thank you!
Thank you!
From Ronfurg (I can get you in touch with him if you want to discuss this any further in private – Peacefulwife)
Sir — Your wife’s relationship with the other man is totally out of bounds and inappropriate. Depending on your wife’s spiritual condition and maturity in Christ she may truly not realize the seriousness of her actions and may honestly believe there is no harm in what she is doing. The fact remains, however, that she is acting in a way that is harmful to your marriage and to her witness (assuming she is a Christian).
I believe you should start working on the situation by a thorough examination of yourself and repenting of any characteristics or behavior on your behalf that could percipitate your wife’s untoward interest in and attention to this other man. Ask God to reveal unseen things to you which may be playing a role in what is happening and ask for God’s intervention in what is obviously spiritual warfare being waged against your marriage. You must take responsibility for your actions and be courageous as you deal with your situation. When you are convinced that you are able to address the issue with your wife with godly fear and a pure heart, gently but firmly inform her that she cannot continue has in the past with this other man.
Her actions are very disrespectful to you as her husband. The fact that there is touching (playing with the ears) and that others in your Bible study group not only notice but even discuss her actions is ample evidence of her inappropriate behavior. Things cannot continue as they have in the past.
Remind your wife that not only is her inappropriate behavior harmful to you as it is disrespectful, and to her because of damage to her reputation, but it is also harmful to the man who is the recipient of her attention. In view of the question about what may have happened on the mission trip I would not hesitate to pointedly ask your wife if anything happened beyond what she would describe as a “friendly” relationship.
In addition to having what is certain to be a difficult conversation with your wife I also recommend a frank and honest discussion with the other man. Ask him to consider his relationship with your wife from your perspective and in clear terms let him know that your relationship with your wife is a sacred one and that you cannot tolerate damage to it resulting in part from the man’s relationship with your wife. Remind him of the “Do unto others,” command of Christ. Again, refer him specifically to the physical contact and the fact that others have obviously taken note of what has happened at the Bible study meetings.
You’re going to need to display a great deal of moral courage in having these conversations but you can have confidence that in seeking to safeguard your marriage relationship you will have God’s grace on your side. Seek God’s wisdom in determining the specific times, places, and even words to speak when having your conversaions. This is no time for passivity and yet to act in haste and without God’s wisdom would be a mistake.
One other suggestion — I believe it would be wise to seek the confidential counsel of your pastor or minister of counseling or of your mentor if you have one. Someone who knows your wife and the other man may be able to give useful insight and help you plan a strategy for winning the cooperation of your wife, and her respect for your position as her husband, and of the other man. Incidentally, his difficulty in looking you in the eye may be more the result of embarassment on his part for what has happened regarding the flirtation than from guilt over anything he has done with your wife when you were not around.
One addition from Ronfurg:
It may be wise to stop attending that small group – and possibly even that church. The temptation may be too great.
For wives, Keeping the Marriage Bed Pure http://peacefulwife.com/2012/08/20/keeping-the-marriage-bed-pure/
Also for wives: The Danger Zone of Guy Friends http://peacefulwife.com/2012/01/15/the-danger-zone-of-guy-friends-for-married-women/
Thank you, I will forward this to her.
To my Dearest Husband,
Regarding the big TRUST issue in our marriage, I have this to discuss with you.
You expect me to trust you. What does it mean to trust you anyway?
When you expect me to trust you, are you asking me to trust that you will not physically commit adultery by sex?
When you expect me to trust you, are you asking me to trust in your will power and self control, something that you take pride in, that even when you get to the closest possible distance to that “forbidden” line of sex, that you would still not actually cross it?
Therefore, the fact that you unintentionally or intentionally open yourself to opportunities that would take you closer to “the line”, or not walk away from opportunities of infatuation and flirtations, you expect and demand that you are totally justified with absolutely no need for any disclosure or accountability. So any of my reaction and emotion to such openness is entirely my unforgivable bad!?
But then if I can’t even trust myself with such kind of trust, knowing how vulnerable I am in my flesh, knowing how cunning Satan is, prowling around looking to devour my purity in any form, and to set out to tear down marriages, why should I grant you such kind of trust? In fact, your overconfidence in your own will power and self control makes it even more unreasonable to “just trust”, as your lack of alertness of the everyday spiritual battle will cause you defeat, because of your unawareness makes you defenseless in the reality of the everyday spiritual battle. To be honest, I cannot help but wonder if you demand such trust from me so that you can have the best of both worlds: keeping for yourself an openness to opportunity to feed the pleasure of your flesh and ego but yet do it in such a way that you can rationalize to yourself and to me that you can be trusted because you have not cross “the line”.
When you expect me to trust you, I hope you are asking me to trust that you will do anything possible to protect our marriage by a seeking the highest form of purity. I hope you are asking me to trust that you are seeking to get to the purity end of staying as far away from “the line” as you know how. I hope you are asking me to trust that you are not seeking the impurity end: just to get the rubber stamp of not crossing the line but open to opportunity to get closer, with denial of its danger and rationalization of your intent.
When you expect me to trust you, I hope you are asking me to trust that you do love God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength such that seeking His approval is all that matters to you, and therefore in order to please Him, you will seek the highest standard of holiness in your heart and in the covenant of our marriage, demonstrated in what you hear and look, who and how you talk to, seeking purity in all ways possible in your emotions, mind, heart and soul. I hope you are asking me to trust that you will resolve to reserve yourself to be one with me only, in heart, mind and soul, not just only in flesh, till death do us part.
Are you declaring, with God who testifies the state of your heart, that this is your heart’s conviction and the truthful desire and therefore I have no reason not to trust you because God is in you and in between us? While I do fully expect you to trust me in this manner as I declare that this is my heart’s conviction, are you asking me to trust you in this same way?
Love you always, your wife
Wife in God’s grace,
This is how I pray we will all live!!!to honor God and our spouse and covenant and stay as far from the line as possible, not trusting ourselves, but only God’s power to make us able to be pure!
I had a problem with my husband because he is very friendly, personable and easy to talk to. He had to learn to shut himself off a little bit or else his “friendliness” can be seen as something else or other women could take it a different way than him just being nice. Its sad to know that we live in a society where other women don’t respect the sanctity of other’s marriages.
I’m facing the same problem here.. I’m sad that we live in a society where people don’t respect other’s marriage. I’m furious to those women who think flirting with married man, my husband is an okay thing
Anon,
It is VERY SAD that marriage is not respected by so many. And our culture promotes the idea that flirting isn’t a big deal – that is NOT true! It is an extremely easy thing to go from flirting to much more serious sinful behavior. No one is immune from the danger. Pride comes before a fall when we think we can handle this and control it on our own and play with fire like that.
I wish that all people respected the sacred covenant of marriage – for themselves and for others and took protecting the institution of marriage seriously.
I am so sorry for your pain!
I hope you are able to address this with your husband calmly, briefly and tell him that it’s not ok with you and ask him to stop or not participate.
I pray he will be willing to set up strong walls to protect your marriage. Marriage is such a precious thing – it needs a lot of protection.
Thanks for your comments!
Peacefulwife & thegreenlatina: it would be great to ask the Respected Husbands to share what are their tell tale signs when friendliness becomes a rationalization for flirting. This is a topic that brings a lot of hurts to wives who can only suffer from it privately alone.
Maybe we can get some husbands’ opinions on that!
Thank you, Peacefulwife! I enjoy your blog and find it quite helpful! Keep Blogging as the Spirit inspire you. May Christ’s compassion to redeem broken marriages for the Father’s glory keep motivating you to share from His Word as the Spirit gives you words to share!
Thanks, Wife in God’s Grace – please keep praying for God to use me for His greatest glory and the edifications of His church and marriages in the church!
I just got done reading your two posts on this subject and wanted to comment. First of all, I do not want to make light of these issues. I know there are women who are dealing with an extreme amount of pain because of their husbands indiscretions and I know what a problem and marriage-breaker pornography can be. My comments are not aimed at women who are dealing with big problems like those. I agree those things need to be seriously dealt with by contacting a professional. My comments are aimed at those who are overreacting like I did.
When we were first married if I thought my husband just glanced at another woman, or if he would say someone was a nice-looking woman I would be upset and he would know it by the way I was acting. He wasn’t doing anything more than I did, who of us cannot say that we see someone and the thought enters our mind that “He’s a nice-looking guy” How wonderful that my husband felt comfortable enough and trusted me enough to want to say his thoughts out-loud, but my reaction sure made him think twice about it.
One time he and his crew had just got back from hauling hay bales at a farmer’s I did not know. My husband commented to the other guy’s, “That Mary _ _ _ _ _ _ _ sure is cute isn’t she?” I was instantly jealous. I know my face showed it, I know my actions showed it. After the other guys left, hubby asked what on earth was wrong and I told him that really made me feel uncomfortable when he said right in front of the other guys that he thought another woman was cute. Imagine how small I felt when he told me that Mary was about six years old!!!
One thing I think we really need to keep in mind, is when we as a wife react with such insecurity and jealous, it can truly be a major turn off to our husband. Turn the table around in your mind and try to see how you would feel if your husband was acting toward you the way you are acting toward him. Not very attractive is it.
We get so much wiser as the years go by. Now I can look back and realize that any jealousy I felt came from my own insecurity instead of my husbands behavior. If I felt like I’d put on too much weight on, or hadn’t been taking care of myself, I easily felt threatened even though there was no threat there.
Thirty eight years of marriage has been such a blessing to me. We both are now so secure in our love for each other, if he describes another woman to me and says “She’s a nice looking gal,” I don’t think anything of it and I can say the same thing to him. What at one time I might have thought was flirting with a waitress, I now realize is him just being friendly and giving her a hard time.
