Sacred Influence (15 page)

If you’re a working woman, you need to modify this advice; but the spirit behind it remains relevant. Maintain a positive attitude; don’t resent your husband. You might even use some of your hard-earned income to occasionally buy him tickets to a favorite sporting event. Decide to bless him and make his life more pleasant. Be responsible with regard to God’s calling to be a practical helper to your husband.

As the wife finally becomes persuaded to give this a shot, she tells her friend, “May Christ favor our effort!”

She replies, “He will — if only you do your part.”
⁶

Yes, the conversation seems dated, given today’s views on marriage, but much truth remains buried in this account. Moving your husband toward better character and godliness may indeed involve a lot of work and take many years, but I’ve talked to many people who have gone through divorce — and the work, heartache, and pain involved in
that
choice is far greater than you could imagine. Just about every divorced individual I’ve talked to has encouraged me to urge others to spend at least the same amount of time and effort trying to save the marriage as they’ll have to spend coping with the pain, heartache, and financial cost of a split.

Helping
Your
Husband

This is the place, in books such as this, where you usually find the “statistics”: 98 percent of men say such and such is their most important need; 88 percent of men say they wish their wives would do so and so. You won’t find those kinds of statistics here, because I believe true helping is a personal, individualized work. What “most” husbands want doesn’t mean anything if it’s not what
your
husband wants. Instead of evaluating statistics, you need to find out what your husband would most like to see in his wife.

Here’s an example. Unless I’m buying running gear, I hate shopping. On one occasion, I had been looking for a new watch. Lisa tore out an ad from a newspaper and asked me, “What do you think of this one?” I loved it, took it to the store, and bought that watch in about 120 seconds of shopping time. I handed the jewelry store clerk the picture; he ordered the watch, and a week later I picked it up. I didn’t have to do a bit of looking around.

I
really
loved my wife that day.

Other men might actually like to shop — but maybe they want you to do something else. The key is to make this personal.

Does any bond go deeper than simply helping your husband? I don’t know of any. Beauty inevitably fades, but responsibility grows in power, ability, judgment, and wisdom. Faithfully fulfilling your calling as a true life-partner forges bonds stronger than any physical attraction.

Just yesterday, my wife called me while I was at the library. She knew I was making notes for a book with the working title
The
Ministry of Sitting Around
.

“Hey, Gary,” she said, “you need to check out this book —
The
Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom.
I just read about it, and I think you might find something in it for your book.” That type of thing really makes a man feel like he’s being supported.

Have you come across something on eBay that your husband has been looking for? Can you pass on some information about one of his favorite sports players? Maybe you could surprise him with a drink from Starbucks or simply take on a chore (getting the oil changed, ironing some shirts) that has felt like an anvil around his neck. Are you being responsible toward your calling as your husband’s helper?

Ask him this question tonight: “What frustrates you most about your job?” If you can find a way to help him work through that, you’ll create the climate for a profound positive influence. I think this is especially true of working wives. Your lack of time limits your ability to help, but if you can find one or two really strategic ways to make your husband’s life run more smoothly, you’ll cement his affections. If you do that just once or twice a year, by the end of your third decade of marriage, you’ll have laid down a lifetime of practical care, removing maybe fifty or sixty things that have frustrated him. In the process, you will have built up an enormous amount of gratitude and corresponding intimacy.

Today’s conversations about the emerging roles of men and women invariably garble the thinking about roles in marriage. That’s why I urge young women to sort out God’s call on their lives. Nowhere does the Bible insist that young women marry; in fact, Paul even seems to suggest that, in certain circumstances, they should seriously consider singleness. But once you do marry, you assume, spiritually, all the duties and responsibilities of marriage: “Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to” (1 Corinthians 7:24). For wives, that means being a helper.

It’s not spiritually healthy to get married and then to resent the state of being married. History overflows with single women who did amazing things on behalf of God’s world and God’s kingdom. And God has used many married women as well. But if you intend to run for president or become a CEO, that should have an effect on the decision you make about the kind of man you marry and the kind of family you build.

Marriage constitutes a claim, a call, and a commitment. I firmly believe you will have the richest, most fulfilling life when you take seriously your responsibility to fulfill each of these.

Do you
truly
want to influence your husband? Then work hard to become a responsible wife. The world may not applaud your efforts, but your God will reward you, and your husband will praise you. Granted, “responsible wife” may not sound very sexy — I guarantee you they won’t ever film a prime-time television drama using that phrase — but the concept is biblically important and powerful and life-giving. Responsibility really will bring the joy and excitement of spiritual beauty into your home and heart.

*
But please see chapter 11 on male temper for how this is qualified. I don’t believe any wife should tolerate physical abuse.

Chapter 8: Understanding
the Male Mind

Learning to Make Allowances
for Your Husband’s Masculinity

E
very winter, grown men spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours trying to lure high school seniors to their campus with one goal in mind: building the best college football team in the nation. In essence, these coaches are masters at moving men. They have to know how to attract them and how to motivate them.

Former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer had a reputation as an excellent recruiter. One time, on a trip to Texas, he walked up to a boy’s house and noticed a trash can filled with Pearl beer cans. When the boy’s dad walked into the living room to greet Coach Switzer, he asked him if he’d like a beer.

“Only if you’ve got Pearl,” Switzer responded.

Coach Switzer landed the recruit.

