God Begins to Work in a Newlywed Wife’s Heart

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From a precious sister in the Lord (with her permission):

Dear Peacefulwife,

From the bottom of my heart, I just want to say thank you. Three days ago, I came across your site from a specific internet search: “My husband doesn’t care,” because at that time I honestly thought that my husband no longer loved or cared about me anymore. That day was like rock bottom for me. I woke up, and my husband was gone. No note, no text, no call, nothing. I had to go to work that morning, and he took our only car with him. I tried to call him but I got no answer.
You see, I’m a newlywed (been married since June), and my husband and I recently moved to a new city which is thousands of miles away from the majority of my family. I had no one close to rely on for an emergency ride. As a former country girl, I am still scared about being alone and unprotected in a city full of strangers. I was so hurt and frustrated as to why he would disappear on me like this, knowing that I had to go to work, knowing that that car was my only form of transportation. He knew all of this, but chose to ignore it so obviously he doesn’t care of me, right? I cried as I called a cab, and I secretly cried when I got to work. I was thinking why does he have to do this to me, and why do I love him so much? He is such a mean, hateful person and blah, blah, blah…
And this is why I was blindly searching the internet as a way to comfort myself when I found your blog.
At first I was skeptical. “This site is too radical. This isn’t the 1800s anymore. My husband and I run things equally, that’s how it is done nowadays, etc.,” I thought. I’m already submissive (or so I thought). What is this about respecting my husband and such? I already respect him (again so I thought). But thank the Lord I didn’t close the window. I guess your God-given words touched a part of me that knew they were true.
I wanted a way to fix my husband. I wanted to make him stay with me, talk with me, smile, do the things that he used to. I wanted him to love me again because I didn’t feel loved. I felt so discouraged and have been feeling that way for a while. I felt like a failure as a wife.
  • I stopped cooking after my husband seemed to prefer eating out (now it is more like he eats out because I stopped cooking).
  • I have never been a neat person, and he is a neat-freak.
  • I pray to God that He can work in our marriage and develop the solution as this is an ongoing problem even now.
  • I’m a habitual procrastinator.
  • Sometimes I forget things, important things.
  • I beat myself up a lot.
  • I tried to please my husband in everything that I did, and that was my problem. I made being a wife, trying to please my husband, an idol. You can’t please another person all the time, and that is what I tried to do. My relationship with God has always been wishy-washy, but I had put a lot of things in front of God when it should have been vice versa. Thank you for reminding me to put my complete focus on God once again! First God, then my husband!
That first day I read your blog (I read so many entries that day), I repented. I want my marriage to be honorable to God. I want my husband to be happy. We’ve only been married for almost six months (and we both consider divorce not an option), so I didn’t want the rest of our lives to be full of unhappiness and strife. I felt so bad.
I haven’t been respecting my husband at all.
  • I yelled and cursed at him because I felt lonely and I wanted him there, but that of course made him shut down and pull away more. He stopped talking to me. He stopped holding me. My coworker one day was talking so positively about her husband, and when I thought about the unhappiness in my marriage, I wanted to cry.
  • I was (so) bad that I even walked up and pulled the television cord out the wall once because I felt that he was ignoring me while using the TV as a medium. What did that accomplish? Nothing. I was just so angry at the time. I had actually been repeating in my head all the negative things about my husband for a whole week before that happened, and my anger and bitterness just came to a head. Before that, I didn’t even know I had it in me to be so bitter. I don’t blame my husband for not wanting to be with me. It would have been scary to be in the same room with me at that moment.
And now of course after repenting, what do I do now? I suppose I’m in the quiet stage now (and it is only two days in). It is hard.
  • At first I wanted to dump all the hurt I felt on him as soon as I saw him, but I forced myself to stay silent.
  • I am extra careful whenever I am around him to be extra positive.
  • I wrote him a note apologizing for what I’ve done (I can’t trust myself to talk with him yet. I am not yet in complete control of my emotions).
  • I baked a pie. He didn’t eat it.

I didn’t let myself feel bad though because I’m respecting my husband because it honors God in my marriage and not whether he deserves it or not. He can choose not to eat my pies, but I should forever make them available to him. 

I am still reading your blogs (you have so many, thank goodness), but also recognize that I need to start rebuilding my relationship with God. I’ve been so backwards. The Lord God will direct my paths. I am praying that I can continue down on this road for a happier marriage. It’s my second day in giving my husband respect so there hasn’t been much change in him (I’m sure he is waiting to see if this is some sudden phase or not). And we honestly haven’t spoken much in three days. We sleep apart, and we practically live apart, but today we spoke briefly, and it was calm. No animosity at all. This all just gives me hope!
Thank you, Peacefulwife, for being a mouthpiece of God and for showing backwards, sinning wives the truth! I needed the truth. It hurt, but I needed it.
Thank you so much!