Again, I am no way saying these things to anyone who is dealing with truly sinful behavior on their husbands part. But I thought maybe I’m not the only one who was seeing “flirtation” behind every rock when truthfully there wasn’t anything there
Norma,
I am SO thankful for your willingness to share your situation. I think you make some extremely important points! It is easy for us to get a lot more jealous than is warranted at times. An angry, jealous, hateful looking, hateful acting, hateful sounding woman does NOT attract her husband to her! She repels him. It is our godly femininity: our respect, our delight, our confidence, our faith, our joy, our peace that draws our men to us. That is where our power is!
Thank you for taking the time to share and to help us see how you have grown and learned to have so much more intimacy and peace over the years. What a great example you are for us now!
I like the way you handle things now. Great ideas!
Norma,
I wonder if you might allow me to use your comment as a post in the coming weeks?
Thanks!
I would be honored!
Thank you so much, Norma!
Norma, I, too, thank you for sharing your perspective on this topic. I’ll be the first to admit that this is a very touchy issue for me as I dealt with this for a long time with my husband.
My marriage hit the rocks as soon as it began anyway and so there were a whole lot of different issues that came into play (among them being adultery and violence) so I can’t look at this issue as benign in any way. While I completely understand and appreciate your point of view, to me, it is either flirting or it isn’t. No in between. By saying that I am not saying I think you are wrong but that maybe on this topic their might be a bit of leeway in interpreting it differently in different marriages.
OH, I couldn’t agree with you more. I know that there are women who are dealing with very serious issues and with unfeeling husbands who show their wife absolutely no respect when it comes to this. I am truly sorry that this was the case with you. Every husband and every marriage is different and your statement that things will be interpreted differently in different relationships is completely accurate. I just know in MY case, I was getting jealous when there was no reason to do so, like when my husband commented that a little girl was cute.
I think you and I basically agree and I’m just feeling really sensitive on this topic.
I really like your post. I am having the same problem that you had before. I really don’t know what to do. I feel that my husband is getting tired of me being jealous. I am trying to trust my husband and not being jealous, but everyday when he at work i always think that he might do some wrong against me to make him feel better. And then, when he gets home we start arguing. Both of us didn’t have any good night together lately. Would you please tell me more how did you get over the jealouse and stay in your wonderful 30 years marriage? Or if someone can help me, please advise.
Myheartbleeding,
I am SO sorry for the pain you are experiencing!!!!!
It is VERY hard not to be jealous when your husband is giving you so many reasons to be jealous.
I will say that anger and bitterness will not draw him to you. So I believe you will want to work through the anger with God and work to forgive your husband – that way you will have God’s power to help you be the godly wife He wants you to be and you will be able to work on respect and cooperation.
I would recommend reading this post http://wp.me/p28uul-1dP about what most husbands find to be disrespectful. And then I would also read the post at the top of my home page called, “101 Ways to Show Respect for Your Husband – bu MintheGap” and I think you will find some helpful ideas that will breathe life into your wounded marriage.
Norma and other ladies- I am sure you will also be responding with encouragement and godly suggestions soon!
With love, precious sister!
Myheartbleeding,
How are things going this week?
I’ve once read, in a scientific source I don’t recall the name, that many times the root of jealousy lies within things of the past, not the present and, regarding wives being jealous of husbands because of little things he does (not porn or adulterous things), it may actually come from her relationship with her Dad in her childhood and teenage years, for she didn’t get all the attention she wanted/needed because her Dad treated her friends or sisters better than he treated her, for example, and so now she links that with her husband’s acts as if he is “turning into her Dad” and loosing another man she loves. That type of jealousy leads to feelings of unworthiness, and she’s likely to put all her feelings of emptiness from her past into the present, not because of her husband, but because of her Dad. She’d then have to analyse where the root of jealousy comes from, separate her husband from her Dad in her head and, most importantly, forgive her Dad and learn how to move on.
One tip for when a woman flirts with your husband (and he doesn’t flirt back) is to, instead of feeling jealous, feeling proud because he’s yours! Congratulate yourself for him choosing to marry YOU and not any other women in the world and smile at the women pitifully.
hahaha 
Mysterytopursue,
You are right! There can definitely be times that baggage from childhood or even from previous relationships can create unfounded fear for women and jealousy in current relationships. Great point!
And I LOVE your tip. Awesome attitude! Thanks for sharing!
My husband has been flirting with another woman. I only found out today. I thought we were fine. I am very shocked. I don’t even know what to do or think. I feel confused, lost. I need him out of my life.
May,
I am so sorry to hear that your husband has been flirting with someone else. That is SOOOO painful and upsetting – and rightfully so.
My heart aches for you. I believe there is plenty of hope for you at this stage – and I pray that you won’t give up on your husband, but that you might be able to react with God’s power to heal your marriage and create the marriage of your dreams for both of you that will greatly glorify God. If you want to talk more, my email is aprilc@sc.rr.com, or you may comment more here.
It makes me deeply sad sometimes because I can see clearly that men do not love as fully as women are capable of loving. When a wife loves her husband, it is a love that encompasses both her “love” and her “lust”.
I really struggle with jealousy and don’t know how to get over it.
Anna,
Women and men are definitely different in the way they look at love and how they process love and emotions. But I don’t think it is fair to say that men do not love as fully as women do. There are some men who don’t, yes.
What kinds of things are causing you to feel jealousy, specifically? Let’s hash through this stuff and address it. Because – unfortunately – when you are feeling jealous and angry – you will tend to lash out disrespectfully and repel your man even further. And that is not what we want! In order to attract him back to you – he will need to see your respect and faith in him. That can be a tall order when you feel that he is violating your trust.
So, if you are up for it – I will be glad to walk with you on this journey and we can talk through the things that have you feeling jealous and come up with some healthy, godly ways to react that might actually bring healing and life to your marriage instead of greater destruction.
I want to see your marriage thriving and Christ being greatly glorified!
I came across a text message on my husbands phone about 4 months ago, to someone that I did not know. It was a very flirtatious conversation between the two with cute little pet names and all.I didn’t say anything about it at first because he didn’t even try to keep his phone from me. He wasn’t acting paranoid or touchy about me looking through his phone. And actually i was looking for a text message for him, that contained some info he needed, while we were traveling. AND, my husband is very social in this small town we live in and he knows so many people. It kinda stung me a bit but I overlooked it. At a later date he was having some problems with one of his social web pages and asked me to see if i could fix it. We both have each others passwords to all emails and social web sites. So i logged on to fix the problem when popped up a message from this same person that he was texting. I didn’t respond to it but I did look at it and the conversations had been going on for a while and they were in the same form as the text messages. Not only with her but with others. I then confronted him about it. I asked him why he was talking to women in this manner and he didn’t know what to say. I asked him if he would be okay with me talking to other men in that same manner and he did respond with a no. I reminded him that he had made a promise to never cheat on me and he then got defensive saying that he never has. I told him that he may think that flirting is not cheating but I was brought up being taught that if you think it in your heart and mind then you have already committed the sin. (Matthew 5:28) He still did not agree with me but he said it would not happen again. He deleted and blocked all the women that he had been talking to on the social sites as well as his phone. Just last month I discovered that he has been flirting again. Same type of conversations, all different people. I don’t know how to deal with it. I have shut myself off to him and I know that is not helping matters but I can’t stand the thought of him touching me or being cutesy with me, knowing he is that way with other women. I used to be a constant encouraging part of his day. I always flirted with my husband and made sure that he knew how much I loved him and appreciated him. I would leave loving messages on his websites or send him random text message throughout the day or leave cute notes on the bathroom mirror, cook his favorite meal/desert. This is why it hit me so hard because I don’t understand what it is he needed from these other women that I am not giving him. I have diabetes and there are days when I am not feeling 100% but I always smiled when he was around because I did not want to drag him down. I want to say something about my recent discovery but I just don’t know how to make him understand how hurtful it is. He has noticed my pulling back from him and he asks why but I just say that I’m not feeling well. Maybe some advise??
Anna,
How heartbreaking!
Is he a believer in Christ?
I believe that you will have to respectfully confront him again. I think you will likely have to do a lot of praying and make sure you can do this without sinning against him, but tell him something like, “I am devastated that I found you are flirting with other women again. I want to trust you and be able to freely give my heart to you. But I don’t know how not to shut down sexually and emotionally on you when you flirt with other women. That is NOT ok with me. It leads to adultery. It is disrespectful of our marriage covenant. It dishonors Christ.”
And then you will need to see him repent. You may decide to ask him to take FB off his phone or not to have a smart phone, even.
This isn’t about you – it is a high, like a drug, probably, that he gets from knowing he still “has it” with other women. It has nothing to do with whether he loves you or is attracted to you. But it is foolish behavior that EASILY leads to adultery. There is not to be even a hint of sexual immorality among believers according to Scripture. So I believe that this is inappropriate behavior for any Christian married person.
I don’t think that telling him you aren’t feeling well will do anything to solve the issue.
If you have not read “The Excellent Wife” – I would encourage you to read it! She has a lot of help about confronting our husbands’ sin. I also have a post up about when our husbands wrong us today, actually. YOu may want to check it out, too.
Please let me know how you are doing! Would you like my prayer team to pray for you today?
We are both believers in Christ and that being said, I know that the enemy is real and he is out there to destroy families. I would very much appreciate your prayers as I will be praying and seeking God’s guidance on what I should say and how to confront this issue. Thank you for your words of encouragement and I will update you on how things are going.
