From a wife who took my Peacefulwife class last fall. Thank you so much for sharing!!!!!! I know that many other wives are about to be blessed!
I work 2 jobs to help put hubby through school.
I had no control of the money in my first marriage and had to often times even return groceries to get money back to please my controlling first husband. So when I got married to my current husband, I wanted to be in charge of the money.
Being that I’m the breadwinner, I should be able to spend what I want and not have to answer for it cause…I work hard and I don’t ask for much. My husband has NEVER known what credit cards I have or how much is on them and YES…I absolutely lied to him about them.
Fast forward to the Fall. After the first Bible study with you, I began to feel conviction about the money issue. I had lied to my dh for 7 years about how much we had or didn’t have and I could continue on with no problem.
Only problem is that I hadn’t kept good track of it, I had more and more and more store cards. Emergencies and the failing economy began to happen and I had to put more on our major credit card; now I couldn’t keep the balance down.
I thought about it all day every day, when I went to sleep and of course in the shower is when it really seemed to get to me. I could feel the burden get heavier and heavier and heavier.
I felt the Lord telling me to just let it go. Tell him the truth. I heard the words you said in our study about “freedom” and “relief” and “peace”.
This morning as I was in the shower feeling that guilt, I prayed to the Lord to just help me know what to do. Here is where the story gets pretty cool! After I got out of the shower my phone rang and it was my husband telling me that he had tried to buy a $3 video game online and the card was declined. Of course my heart jumped in my throat.
I calmly told him (and LIED) that it was probably some technical issue and I would call the bank when I got to work. Of course I had no intention of calling the bank. I quickly got on my smartphone and saw that my card was maxed out! What?! How did that happen??!! I made a transfer but it was too late and it wouldn’t show up until tonight. I was stuck. I went through my mind over and over trying to figure out what lie I could come up with to get out of this.
Then the Lord said to me, “Sweetie, just let it go. Don’t you want to hand this burden over to your husband who can carry it with you?” And for the first time I thought…”Yeah, I do.”
Since my husband works near by, he walked over to my office to check on the progress I’d made with the bank. I smiled and told him I needed him to come upstairs with me to talk. He looked scared and kept asking me what was wrong. When we got upstairs he was frantic. “What’s wrong sweetie? What’s happened? Are you okay?”
I was surprisingly calm when I told him that I had maxed out our credit card, I’d lied to him, and I had probably cost him from going back to school in January.
Do you know what he did??? He asked me to stand up and he embraced me and told me he loved me. He said he didn’t care about the money. He was only upset that I hadn’t come to him sooner.
I said I was sorry (one time) like you taught us. I asked him to take the lead and to help get us out of this mess.
He immediately came down to my office and made the most amazing budget for us. We realized that we actually have a lot of extra money to pay bills with and should be able to dig out fairly quickly. He also asked me to cut up ALL my cards. I resisted at first but remembered that I had asked him to lead and therefore, I need to listen to what he is saying.
I almost shed a tear as I watched my Kohls, J.C. Penney, Belk and Old Navy card be cut up into the trash!
But I know without a shadow of a doubt that we just had a miraculous breakthrough in our marriage. And do you know what I’m feeling right now?? Freedom, relief and peace.
Thank you for teaching me what God has taught you.
From Peacefulwife:
I am SO glad this dear friend of mine listened to God’s voice, repented and came clean. And what an INCREDIBLE, godly response she got from her husband. WOW! She has been working on respect now for about 3 months or so. And I can’t help but think that if she had NOT been working on being more respectful of her husband, that conversation may not have gone so well.
If you are keeping secrets from your husband – I can’t tell you exactly what to say and what to do and I can’t guarantee that your husband will react with the grace and forgiveness that this husband did.
But I do want to encourage you to listen to God’s Spirit, obey His Word, seek godly counsel and then trust God with the outcome.
Our God is amazing. He is good. He is trustworthy. We are so blessed when we do things His way!