I Thought I ‘Owned’ My Husband – by Fellow Wife

man with tie
Today’s post is a guest post by Fellow Wife (for a follow up from Sept, 2014, please click here) – 
When my husband and I first married, I believed that we owned each other to a certain extent.  
I loved the thought that I belonged to him and he belonged to me.  We do have rights to each other.  Because we are in a marriage covenant, we do belong to each other emotionally and physically.  But I do not own my husband.  
He is *my* husband but he does not belong to me.  He belongs to God.  
What I mean to say is that it is not my job to take care of my husband.  I do things for him out of love like bringing him his favorite drink or a meal when he is tired.  But it is not my responsibility to teach him guide him, correct him or fix him.  Those are things that God can do completely without my assistance.
Trying do any of those things is only going to make me miserable.  Because I am not able to fix him; I cannot even fix myself!  My job is to concentrate on me and the huge stack of sins I have in my own life. 
I really don’t need to pay too much attention to what is going on between my husband and God.  God is completely ABLE.  He’s got this.  He doesn’t need me or my help. 
Have you ever had someone try to help you and you had it covered?  Or try to instruct you on something that you completely knew how to do?  I have and it makes me sooooo irritated.  I imagine that is how God feels about me right about now. 
A few other things I am learning:
– I can share my heart with my husband.  I can share my feelings and desires but I cannot and should not tell him what he should or should not do about that.
– My husband is a born again Christian so he is in touch with God.  If there is something he is doing that is displeasing to God, God certainly does not need my help delivering that message and most certainly not in enforcing it.-Even if I see something I perceive as sin in my husband’s life, it is not my place to deal with that.  I can share that his actions have been hurtful to me but his repentance and choice of following actions in response are then between he and God.
– I can journey along with my husband.  But I cannot choose his journey.  This was a hard lesson to learn. 
He has his journey.  I have mine.  Because we are joined in marriage, our journeys are parallel but they are not the same.  They are beside one another but still individual.  This was such a HUGE and powerfully difficult concept for me to grasp. 
I am thankful to share this journey with my husband- to run parallel with him.  But I had to learn that there needs to be a bit of a detachment between us and that is the space where God takes over.  It is a good thing.  It does not feel so good at first because it is foreign and scary and unknown.  But it can still be okay.
Anytime I get distracted by what I feel my husband *should* be doing in our marriage or with others or with situations in his life, I am trying to be the boss of his journey again. And the bad side effect is that while I am over there driving his train (we will call it for the sake of this story), mine is getting completely derailed because nobody is driving it.  I need to stay on my own track with God and let my husband have his own track with God. 
Part of letting go of your husband is letting God have him.  It isn’t just letting him go to make his own choices, although I believe that is half of it…..  But letting God take over is the other half.  It is the half of the equation that gives the fullness of joy and peace to your heart.
I can pray for my husband and talk to God about my feelings and all the things I would love in our marriage.  I can ask him to deal with my husband on certain issues but that is as far as I can go with it.  What happens after that is between God and my husband.  Things may go my way.  They may never go my way.  I have to be okay either way.  I may be sad and disappointed at times that God isn’t working with my husband on issues or that my husband isn’t responding but I have to trust that God does know best and has my ultimate good in mind.
FROM PEACEFULWIFE:
We can and sometimes should gently, respectfully, humbly confront our husbands if there is sin going on against us or our children – only after we deeply examine our own lives and repent of any trace of sin in our hearts first (Matt 7:1-5, Matt 18:14-16)
But – it is NOT our job to convict our husbands or to force them to obey God.  That is where I used to get in so much trouble!  I am NOT the Holy Spirit.  Things go much better when I acknowledge that I am not part of the Trinity.
  • I am a sinful human being just like my husband.  We are on level ground at the foot of the cross.
  • I am not better than my husband.  I am not more holy than he is.
  • My sin is not “less sinful” than my husband’s sin.
  • We are both equal law-breakers apart from Christ.
  • We are both equally precious in the sight of God.
  • I have no room to look down on my husband as if I am better than he is.  That is sin!  Self-righteousness.  That is what Jesus condemned so severely in the Pharisees!
God is able to complete the work He has begun in my husband.  The best thing I can do is focus on obeying God myself so that I stay out of God’s way and give Him plenty of room to work on my husband and plenty of room to work on ME!
My power is in keeping my eyes on Christ and submitting to Him fully as my LORD every moment.
MY NEWEST YOUTUBE VIDEO:  USING MEN VS LOVING THEM