Ok! We are praying for you! If there is anything you need, let me know.:)
Hi..
iam not a jealous woman but i think iam starting to because i feel so jealous when i found out that my husband flirts with other women..He has promised me that he wont flirt again but he still does it…He said that he didnt meant it that way itwas just a joke..but to me it was not a joke ..it really breaks my heart when he does this….iam now feeling insecure and i don’t know if i can trust him that enough.. He doesn’t flirt often but i can always found out about him because iam praying so much to the lord for guidance and protection against all these things..My husband thinks its just a joke sharing but i told him that when you get married theres a boundary and i don’t like that much..feeling soooo insecure
Heleni,
Are you both believers in Christ?
I completely agree that flirting with other people is totally inappropriate once a person is married. It is just a recipe for disaster.
BUT – if you want to draw your husband’s heart back to you – I believe you will need to find your strength, confidence, joy, hope and faith in Jesus. He will be able to give you the power to respond in a godly way no matter what your husband does – but also, when you have your faith squarely in God, you are more confident, at peace, joyful, calm, not afraid/upset/worried/anxious and that attracts your husband back to you.
You can definitely tell him that it hurts you when you find out about him flirting.
But please make sure you remove ANY behavior on your part that he might find to be disrespectful and then study what respect means to men and to your husband in particular. Be sure you are cooperating with his leadership, and not trying to control and boss and dictate to him.
As he feels more and more respected and sees you have faith in his ability as the leader of the marriage – that has a REALLY powerful effect on husbands and will likely draw him back to you.
But your purpose must be to seek God first and His will and His glory – not to try to control your husband or make him do certain things.
Then, you will see God’s incredible blessings in your marriage!
I’m right here if you want to talk more.
thankyou indeed…i really appreciate ur help..yes we are both christian believers and i will try my best to focus more on what u advice..God bless you n pray for us too..thanks indeed
You are very welcome!
I’m here if you want to talk more or have concerns or questions – I’ll do my best to point you to CHrist and His Word.
MUCH LOVE!
@Peaceful Wife, please tell me that you are kidding! Do you really think God would okay a man flirting with another woman and then we should blame the wife for his sin? How far will we go to condemn women for men’s sins?? This is not what God would have you tell a wife, after her husband has sinned against his wife.
A few of your unfair statements to the wife:
1. “if you want to draw your husband’s heart back to you”
2 “But please make sure you remove ANY behavior on your part that he might find to be disrespectful, and then study what respect means to men and to your husband in particular”
3 “Be sure you are cooperating with his leadership”
4. “is a high, like a drug, probably, that he gets from knowing he still “has it” with other women”
This is grossly unfair to wives and women, never once did you tell the women that what the men are doing is wrong! and they are not the fault for him sinning. Please do not scold women constantly for men’s sinful nature. You found it easy to blame the wife each time the husband did something wrong!! These is some scary and unfair doctrines and beliefs. Do you all hate women or what is going on here??
Jean,
I am not sure that you are reading the same post!
Here is where I spent a few paragraphs about that flirting is sin (that would go for either spouse) – and sin means it is wrong before God:
FLIRTING IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
I believe that flirting (outside of marriage) is VERY dangerous for people who are married. It is an extremely slippery slope from flirting to infatuation to an affair. I don’t think ANYONE is above this kind of temptation. Not only does flirting make it possible and more probable that someone will begin an affair, but it is just downright DISRESPECTFUL toward a person’s spouse and marriage covenant. I realize my position may seem strict. I believe that there is never a good reason to flirt with anyone but our spouse. It is playing with fire and we will get burned or at the very least we will cause pain and disrespect to our spouse. The Bible commands us to FLEE from sexual immorality. And we are also commanded not to allow even a “hint” of sexual immorality to be among us.
A marriage covenant is a VERY serious thing in God’s sight and to your husband or wife. The price of flirting with someone else is just way too high. I want to encourage ALL married believers to commit to not flirting with anyone but our spouses. We need to build STRONG hedges of protection around our marriages.
I believe that means avoiding whenever possible:
private emails with the opposite sex
long private phone conversations with the opposite sex
being alone with the opposite sex in a house or room with closed door
private texting or facebook chatting
building close work relationships with the opposite sex
building close friendships with the opposite sex
These things are HUGE opportunities for sexual temptation. It may take months or years for the temptation to fully peak – but it is just better, in my opinion, not to go there.
1. Because the husband and wife are ONE in God’s sight and He has made them one – we are NOT RESPONSIBLE for our husband’s sin (which I stated) but we can and will influence them towards us or away from us by our own behavior. We are always either drawing them towards us by what we do or pushing them away. They do the same with us. But we can’t control what they do. We can’t MAKE them not sin. We can’t MAKE them not flirt. We can say, “I don’t want you to flirt with other women.” “Please do not flirt with other women.” “Flirting is wrong. It dishonors our marriage.” But I cannot force my husband not to flirt. He has a free will, just like I do. My husband cannot force me to do what is right either. God gives each person a free will.
I think that focusing on what we can’t control is a colossal waste of time. I can only control my behavior, my attitude, my obedience to Christ, my relationship with Christ – and the less I sin myself, the more I obey God and am intimate with God – the more attractive I will be to my husband. BUT – I don’t give my husband respect and cooperate with his leadership because of HIM or to control him or to attract him – I respect him and honor his God-given leadership out of reverence to God and obedience to God’s Word – NOT because my husband “deserves” it. IF my husband is SINNING or asking me to sin – then I must resist him. God’s authority trumps my husband’s God-given authority. But if he is not asking me to sin – then God commands me to respect and submit to my husband.
2. Many women, like me for the first 15 years of my marriage, have no idea what respect and disrespect mean to men. It is a whole world that I was blind to in the past. That’s a HUGE problem! God commands me to respect my husband – so it is my job to figure out what my husband needs so that I can meet that need. And in our respect-famished culture where there is almost no respect for any God-given authority any more – it is an even more important concept for me to study because I sure won’t see it in the world. (And husbands ought to be figuring out what love means to their wives – but I am not talking to men, only to women). My post from 9-19 is extremely eye-opening about what some real life men say is disrespectful to them. It is a VERY long and detailed list. There are countless ways that we as wives tend to disrespect our husbands without even realizing it. I used to do that and was unknowingly sabotaging my marriage. (Yes, there are absolutely many ways men are unloving and don’t realize it, too. My husband has posts about that on his blog.)
3. God commands wives to submit to their husbands “as to the Lord.” If my husband is flirting – I certainly don’t cooperate with that. Flirting is SIN – as I have mentioned multiple times in the post. A sin is WRONG – it is anything that misses the mark of God’s holiness. We certainly do not cooperate with infidelity! Adultery is a HORRIBLE SIN that greatly dishonors God and the marriage covenant as well as the spouse being sinned against! We cooperate with our husbands’ leadership when they are not asking us to sin or asking us to condone sin. That is the command of God for wives. Husbands represent Christ in the marriage and wives represent the church. (Ephesians 5:22-33)
4. There are REASONS people sin. There are always reasons they do what they do. THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT! To me, it helps me to understand why people do what they do if I have to deal with someone else’s sin. Pornography is a huge sin and it is an addiction that literally changes the neuronal pathways of the brain exactly like an illegal drug does – and the damage is permanent. People use it because it temporarily makes them feel great. Just like anyone can become addicted to an addictive drug, people can become addicted to other sins, too.
I am not at all blaming women for their husbands’ sin. Husbands are guilty for their own sin – NO MATTER WHAT THEIR WIVES HAVE DONE! They will stand before God and have to answer and give an account for every sinful thought and word and action – unless their sin is covered by the blood of Christ and they have repented of their sin. God will hold husbands responsible for their every adulterous thought and for flirting and infidelity regardless of how respectful and cooperative their wives were. They are to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave Himself up for her even if their wives are hateful, cold, disrespectful, controlling, unforgiving, bitter, manipulative, verbally abusive and withheld themselves sexually from their husbands every day for decades. The husband is still accountable to God not to sin himself.
Wives will also stand individually before God and have to give an account for every sinful thought, word and action – unless our sin is covered by the blood of Christ and we have repented. I am not permitted to sin just because I am sinned against. Gary Thomas “Sacred Influence” says, “We are most tempted to sin when we are sinned against.” For my husband to flirt or commit adultery is SIN on his part. I am not responsible for that. But I am responsible for my behavior, my relationship with God and my own sin. If I add more sin to his sin – that does not make things better! Jesus commands me to overcome evil with good and not repay evil with evil.
God commands us to forgive others (that includes our husbands). After the Lord’s prayer in Matthew, Jesus adds that if we refuse to forgive others when they sin against us, we won’t be forgiven by God. That does not mean we must trust a man who has been untrustworthy or unfaithful. A husband would have to rebuild trust and prove himself trustworthy over an extended period of time before a wife would accept him back sexually or into the home, for instance, if there was infidelity going on. Or a wife may decide she can’t trust him after the infidelity. That is not sin on her part – to decide she can’t trust him. And some husbands may decide to continue on in infidelity. A wife is not responsible for that. All she can do is make sure that she is right with God and that she is honoring God in her thoughts, conduct and behavior. And she can pray for God to change her husband.
I love wives and women and want to see women have the power of God in their lives – even if it means doing things that are counter-intuitive and counter-cultural so that we can honor God in our marriages. The way we have been trying to have power in our marriages in our culture IS NOT WORKING. God’s design is foreign to our culture – but it is beautiful and it works.
Jean,
Hello!
I revamped my post to try to make it more concise and user-friendly for women reading my blog for the first time. I hope it is more helpful in this way. I certainly don’t want to add pain or confusion to women who are already deeply hurting.