A classic case of a woman misunderstanding a male coach occurred when Rice football coach Ken Hatfield visited the home of a high school punter. During a lengthy conversation with the parents, Hatfield said something that most guys would readily understand. Keep in mind that Hatfield was trying to recruit a
punter
, and punting means that your offense has failed and you’re going to give up the ball to the other team. So the coach casually said, “You know, we hope he doesn’t play much next year.”

“What do you mean?” the mother asked, alarm evident in her tone.

“Ma’am, we’re trying to score touchdowns, and we hope the punter doesn’t play a lot.”

The boy’s mom took offense at this remark and said, “We’re not coming here. We’re going somewhere where he can play a lot.”

Hatfield felt as sorry for the boy as he did for his own team’s loss of a recruit. “The boy really wanted to come [here].”
¹

To influence a man, you have to learn to talk his language. Many marital problems arise not because of an issue between Rob and Jill or Robyn and Kevin but because of a breakdown in understanding between a male and a female. In this chapter, I hope to give you an insider’s view of the male mind so that you’ll learn how to better understand and communicate with your husband.

The Male Brain

Modern science has obliterated the “nature versus nurture” debate. Not long ago, some groups argued that no innate difference exists between boys and girls. They insisted that girls tend to choose dolls, communication, and romance, while boys fixate on war, funny noises, and competition, solely because that’s the way each are raised.

The last ten years of neuroscience have disproved this. Well before the baby comes into this world, while it remains safely tucked within the mother’s womb, the brain of a male baby gets bombarded with testosterone, while a female baby receives greater quantities of female hormones. Between the third and sixth month of that unborn baby’s life, hormones begin to shape the tiny brain, influencing how that individual will interact with the world. Yes, males receive some female hormones, and females receive some testosterone, but the quantities of these hormones (males have up to
twenty times
more testosterone than females) will stamp that child’s brain by the sixth month of pregnancy — three months before any mother or father has a chance to “socialize” it.

(Admittedly, there exist what neuroscientists call “bridge brain” males and “bridge brain” females. Our tendency toward masculine or feminine brains occurs on a continuum, resulting in various degrees of stamping. But even here, a “bridge brain” male will have more testosterone than a “bridge brain” female.)

The male brain therefore functions much differently than the female brain. PET scans (positronic emission tomography), MRI scans (magnetic resonance imaging), and SPECT scans (single photon emission tomography) have exploded the quaint and false notion that gender difference is determined mostly by nurture rather than by nature.
²
Since brains develop by degrees, stereotyping can lead us astray; but certain things tend to be true. For example, male brains usually have less serotonin than female brains. Since sero-tonin calms people down, men are more likely to act explosively and compulsively. Surprised? Probably not.

Here’s another example. Men also have less oxytocin in their brains. Michael Gurian makes this observation:

Oxytocin is part of what biologists call the “tend-and-befriend” instinct, often contrasted with the “fight-or-flight” instinct. The higher the oxytocin levels, the less aggressive the person is likely to be. Furthermore, the person with higher oxytocin levels will tend to be more immediately and directly empathic, and more likely to link bonding and empathy with verbal centers of the brain, asking, “How are you feeling?” or “Is everything okay?”
³

Why is your husband less likely to tune in to your emotional pain and verbalize his concern than, say, your sister, your mother, your daughter, or your best friend? His brain doesn’t work the same way a female brain does; it just doesn’t occur to him to connect his affection with verbal inquiry. Why does your husband take longer to bond with an adopted child, or maybe even his own child? His brain possesses less of the “bonding” chemical; he’ll get there — it just may take more time.

Men’s brains also need to “rest” more than women’s brains, with the result that men are more inclined to seek “mental naps.”
⁴
Why do men gravitate toward the television screen and then launch through the channels instead of focusing on one program? Our brains get tired. At the end of the day, we don’t want plot, story, or character development; we just want escape (think buildings blowing up, cars crashing, tires squealing). All the while,
your
brain — which has 15 percent more blood flow — is still running late in the day and therefore better able to process complex entertainment.

Remember, this is true not only of your husband in particular; it’s true of men in general. Be careful that you don’t fault or resent your husband for being a man! Gurian notes, “As most of us have learned intuitively in our relationships with the other sex, the maleness or femaleness of the brain is not as changeable as many people might wish.”
⁵

If you want a more technical discussion, pick up Gurian’s
What
Could He Be Thinking? How a Man’s Mind Really Works
. For our purposes, it’s enough to say that if you really want to motivate your man and communicate with him, as well as enjoy a fulfilling marriage with him and raise healthy kids with him,
stop expecting him to act or
think like a woman
. He can’t do that.

Nor should he.

Rid yourself of every tactic and skill you use in talking to your sisters, best friends, and mother, and realize that a man’s mind functions very differently. Some similarities exist, of course, so a few things will interrelate. But if you expect him to talk to you like your lifelong best friend does, or your sister does, or your mother does, you’re being unfair. And you’re going to be disappointed — and probably unhappy.

I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from my assertion in
Sacred Marriage
that many, if not most, problems in marriage crop up, not between two individuals, but between two genders. That’s why divorce and remarriage never solve much. A man still marries a woman, and until both partners accept this reality, tremendous tension will continue to exist. In fact, if a second marriage is more successful than a first marriage, it’s usually because one or both partners finally “get it” and accept that this is just the way men (or women) are. It’s much healthier for all concerned (and far more eco-nomical) to learn this lesson in the first marriage.