I am praying for you and am here to listen if you want to share. thepeacefulwife@gmail.com
In Christ
How are you this week? In Christ, April Cassidy
http://www.peacefulwife.com
I would like to thank everyone for taking the time out to reply. I will think about the counsel that I have been given before moving forward. As you can imagine this is heart-wrenching, please keep us in your prayers, and again, thank you.
Jock,
You’re welcome – you will be in our prayers – and I will ask the prayer team to pray for your marriage, too!
April, I think my wife could possibly benefit from the counsel of another Christian wife, is it possible that I could give her a more private setting email to contact you? She is a new Christian, but I believe a very sincere child of God. She has shown a willingness to adjust to the things she is learning from the word, but still struggles with things that she is use to doing before she came to Christ. I know she struggle with giving me the proper respect in many different areas, but it has less to do with me, and more to do with her past. I don’t know if she would email you, but I would like to try. Thank you again.
I would be glad to email privately with her! Thepeacefulwife@gmail.com
Sent from my iPhone
Thank you April, I told her that I requested your email, and she said that she will be willing to email you. Thank you again, you’re a God sent!!!
P.S. Her name is Dana, just in case it goes into the junk mail.
God Bless
Perfect!
Sent from my iPhone
Jock,
I have a post up today for women about flirting – and will have another one up tomorrow about signs that a relationship is getting dangerous and what to do.
Thanks!
Jock – How are y’all doing?
Hello April,
I guess I’m doing okay. It’s really kind of weird place for me, but my wife and I are now in counseling, with a Christian Counselor and we’re dealing with a host of issues. At the present moment we are dealing with “trust” issues. We had a big setback last weekend when we got in a heated argument about nothing in particular and she begin to tell me some negative things that her ex-boyfriend said about me, and one of the guys that she have been talking and emailing too.
I believe God shield me from being so offended that I didn’t just walk away from our marriage at that point, and look beyond her faults and see her needs. I believe at the moment she has cease from the previously mentioned behavior, until we can at least talk about it with our counselor; but to say that this is hard, would be a understatement.
I choose to believe that she is a good wife, and in time, will honor me as the man in her life, and grant me the respect that is due to such honor. I know that she continues to try, and if given the right tools, she will be the blessing that I envision when we were married.
Thanks for asking,
God Bless!!!
Jock,
I love your attitude and know that God must be working powerfully in you for you to be able to approach her like you are and with the faith you have in Him and in His ability to heal this marriage. Beautiful! I pray for wisdom and for God’s power to continue to guide you as you seek to represent Christ to your wife.
I am available if she is interested in corresponding with me.
May God richly bless your marriage and draw you both to each other and most of all to Himself!
Thanks for the update!
Hi,
I have some strong issues about this subject. My husband is a charmer, friendly and very easy to talk to. He also does photographer on the side as a way of extra income for us and our 2 young boys.
Just recently, my husband and my family and I were walking around Wal-Mart and I was standing in front of a shelf looking at an item. I remember looking over my shoulder to ask my husband a question when I saw this young attractive girl coming down the aisle from behind him. I knew she was coming before my husband even saw her and she eventually came and stood near him to get an item off the shelf and then she walked away. I watched my husbands reaction the entire time and when the girl came and stood near him, he stopped staring at me to stare at her and- I can’t really explain it- but I know he was looking at her and admiring her. Then, to make matters worse, after she walked away he turned back to me and said, “She is pretty.”
Of course, I got angry because all he had done earlier that day was criticize me from my hair to my clothes -which are now too big, because I recently lost 22 pounds and everything looks sloppy on me. We dont have any money at all and I dont buy stuff like clothes because we have a ton of bills. I have been very insecure about my looks for as long as I can remember because I am short and my hair isnt they way I would like for it to be. I got angry when my husband said the other lady was pretty because she is everthing I am not, and he KNOWS that.
Then when I told him how hurt my feelings were, he never apologized and then he said, “I only said she was pretty because I was looking at her from a photographers point of view…she may have not been discovered yet.” I don’t believe that for one minute. And then he argued back and said, “She is a little girl. It’s not like she is a woman.” To me, she didnt look like a little girl. She was at least 5’7, and was maturely developed…so I don’t know why he won’t admit he is lying to me. He argues back and say that I shouldn’t feel bad because he felt like he could commuinicate this to me…but I told him, I don’t really want to know that he finds another woman pretty. It hurs my feelings a lot.
And then his final arguement is that he said I acknowledge other men all the time when I am watching TV/movies/plays and he doesn’t get jealous. My defense to that is those actors are not right in front of me and I will never see them in real life, unlike him, who finds another woman “pretty” while at the store. So I am wondering, if he finds another woman “pretty” when he and I are not together, what’s to stop him from handing them his photgraphy business card and telling them to call him for a photo shoot? (He’s done this by the way…I’ve seen him do it at Wal-Mart, the mall, etc) and his reason is always photography. But for some reason in the back of my mind, I don’t believe him. I believe he has women kind of like reserved, so if he and I are not together anymore, he can call them up and they’ll come running. And there is no telling what goes on on his Facebook page…I guess I will never know.
Please help if you can, and let me know if I am being irrational about this.
Thanks,
By the way.. I had 2 kids back to back over the last 2 years. Our youngest just turned 1 this month. I’m 5 feet tall and weigh 124-125.
My husband is 6’1 and is about 228 pounds and he is 18 years older than me.
Married for 5 years,
I’m glad to hear from you!!! I’ll be glad to give you my thoughts, but my goal is going to be to point you to Christ and also to your power in the marriage.
First, a few questions:
- does your husband have a relationship with Christ?
- has he been married before?
- does he have a history of infidelity?
- do you have a relationship with Christ?
I believe that you might find Shaunti Feldhahn’s book “For Women Only” helpful. She does statistically accurate polls and surveys of Christian men to determine how they think, process and feel about many issues. One of the topics is about how visual men are and what that means exactly. I don’t think that most women have any idea HOW DIFFERENTLY men think than we do and what it means that they are “visual.”
Some of what you are experiencing with your husband, I believe, may just be that he is a man and he is wired to be very visual and he looks at life very differently than you do. For you to look at life the way he does, something would be wrong with you! Some of what he is doing is not necessarily “wrong” – it is possibly just part of being a man. Men will notice beautiful women.
Once they notice the beautiful women – how they handle that is the critical thing. There is a huge difference between noticing and appreciating beauty vs. lust. Unfortunately, we as wives can’t really tell what our men are thinking, necessarily. We can make assumptions. But, unless they tell us, we don’t know for sure.
For a man to acknowledge that a young woman is beautiful or pretty is not necessarily a sin or wrong or even an insult to you or your marriage.
The fact that your husband felt open and safe enough to tell you what he was thinking was actually a good thing.
I doubt he will feel that safe again soon.
Now, if he had said she was sexy or he was interested in her – THAT would have been a big problem. Saying she was pretty – may not have been the wisest thing for a husband to do – but does not mean he is committing lust in his mind with her. Wives tend to be REALLY sensitive about stuff like that and feel like if a husband acknowledges another woman is pretty on the planet that means that her marriage is not secure. That is usually not at all true. Men notice beautiful women. But then they are usually able to quickly draw their thoughts back to their wives. Yes, there are some men who ogle and lust and that is WRONG.
But here is the thing.
Even if he was lusting in his mind – which you do not know he was – you can’t control his thoughts.
And the thing about men is that the more you try to control them, lecture them, nag them, preach at them, criticize them, and say negative things about them – the farther away they go emotionally.
Would it have been more tactful for your husband not to say something? Probably. Did he do something wrong? Maybe not. Some women would handle that by saying, “Yep. She sure is pretty.” And appreciating the fact that they are married to a man and then be glad that he is going home with them and that he is redirecting his thoughts back to his wife.
In an ideal world – husbands wouldn’t ever look at women more than a second or two and would be totally unaffected by all other women and never ever have a lustful thought or temptation.
We live in a world where all people are sinners. OUr husbands aren’t perfect. Neither are we.
If you want to draw your husband back to you – my personal suggestion would be to not make a big deal out of him saying that a woman is pretty. If he is flirting or having private conversations on FB or meeting privately with women – THEN you have an issue and would respectfully and calmly need to ask him to stop doing those things out of respect for your marriage and for you.
Husbands take great pride in how their wives look. We as women hate that sometimes because it can feel like too much pressure. But men get a lot of their sense of worth and identity from having a beautiful wife. AND they are very visual. Some men are more visual and verbal about it than others. He is asking you to show that you respect him and yourself by taking some effort to make yourself look attractive – that means a lot to him. It is not wrong that he appreciates it when you are able to take some time and effort for him. That is just what he likes.
When wives just had babies and are sleep deprived and exhausted, it can be very difficult to fit in time and energy for primping. But when you are able, trying to do your hair, clothes and make up the way he likes it tells him that you respect him and love him and that he is important to you.
This is a SUPER common misunderstanding between husbands and wives. I pray that you might have more empathy towards him and allow him the freedom to be masculine without being labeled as “bad” or “wrong.”
Your power will be in your ability to show him respect and avoid disrespect and to NOT freak out about small things.
And, maybe it would be wise for you not to make comments about other men – out of respect to your husband.
Thanks for sharing your feedback. By the way my husband and I are both Christians. Please keep us in your prayers.
Thanks
Of course!
Lord – I lift up these struggling marriages to You. You know the pain and the feelings of betrayal that many of these wives (and some husbands) are experiencing. Please let each spouse seek You first above all else in life. Remove any sin. Convict all of us of anything that offends You. Fill us with Your Spirit and let us be the godly wives You desire us to be. Use us to greatly bless our husbands and children. Teach us about Your beautiful design for marriage. Teach us about the power You have given us as women – help us to learn to use our respect, admiration, faith, trust and cooperation to influence our husbands Your way. Help us to lay aside our own desires and any idols or pride. Tear down any strongholds of Satan in us – unforgiveness and bitterness, and any lust or any sin in our marriages. Help us to breathe Your life and strength into our marriages for Your greatest glory! In the Name and power of Christ, Amen!
Thanks again for your advice and wisdom and your prayers. May God bless you
OH!
And if you do decide to show respect to your husband, and cooperate with his leadership – do NOT do it for him, or to control him. That won’t work! Do it out of reverence and love for Jesus. That is what will bring power and healing into your marriage.
You may also want to check out this post a 40 year old single Christian guy wrote about insecurity. He has a lot of experience with it, too – but it is an eye opening post. May God richly bless your walk with Him, your marriage, your husband and your precious children!
Was it wise of him to say that? No. It was thoughtless. But I am not talking with him. I am talking to the wife. Talking about what other people should do is useless and a waste of time.
My concern is the wife’s response. That is all she can control and I am talking with her.
She may certainly say that she doesn’t want him to say that and that it hurts her feelings.
And hopefully he will apologize and not make that mistake again.
Thanks for writing April, your blog is a source of encouragement and enlightenment!
By the way, I am working on a “Recommended Resources” page for my blog ~ would it be ok if I put your blog as one of them?
You are welcome, and sure, you may list it. It’s great to meet you Samantha!
April, thanks for linking to my blog and my post about flirting… feel free to offer your readers my free ebook on Internet pornography which is 1) the reason behind a lot of inappropriate flirting and 2) the secret sin of the Church today. It’s an epidemic with Christian men AND women… and it doesn’t have to be a full blown 24 hour a day raunchy porn obsession… many men “dabble” in it but don’t realize the risks they are taking and the damage it does to them individually and of course to their marriage. The free ebook download is here: http://brentriggs.com/stuff/details.aspx?id=8
Brent Riggs http://www.seriousfaith.com | http://www.linkytools.com
I’ve longed to see a post like this. Im a devout Sikh and and understood so much through Christian teachings about this particular topic. My fiancé has always thought it is ok to talk to his single female friends and be this emotional shoulder to cry on in their times of need. Obviously…with me expressing my concerns about this, it comes across as jealously. I stand my ground and will continue to respect him as I wouldn’t even consider behaving in such a way with other men. He hasn’t ever understood how damaging this is, and what this leads the women onto think. I will take on all the advice given in this blog and I really am thankful for coming across such advice
Akaaal,
It is wonderful to meet you! Many people in our culture today think that flirting is no big deal. They don’t stop to think where that path leads. Is it possible that it may not go any farther or cause a problem? Maybe. But is it possible that some seemingly mild flirting could help people develop romantic feelings for each other and lead to an affair? YES. It’s important to guard our hearts.
I am looking forward to hearing from you any time!
I am a man. Not married but I have a girlfriend. I love her very much and I used to flirt a lot and I actually danced with a few girls in the past on different occasions. I don’t know why it was in my heart to do such things but I don’t want to anymore and I just want to be able to forgive myself and forget the old me and continue to change and get better. Please pray for me and my girlfriend. Thank you
Brock,
Of course I will pray! I pray your life might honor God and bring Him great glory. I pray He might give you wisdom as you lead in your relationship and thank Him that He is able to forgive us. We all need His forgiveness desperately! I know your girlfriend will feel much more respectful towards you, and more trusting and more full of faith and hope as she sees that you protect your relationship from outside temptations. That will make her feel much more safe and secure.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Peacefulwife,
I would like some prayers if I could.
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. The last three year’s I haven’t gotten a thing (This is our 5th VDay together, 4th since being married), but still prepare my husband his favorite dinner, and this year made a nicely decorated cake, decorated the house, made homemade chocolates, gave him a nice massage, and gave him a very nice ending to the evening. He said days ago he had something special in store for me this Valentine’s Day, so it made my heart race, since I know it’s not like him to get a gift for me on Valentine’s Day.
Well, he had to work a 14 hour shift as a military soldier, and was working at a preparatory exercise on the nearby military base. He comes home, with no presents, and tells me over dinner what one of my presents is. This isn’t word for word, but basically what he tells me:
“Well, there was this really attractive (enter rank here) woman who I had been talking to the last few days at the exercise, because I didn’t really like the exercise too much. She was really smart, and we got along very well. One of the other soldiers asked if I was going to ‘hit that’ (Have sex with her) and I said blatantly, ‘No! I’m married dude’ and he retracted, ‘oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know’. So, there was this really attractive woman, and she seemed interested in me, and I didn’t do anything about it. See, even when you’re not around I’m thinking about you…so that’s one of your Valentine’s presents, and the next one you’ll get next week.”
I smiled but inside felt so disgusted. Being a good husband, doing your daily duty to be faithful to me, is the great Valentine’s day surprise I was waiting for? I’m not a materialistic girl by any means, but this left a bad taste in my mouth. My husband has always been a flirt, I’ve talked to him about it, but it doesn’t change anything. Am i selfish for wanting something more “personal” than him telling me “hey, it’s cool, I didn’t cheat on you today – surprise!”. I’m pretty mixed with emotions right now, and haven’t talked to him about it, because he seemed like everything was fine and dandy.
Am I selfish, materialistic, over dramatic, or are my feelings appropriate for this situation? I’d just like some insight, because I feel like this isn’t what I should consider “a gift” after 5 years of marriage.
Bleeding Heart,
WOW.
Ummmm…. You know, I try VERY hard to help wives see all the things to respect in their husbands and try to help wives understand that masculine perspective. But – WOW. Your husband is making my job REALLY, REALLY hard right now.
Maybe if he had changed what he was saying to something more like,”Honey, I just want you to know that I only have eyes for you. I make sure not to flirt with other women because I respect you so much and cherish our marriage so much. I always strive to guard my heart and avoid even the appearance of evil because I want to honor God and honor you and our wedding vows.” That might have gone over a lot better!
I understand why you were disgusted about that.
I think he does not understand how women think and feel very well at all! And his way of explaining what he was trying to say was NOT a smart approach with his wife.
I think that he led you to believe he was giving you a material present. That made things even worse.
His faithfulness is to be expected – because he is married. You can definitely tell him you appreciate him being faithful. I tell my husband sometimes, “I am SO THANKFUL that you are always so incredibly faithful to me. I want you to know how much I appreciate that”.
I am not sure how strong your relationship has been lately – but you could address him politely, calmly and gently and say, “You know, maybe what you meant was ‘I really love you and respect and honor you by not flirting with other women and by making sure I protect my heart and our marriage?’ Is that what you were saying? I do appreciate that. I was kind of confused about why you built that up as a ‘gift’ for me for Valentine’s Day. I trust you and expect both of us to be faithful. I’m really glad you didn’t give in to temptation. I’m proud of you about that. But I feel kind of confused and hurt.”
And then maybe he can clarify or save face somehow?
How are you doing tonight?
Thanks for the comment! I’m sorry you had such a yucky experience! I don’t think he really meant it to be as bad as it felt. I think he was trying to show you that he is honoring you. That is my interpretation.
Let me know how things go, please!
My husband and I have been workin on our relationship and he has been flirting with our friend’s wife. We have discussed and I’ve asked him not to do that, knowing that it leads down a slippery slope. Tonight I came downstairs to find the two of them laying on top of each other on the floor kissing. I’m so pained and shocked and don’t even know what to do or how to repair this damage to our relationship. We have two small kids (8 mo and 3) and I feel like this has damaged their innocence, even though they know nothing about it. Am I wrong to be grieving for our entire family and not just myself? How does one even attempt to restore a relationship like this? Early on in our marriage we had gone through a really rocky time and the situation was reversed, with me at the fault. I was always so thankful that The Lord brought is stronger together. But things were admittedly bad on both sides back then, not to mention we were so young and really didn’t have a good grasp of marriage. But 9 years and two kids later, I would expect the relationship to be more mature. He said he never saw flirting as harmful. And I tried not to nag him about it because I know no good will become of that. And now what I feared has happened, and this was the wide of his best friend of decades. What do we do to patch this up?
Hurting,
OH NO! That is not good. My heart completely breaks for you!!!!!
Your children don’t know – so right now, they are mostly impacted by your emotions. I would certainly not talk about this in front of them.
Do you have a trusted pastor or Christian counselor you can see?
Are either of you believers in Christ?
Personally, I would say something like, “I understand the temptations you are facing. I am a huge sinner myself, and I know I have caused problems just like this in our marriage in the past. And I thank God every day that you were able to forgive me and we moved past that. I want our marriage to be strong. I want it to honor God and I want us to set a great example for our children. I love you and I am committed to you and want to try to heal what is broken here. But for me to be able to remotely begin to be able to trust you the way I want to – I want you not to see her or talk to her at all anymore. I would like for you to give me access to your phone and all your email accounts, please, to show me that you are willing to be transparent and accountable. And I want us to see our pastor ASAP. I am devastated this has happened with so and so. I don’t know what to do!”
And when your emotions are more stable, eventually, you may want to calmly ask him what it is that he needs from you in the marriage. And then listen. And consider what he says, and think about the things he asks for that are reasonable (not that allow him to cheat!) and be willing to talk about changes.
I would recommend that you read some of the posts linked at the top of my home page about disrespect and respect and see if it is possible your husband may have been feeling disrespected in the marriage? I don’t know. But then show him you are willing to work to become the wife God desires you to be, as well… that you want to work as a team to heal from this.
How are you today?????
I can honestly say I never thought this would happen to me! When I married my husband, who was very strong in his faith, had great Godly character and integrity, I felt as though I could trust him with my life. He was so forthright with his commitment to me and his desire to please God with his life, I never thought I would be a betrayed wife. But at the mark of our 16th anniversary, here I am.
He said it started with her grabbing his hand at a work party, he tried to pull away but she was persistent. Nothing else happened that night, he tried to talk to her about it but then the flirting began. The innocuous banter and flirting back and forth at work (they don’t work together every day). He said he enjoyed her attention, thought she was pretty, like the fact that someone liked him and felt like he was not “really” doing anything wrong. Said all the usual things you hear everyone else say: “I wasn’t expecting anything from it”, “It was fun”, “It felt good to have someone like me”. The exchange of phone numbers started the texts. It built up to the exchange of gifts and Valentine’s Day presents. He continues to say that it was not emotional, she means nothing and that he didn’t realize all he had to loose until… I found out. He stated that it was only two weeks when things became “intense” with some texts and calls while I was out of town. He assures/promises me they never met outside of work, there was never any physical contact other than the hand holding at the party.
He wrote her a very complementary note and expressed how taken and moved he was by her but that he need to basically stop the flirting and just be friends, to just get off the train. This was his break-up letter. I wanted to see if, in fact, he was breaking things off. He would not ask her for the letter, so I hired an IT forensics person to retrieve it from our computer. It breaks my heart to hear how he complimented her and how he had “never been so moved, interested or taken by a woman”. It rings over and over in my head. He said that I should not have gotten the letter. He had confessed his sin and he knew the letter would only cause me pain. Was I wrong for wanting to know how emotionally invested he was?
The “infatuation”/emotional affair was a time frame of 2 months, with the last 2 weeks starting the secretive texting mentioned about. He’s ready to move on (it’s been 2 weeks since the discovery) and try to restore our relationship. He tells me he is committed to me and our family and that is all he wants. This is the first time we have ever had a direct attack on our marriage.
I think I handled the discovery very well. No screaming, yelling, threats. Was calm, cool and collected…. I was completely numb.
I’m naturally a suspicious person and felt I was not wrong in wanting to know what all went on. He says he has come clean but I have a nagging instinct that there may be more to it. How do you put away these thoughts? How do you feel good about your self knowing how taken (in such a short time) he was with this woman? I’d love to speak to her and verify what he has said. But do I do this and risk looking like a crazy, jealous wife. Should I?
Shocked and Confused
Shocked and Confused,
I am SO SO SO SO SOOOO sorry that you are in this situation!!!!!
I’m extremely thankful that it didn’t seem to go any farther than it did. That is a huge blessing. I’m glad that you didn’t completely lose all self-control when you found out. I’m sure it was the most painful experience of your life.
I would strongly suggest – and this is my opinion – NOT confronting that woman. I have seen women do this, and I have never seen it end well!
My highest concern for you is your own relationship with Christ, your spiritual healing – and healing your marriage.
I used to believe that certain people were “above” infidelity. When I was a naieve 21 year old – I believed that. But now, at almost 40 years of age, I realize that ALL people are perfectly wretched sinners and without God we are all capable of just about any sin.
Has your husband talked with you about what he wants in the marriage now? Has he said how he plans to be transparent and rebuild trust?
What do you want in the marriage? Reconciliation and healing? Or revenge?
Your answer will have a huge bearing on whether the marriage can be healed.
You have so much power here – when you do things God’s way. You may want to check out some of the post links at the top of my home page – particularly the one about disrespect, respect and biblical submission if you are a believer in Christ – which it sounds like you are.
Then let me know how you are doing and what God is speaking to your heart. I will be glad to walk beside you through this valley.
Much love to you! Praying for God’s greatest glory in your life and your marriage!
I wish my ex-boyfriend had given his flirting with other women as much thought. His flirting and need to have his ego stroked tore us apart and hurt me more than I ever expected anything could. I thank God every day for giving me the strength that I need to get through it. I fail God in many ways every day of my life, but I know he is there to give me the strength to get through the pain my ex-boyfriend’s flirting and philandering caused.
Jodi,
I am SO sorry for your pain! Flirting with other people can easily lead to such heartbreak. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here! aprilc@sc.rr.com
I would love for you to be praying for my marriage as well. 9 months ago I came across some text messages on my husbands phone that were with a female coworker. They had been going out for lunch and drinks 3-4 times per week. They even had a cute little name for their time together. My husband assures me that this never was physical but none the less it was very damaging since about this same time he also started telling me he didn’t love me anymore. He told me that they were giving each other marriage advice since she was also in a tumultuous marriage.
Well we stuck through and went to counseling and he promised never to have such a relationship with her again. 3 months later his behavior was so secretive and bazaar I knew something was up…I found that he had been deleting all the calls and texts between them for the last 3 months he hadn’t stopped at all. Not only that but his behavior with all women seemed very inappropriate including getting their phone numbers or email addresses. Again once he was caught it was all I’m sorry and I want our marriage to work….this time I asked him to block her number which he did.
This week again I found that he had been deleting her messages and phone calls and had obviously taken the block off here number.
There have been others too even one so brazen as to tell me how sexy my husband is…what do I do with this??? When is it enough??
I have been going to counseling regularly. I pray for him everyday. I cry out to God for help…I have asked God to help me give up control… I have tried to stop snooping and tried to understand….and be as dedicated of a wife as I can…
He tells me everyday he doesn’t want me, he doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t want to try….that he is only here for our son…but then he doesn’t want to leave and he wants to work it out….
I need help….I am utterly torn as to what to do as a Christian woman and mother….I question does God really want me to stay in this mentally abusive situation
He is a believer…sorry this is so log it just all came out….
Any advice would be wonderful!
Trisha,
It is wonderful to meet you!!! I really hate that it is under these circumstances.
What does your counselor say? Is your counselor a believer?
If there is unrepentant infidelity going on – I don’t believe that the Bible says you must stay. I don’t believe it is a sin to separate – and then pray and seek God’s face and wise counsel. I have seen God heal marriages even after infidelity. But if your husband refuses to repent – I would not personally want to live there. My personal opinion is that I would pray for God to draw my husband back to Him and eventually heal our marriage – but my greatest prayer would be for God’s will and His glory in His power and timing.
I assume that you are telling him it is not ok for him to cheat on you.
It’s possible that it may take your husband seeing some consequences for his spiritual eyes to be opened and for him to have conviction and repent.
I pray for God to direct you and for God to open your husband’s eyes to what God sees.
And I pray that God might show you anything in you that offends Him as well and that you may be willing to lay aside bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, pride, anything that you may have put above God, etc. It will take God’s Spirit working in you to bring you healing to work through these things. But it is my prayer that you may be able to lay aside any sin that entangles you so that you can have GOd’s Spirit working full force in you for His glory!
Much love!
Thank you. Not a direct client here but I love what you are doing!!!
I am very shocked and devastated that too many so called Christian men feel entitled and justified in lusting , flirting, indulging in sexual fantasies, and lying to their wives about these issues including their use of sexually stimulating images of other females. It seems like Christians have adopted some bogus ideas about male and female sexuality promoted by secular sources. Why do you advise betrayed wives to try and draw the heart of her arrogant, lecherous, selfish husbands back to them ? Only a very small percentage of abusive men ever stop abusing. And sexual misconduct is abuse. These men lack character and integrity. I am married to a guy whom I met at church and he refuses to give up his predatory practice of hunting around for attractive females to stare at and flirt with. He has an attitude of unfaithfulness and total disrespect. After years of suffering from his leering and forcing eye-contact with his targets, I want to divorce him. Men who indulge in this kind of junk are like wolves in sheep’s clothing. Aren’t we suppose to shun them and treat them like tax collectors and heathens? Where in scripture does it say that a hurting wife is suppose to draw back the heart of a wicked reprobate husband ? If they refuse to repent, why prolong the pain of broken-hearted wives by telling them to try and draw the heart of her husband back ? Have you had personal experience dealing with deceiving, cold-blood sex addicts? Nothing is as important to them as gratifying their greedy flesh and indulging in evil desires. Could it be that the failure of so many guys who profess Christ, to strive to maintain sexual purity and integrity is a major cause of collapsing marriages and a weak ineffectual Christianity in America? According to recent findings using brain imaging technology, men are not the only gender that is “visual”, so are many females. So that is no excuse or explanation why so many self-centered married men choose to lust after others. Maybe if women would have the courage to refuse to accept this inappropriate damaging conduct from men, there might be more motivation for these jerky-acting men to clean up their creepy habits.
Thea,
Thanks for your comment!
I’m so sorry you are in so much pain.
Jesus said lusting with the eyes was sin. That it is adultery in the heart. It is wrong. Absolutely.
He also says that unforgiveness is sin, and that looking down on others is sin (Pharisees), and that holding on to hatred is equal to committing murder in our hearts. These things are equally offensive to our Holy God.
In Micah 2:16, God says that He hates divorce. And in the New Testament, Jesus talks about how God doesn’t want married people to divorce – and that Moses only allowed that because the people’s hearts were hard.
In Ephesians 5:22-33 we find God’s design and pattern and purpose for marriage. Marriage is supposed to be a living parable of the profound mystery of Christ and the church for the world to witness. The husband is supposed to represent Christ by showing selfless love and humble, servant-leadership to his wife. The wife is supposed to represent the church by showing reverence, adoration and honor for her husband’s leadership as the church does with Jesus.
Obviously, husbands are sinful humans – just like wives are. We are all wretched sinners before God. We all desperately need the blood of Christ for our billions of “dollars” worth of sin debt.
I would like to encourage you to read Shaunti Feldhahn’s book “For Women Only” to get a very real glimpse into the minds and hearts of men. Absolutely, pornography is a HUGE problem in the church. Porn addiction destroys marriages and families and it is utterly sinful. Lust has definitely paralyzed many men and keeps them from being the godly men and leaders that God desires them to be.
There are times where we do need to confront our husbands’ sin – Matthew 7:1-6 and Matthew 18 give us some godly ways to do this with respect, gentleness and humility – making sure we take the plank out of our own eye before we address the speck in our husband’s eye.
There is actually a vicious cycle in many marriages where a husband feels disrespected, he turns to porn, the wife finds out and disrespects him even more, that pushes him further into the very sin she hates, she disrespects him more… and it continues to spiral downward.
At the top of my home page is a link for help with porn addiction.
If you want to salvage your marriage – your power will be in looking at your side of the marriage, your own sin, God’s commands for wives and getting rid of any sin that is keeping God’s Spirit from filling you. Then God can partner with you and fill you with His power to be the wife He desires you to be and He may do miracles and work in your husband’s heart. He is able to change other people in ways we cannot.
I Peter 3:1-6 is God’s most powerful rx for wives whose husbands are far from Him and living in disobedience.
I’m here if you want to talk or would like me to pray with you. aprilc@sc.rr.com
My husband tends to be friendly and gentlemanly, and many women seem to interpret this as an invitation to flirt with him. He has gotten better about recognizing this and drawing a line with most women, and I appreciate that and have told him so. I do trust him, and he is a faithful man and good husband.
However, he often tries to be “the hero” to other (usually unmarried) women, and I am very hurt when he does this.
For instance, he felt bad for a lady whose husband left her shortly before St. Valentine’s Day… so he bought her a dozen roses. He says he got yellow, because he recalled me saying many years ago that yellow roses signify “friendship.” So then, as an afterthought, he bought me some red roses. He even implied that he originally wasn’t planning to get me anything, but since he was getting flowers for her, he “should probably” get some for me. I was mostly hurt that I was an afterthought, but I was also hurt that my gift was not any more creative, thoughtful, or meaningful than hers. Other than the color, it was the same gift, same price, same effort (actually, in my mind, less effort, because he was already there to get roses for her!).
He still doesn’t get why it upset me, and thinks it was fine to buy another woman flowers–even though he rarely buys them for me (4 times in nineteen years of marriage–I wish I could say I wasn’t counting, but when it’s that rare, it’s easy to recall).
A few days before Christmas, he found out that one of the clerks at the local gas station was going to have to work on Christmas Day. He felt bad for her, so he bought her a Christmas gift of chocolates and a small toy for her son. Normally, this would not have bothered me; I’d think it sweet… except that he didn’t get me anything for Christmas, and in fact, did not help me at all with buying or wrapping anyone else’s gifts–even his mom’s. Yet he could put in the time and effort to go buy and wrap a gift for this young woman he barely knows?
When I tried to tell him why I was hurt, the next day, he went and bought me some chocolates and thought that I should no longer be upset, because “now it’s equal.” I told him I don’t WANT to “be equal” to other women in his eyes, I want to be his wife, the *most important* woman in his life! He didn’t seem to get it; he just expressed frustration and said that he’d “never understand women.”
And it’s not just gifts; sometimes it’s a task or chore that I’ve asked him to do at home that still isn’t done weeks or months later (I won’t nag), but if a neighbor or co-worker asks him to do the same chore, he’ll have it done for them within a few days–and he won’t accept pay for it.
I know that a lot of it is that he appreciates the gratitude he gets from these women who truly weren’t expecting anything… but I really don’t understand how he could think it wouldn’t bother me when he does things for them that he won’t do for me!
Except for those two “afterthought” gifts, I’ve always shown gratitude and expressed pleasure when he gets me a gift or flowers or does something I’ve asked–but I must admit, it’s rare that he does these things for me, and becoming more common that he does them for others.
I don’t want to discourage his generosity, but is there some way I can get through to him how much it hurts me when he treats other people (especially women) as a higher priority than me? Is it that he thinks he doesn’t need to be a hero for me, the way he is with these women? Any ideas how can I fix that?
Prayers would be appreciated.
Amy,
That is thoughtful of him to help these other women. But it is also quite disrespectful towards you – considering the way he is treating you in comparison.
Hmmm….
I am sure he feeds off of the admiration and respect and delight of these other women.
I think there are definitely things you can do to encourage him to want to be YOUR hero primarily.
Check out the posts at the top of my blog about disrespect and respect. And then I’d love to hear from you again. Let me know if you think he might be feeling disrespected at home by something you have been doing without realizing how it came across to him. And let me know what things you might be able to add to show respect.
Then we will talk about the next step!
Are both of you believers in Christ?
Your power is going to be in focusing on putting Christ first by MILES in your heart, and by focusing on obeying what God asks you to do, applying Philippians 4:8 to your thinking about your husband and getting rid of any disrespect and replacing it with respect and a cooperative attitude.
Much love to you! I am praying for God to change you first. Then I feel sure He will change your husband in His time. But even if your husband never changes, you can still draw closer to God and live in His Spirit’s power and become the woman of His dreams.
I am really emcouraged by your post and msgs peacefulwife. I am struggling with so many jealousy issues. Is it ok to email you regarding these issues?
Blessed and highly favored,
Of course you may email me! Aprilc@sc.rr.com.
Thank you, Peacefulwife!
I have read several things on your blog about showing respect (and not showing disrespect!), and though I strive to do many of them already, I have discovered a few more things that I didn’t realize he might view as disrespectful. For one, I have ADD, so I really struggle with listening fully or, more often, refocusing my attention, such as when he starts speaking to me while I’m reading and I am not even aware that he’s talking, much less talking to me. I’m not sure how to work on this particular one, but there are other areas I can definitely improve upon.
Another is asking, “why?” when he tells me what he’s decided to do (or how he’s going to do it). I don’t ask “why” because I disagree with his approach or distrust his decision, but because I really DO want to know why he chose it so that I can better understand how to help him. But I can easily re-word it to come across better, so that he doesn’t think I’m questioning his decision or methods!
Also, correcting or clarifying something when he’s telling a story about us–I never realized that this could seem disrespectful! I’ll learn to bite my tongue.
But I think the most important one I found was in your “Respect and Sexual Attraction” post: to let him “chase” me, not to initiate sex too often! I was honestly shocked by that. I have been the one to initiate most often, everything from flirting to saying “I love you” to physical intimacy. I thought all husbands *wanted* to have a sexually aggressive wife–at least, that’s what they all SAY they want! It really makes sense now, but I never would have thought of it myself, so thank you (and the wives who have contributed), again and again!
I’ll check back in a few weeks and let you know how it’s going!
Amy,
Yes, many of these things are really surprising to us as wives! Who knew?? I am so proud of you for working on this and excited to see what God is going to do in your heart. With that beautiful, humble, teachable spirit, I know it is going to be amazing! Definitely let me know how you are doing!
I agree that you should go to whatever lengths you feel necessary–your convictions are yours, but I would humbly suggest that they aren’t for everyone, because to me it looks like it would be completely impossible to experience the family of God.
I mean, I grew up with a sister. There was no fear of being alone together or any of the things that you list that you won’t do with another man (which looks like it’s left with virtually nothing). And like most people, I would guess, there no problem with siblings. 1 Timothy 5:2 tells us how to interact with others, including how to treat women as sisters in “purity” (the letter was addressed to a man). Your list looks like it leaves next to no interaction whatsoever remaining.
Of course, please continue to do what you feel is right for you and whatever is necessary for your marriage. I’m glad I noticed this post before trying to send you a PM in some way.
Lord bless you and keep you.
JC,
Thanks for your comment.
I do have contact with men in public places and if I need to email with a man, I copy my husband.
I worship in church with my brothers and sisters and talk with men and women. My main priorities are to try not to be alone with men. I am totally transparent with my husband so that there are no secrets.
I do try to guard my heart and my marriage. But it doesn’t mean I have no interaction with my brothers in Christ.
I love my brothers and sisters and pray God might use me to bless both.
Thankfully most siblings do fine together. I do, unfortunately, know of Christian siblings where there have been cases of molestation between brother and sister – in a very strong Christian family. But hopefully that is the exception.
Just to point out, there are even cases when people of the SAME sex cheat with each other (homosexual interaction) when coming from a heterosexual marriage.
The possibilities for things to go wrong go on and on . . . is there really a way to completely eliminate all possibilities for sexual temptation?
Many of us have absolutely no temptation for a homosexual relationship, so we’d never need to do much of anything to safeguard against that, as it appears you have no need. Maybe others would. I only wanted to restate, your precautionary measures may be reasonable for you as you feel they are necessary for your case, but I would recommend considering that they are likely not for everyone. There are LOTS of soap opera fans out there, but a lot of times those “boundaries” are not observed and there truly is no resulting harm–and quite the contrary, we can behave like family, as we are “the family of God.”
Please do as the Lord leads you.
JC,
Good point about possible homosexual temptation. You’re right – there are many possibilities for things to go wrong. And my prayer is for each believer to hear God’s Spirit and do what they believe He wants them to do, as well.
Please help me pray for my marriage as much as I tell my husband how much it hurts me he continues because he thinks he’s not doing nothing wrong just being friendly.
Goodgirly1981,
Of course I will be glad to pray with you and for your marriage.
Would you like to talk with me about what is going on? You are welcome to write to me at aprilc@sc.rr.com.
Sending you a huge hug! And praying for God to work in both of you and your marriage for His greatest glory.
I had emailed u already
Ok! You are always welcome here.
I recently caught my husband flirting on Facebook with a past flame, saying things like “missing you” n teasing her if she would allow him to accompany her to sleep. There were also previous incidences where I found online pics of my husband in a party hugging girls & even giving one a smack.
I felt betrayed, hurt and upset but he thinks he is not doin anything wrong because he was just joking around. Now we have that awkward air between us because I can’t bring myself to act like nothing happened. I do not know how to patch things between us. I do not nag but I can be very quiet & hostile everytime we have a disagreement. I don’t know how to go back to how we were before even if I wanted to.
Mae,
YUCK! I definitely understand why you feel so upset, betrayed and hurt. That was not at all appropriate.
Have you said anything to him about it?
Can you sadly, softly say, “I feel so disrespected and hurt.” “That feels disrespectful to our marriage vows to me and it hurts me.”
Then, you may not need to say much else. Just let it sink in and let him think about it for a few days or a week or so.
Are you both believers in Christ?
This is something that can be forgiven and healed by God’s power. I’m glad to walk with you through this difficult time.
Is there any history of infidelity in your marriage?
How long have you been married?
How was your relationship before these things happened?
If you get a chance, please read about respect and disrespect at the top of my home page and think and pray about whether your husband has felt respected in your marriage.
Then we can talk some more!
You can’t change him. But you can acknowledge your feelings. You can tell him you are hurting. You can ask God to change you and to heal you and give you the power to be the godly wife He wants you to be. And you can be God’s partner to breathe healing into your marriage!
Thanks for your reply. It is very painful for me to acknowledge that I can’t change him but I’m glad you said it. There was never any history of infidelity in our marriage. We’ve been married for 7 years & were together for about 15 yrs. Things just started changing when I got pregnant w/ our 2nd child & now she’s almost 4.
I used to be in denial that I was hurt. The thought of revenge used to consume me. But now, I am trying to acknowledge that what he did hurt me. I do not wish for revenge anymore. I just wish for healing, forgiveness and recovering from pain. I do not think about what will happen with our marriage anymore. I just want to think about myself. In fact, I do not even know how to be a good wife anymore after he has hurt me for countless times.
We are both Catholics but sad to say, I have been neglecting my Christian duties because I am too busy taking care of the kids. Now, I think God is trying to tell me that I should talk to him more often and pray more often. I pray right now for strength that I may be able to heal quickly and forgive my husband in the process.
Although we have talked and he acknowledged his mistakes and promised not to do it again, I lost my trust in him. I only wish that our children will not be affected by whatever is happening between us. My main objective is to be a good mother to my children, get closer to God and let go of all the anger.
I am glad that I have found support in you. May God continue to bless all of you with good health that you may continue to help others like me. You support means so much to someone like me in a difficult time in my marriage. Again, thank you.
Mae,
I believe that some of the most empowering truths come from seeing what you can and cannot change in this situation.
You can change you. You can change your behavior. You can turn to God and submit yourself fully to Him – making Him the most important thing/person in your life by a long shot – putting Him in the proper place of being Lord of your life. You can ask God to help you forgive your husband. He can empower you to do that if you are willing. It will take dying to yourself and your sinful nature and nailing it to the cross. You will lay down all of your dreams, your wisdom, your plans, your hopes, your weakness, your pain, all that you are and all that you have and all that you will be on the altar as a living sacrifice to God. Then you will pick up God’s will, His wisdom, His plans, His dreams, His goals, His power and seek His glory with all that you are. His Spirit can and will fill you if you are willing to turn from your own sin and turn to Him in faith. It means you cannot cherish bitterness, resentment, pride, self-righteousness, disrespect, rebellion against God’s Word (those were the things I had to repent of). It means that you have to stop trusting self or husband and setting your heart on what you want or on your husband’s behavior (these things can easily become idols in our lives, more important to us than Christ) – and it means that you will begin to trust Christ and live in faith in Him instead of trusting self.
Then He can and will empower you to have His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. He can make you radiate with His love. Then you don’t have to be afraid. His perfect love casts out all fear. Then you can trust His sovereignty to work even through this painful situation for your ultimate good and His glory (Romans 8:28) because you love God with all your heart. Then you can have a gentle, peaceful spirit that does what is right and does not give way to hysterical fear (I Peter 3:3-6) because your faith and trust is firmly rooted in God, not people – so you can’t lose. You cannot lose when God is sovereign in your life! That is the key. Then you know that He is working to make everything cause you to be more like Himself and He is working for His glory.
Thankfully, things are pretty mild at this point. And they are totally forgivable. God CAN heal this. He is more than able.
You can’t change your husband, but when you allow God to change you – that will give God access to change your husband in His way and His timing. You are not guaranteed that he will change. But you can make it easier for him to become the man God wants him to be as you become more and more the woman and wife God wants you to be.
Let Jesus be the focus of your life – having a real, living, intimate relationship with Him is the key to contentment, fulfillment, peace, joy and spiritual riches.
At this point, you can tell him that you WANT to rebuild your trust. And you can pleasantly, calmly, respectfully ask for what you need to rebuild that trust in him.
I would also be sure to praise and thank him for anything he is doing well. I’m sure he has strengths, too. And the more you focus on that (Philippians 4:8) – the more the good in him will grow.
We will pray that he will come to faith in Christ and live fully for Him and His will and His glory, too.
I’m here any time you want to talk!
My husband has a definite preference for large breasts; I am nearly flat-chested. We have had a lot of problems with his secret porn use in our marriage… I am hoping it is behind us… but how do I heal? I feel like he settled with me. He has told me that he would be more aroused if I were more voluptuous, and that large breasts are more beautiful. I really want to feel him lusting after me and wish that I had his ideal body type… I feel he is just about perfect. It breaks my heart. How do I heal?
Kim,
Ugh!
Porn use definitely promotes that kind of preference.
I have to buy my underthings in the little girls’ department myself – so I am in your boat and probably have a similar figure as you do.
Would you please email me and we will talk about this together! aprilc@sc.rr.com
I’m really happy to find this website coz I had similar problem with ma hubby, I’m currently pregnant & I court ma husband flirting with another women (his collegue) I was so angry coz it ws during family time so they were communicating via BBM actually, I felt dat ma husband doesn’t respect me anymore coz I know dis women ,I forgave him I’m in a process of forgeting about dis but its difficult is it normal? & everytime when I think about dis women I feel so angry pls help coz I pray everyday to move on & forget about dis
Of course it is normal to feel angry if your husband flirts with other women! That is not appropriate for a married man. He belongs to you. You belong to him. Ideally, you would both carefully guard your hearts and your marriage.
Are either of you followers of Christ Jesus?
Forgiveness can be VERY difficult. But God can give us the power to do what we cannot do on our own. I am glad to talk with you about this!
From a Christian husband:
The flirting thing almost cost us our marriage. I never attempted to justify it and I would have said that I would never want to break up anybody or blah blah blah. I was pretty clear that it was like a drug/coping thing – which we tend to turn to in both stressful and celebratory times. I had a major ‘outing’ back in 2009. Of course, the struggle reached a bit into porn and so forth, but it was mostly the ego-strokes and such that I got from someone thinking I’m witty or some junk like that. It’s like capturing the ‘high’ of the first few dates before things get complicated with like, you know, real life and the baggage that we all bring to the table.
Currently, I attend S groups to deal with this (a commitment I made from the outset back in 2009). I have been in a men’s group for nearly 5 years and have pretty strict accountability in there. The reason for my current blog, in some ways, is to help me have a more consistent practice of appreciating the gift that my wife is.
My accountability includes my use of facebook, twitter, and client relationships. Andy Stanley’s series called Guardrails has been a huge help – and I would recommend it to anybody about helping put a lot of distance between themselves and possible failure in this area. http://northpoint.org/messages/guardrails
There are some areas where my wife and I still need to work on regarding openness with each other, but that said, I know my responsibility is to focus on putting the right stuff in my life that will give me the best chance for success. I do wish I knew how the Holy Spirit worked in us a bit better to bring victory because it still seems that it requires WAY too many disciplines to have consistent victory if it’s been an issue.
But I know, for sure, that God can deal with this, but it’s something to be continually vigilant about. The example that you two set is wonderful: Even a good, godly marriage protects itself with the passion of a momma bear over her cubs. People who have struggled tend to want to get to a point where they feel they have it licked and remove any of the good barriers they erected so they can show the spouse how ‘good’ they are. Unfortunately, with this thing, it only takes one inadvertent or surprise attack or flirtation and it’s all for naught.
Thank u
Hello, my husband’s second cousin recently lost her mom to cancer. Since then he has been texting and calling her frequently (probably everyday). For some reason I do not find it appropriate since they never talked before the funeral. This was probably the first time he has seen her in many years. My husband has always been a caring person towards others. I just seem to think this is inappropriate. When I confronted him about the situation he said it was because he could relate because he lost his dad a couple of years ago. We are currently having marital problems as well and not because of this issue. Am I overreacting? I am a Christian woman and I would like Godly counsel and prayer. He has asked her for pictures and always comments on her Facebook status. He says he asks for pictures of her and her Mom. Is this okay?
Faithfilledlife,
Well, it is impossible for me to know his motives at this point. It sounds like he has pure motives – but it is easy for pure motives to change over time.
You cannot force him to do what you want. I think it is wise that you told him your concerns – hopefully in a respectful, polite, non-demanding, non-clingy, non-desperate kind of way.
Is he a believer in Christ as well?
Would you like to talk about the other issues in the marriage?
At this point – he may not be crossing any lines. Is what he is doing wise? Probably not.
Would you like to email me and we can talk about it some more? aprilc@sc.rr.com