Winning Him Without Words: 10 Keys to Thriving in Your Spiritually Mismatched Marriage (7 page)

“[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
These traits are pretty easy to forget. I remember sitting among a group of women at a birthday party one night. The discussion turned to husbands, as it often does when a group of married women get together. Every woman there jumped on her husband with words that belittled and shamed their spouse. I am not innocent of this—I know I have shared in the gripe sessions in the past. However, this particular evening I became increasingly uncomfortable as I sat and listened. Ephesians 5:33 would not leave my mind. I remember the instructor at my weekly Bible study specifically speaking to this very moment. She said, “Respecting your husband means you never say something that would dishonor him.” It was at that precise moment that I decided my husband-bashing days were over. My man deserved my loyalty, and nothing less.

Real love is steadfast, it’s optimistic, it overlooks a multitude of shortcomings, and it never fails. Sounds like Jesus to me.

For me, joining the Fantasy Football League was living 1 Corinthians 13 out in real life. It’s my deepest desire to love people as Jesus loved, to model the characteristics of this passage to my unbelieving husband. That kind of love is powerful and life changing, and over time it becomes irresistible.

Connecting with my husband requires a sacrifice of my time and perhaps some of my own desires; however, our marriage is richer for it.

At the end of the football season, the Pink Princesses played my husband’s fantasy team for the Super Bowl in our league. It was a close game, and we enjoyed every single minute together. The Pink Princesses won the league title, beating my husband’s
team and my neighbors’ teams as well. The old-timers who have played in the league for years and who are still waiting for their first league title are probably miffed that a harebrained, five-foot-four-inch blonde girl, who named her team with a girly name, won the whole thing. Oh, the irony. What was most important about the experience, though, was that my husband and I had a blast throughout the season, and we can’t wait to do it again next year.

So make a plan to connect with your husband. Be intentional. Dineen started playing Disc Golf with her husband last year. But your plan doesn’t need to include sports. Noreen enjoys taking long walks with her husband. Perhaps it is just sitting together while he is working in the garage, or joining him on a bike ride. Think about what
he
enjoys, and join in. Make every effort to connect with your unbelieving spouse. Remember, you have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. Allow the Lord to love your husband through you. When you start giving 100 percent, most men respond and give back.

I will add here that I made the decision to miss church on some Sundays so I could spend time with my husband. I recognize that the “church or no church” question is a contentious issue in a spiritually mismatched marriage. But it is appropriate to love our husbands with our time, and that time can include Sunday mornings.

Remember, our relationship with the Lord is built during our daily quiet time. Church is a time of corporate worship and an opportunity to connect with other like-minded believers. Spending time in the house of the Lord is a privilege and believers need that weekly recharge. However, occasionally skipping services in order to spend time with our man is okay. Find a balance. For me, I want to be in church every Sunday. It feeds my soul. But I do give myself permission to miss a week here and there to spend time with my spouse.

You might be wondering why it seems to always be up to you to change, to give, to love. What about him? Doesn’t he have to do anything?

Our calling in marriage isn’t to an equal partnership—although the world would have you believe it is. A successful and happy marriage requires a willingness to give all of ourselves. It’s never a fair arrangement, and there will be days when we’re convinced our efforts are worthless, especially when our own needs remain unmet.

The 1 Corinthians 13 passage is a tall order for a wife and can feel overwhelming when she is charged with loving a man who doesn’t subscribe to biblical standards of love. Yet 1 Corinthians 13 calls into sharp focus the essence of unconditional love. It shouts to us as believers to love our husband with a commitment that is total and selfless. In truth, God is asking us to live out our love in the most difficult of circumstances, because it will accomplish His good and perfect will.

However, we can’t do it by our own strength. Thankfully, the Lord stands ready to pour into us every perfect gift we need in order to walk this path of the uniquely yoked. He knows we can’t do it alone, so we must run to the source and let Him fill us.

The marriage relationship is the greatest human display of God’s love. And many people are watching us: our spouse, our kids, our friends, indeed an entire world desperate to discover a woman who loves with such intensity that it’s courageous. In her, they see Jesus.

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Remember Jesus loved us first. He is teaching us to do the same, beginning with our husbands. I am convinced this is the way of the Lord.

Creating connections with our spouse will carry forward to the bedroom. However, it’s behind the bedroom door that marriages sure can struggle. It’s no wonder, either, when you look at the trash coming from most media sources. Add to this the tension of our differing spiritual views, and some specific challenges arise.

Sex is a vital part of every great marriage. But in my years of working in ministry with women, I have discovered that a discussion about this subject is usually difficult and often carries with it a multitude of emotions. I often hear the following:

I became a Christian about three years after I married my husband. He is hostile about my faith. He says this Jesus guy has taken his spot in our marriage. He also wants to do things in the bedroom that now make me uncomfortable. What do I do?

My wife became a Jesus freak recently. It’s only a matter of time before she becomes a prude in the bedroom. I am angry.

With such emotions running wild, how do we navigate the issues specific to staying connected in the bedroom and the disconnect going on in our spirit? That is the question.

First, I challenge you to see marriage from God’s perspective. It is a union of a man and a woman for a lifetime. It offers security and intimacy:

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to
him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control (1 Cor. 7:3-5).

Lovemaking is a gift from God; one in which a man and woman share intimacy with one another. Mutual pleasure and enjoyment is at its center. It’s also an opportunity to bless our husband physically, emotionally and spiritually and to let him know that we desire him. It’s exciting to a man to know his wife desires him. Physical love offers a man and a woman a chance to be part of something unique, something that belongs only to each other, a private treasure stored in our heart.

Second, I challenge you to decide to just do it. Do you know what the most important sex organ is in the human body? It’s our brain. Turn the passion on in the brain, and the body will follow. God’s design, the giving of our body, is a normal and natural part of marriage. Withholding sex or using sex as a bargaining chip doesn’t fit the definition of loving our spouse as described in 1 Corinthians 13. And the Lord is clear that abstaining from sex is done only by mutual consent and done only to devote oneself to prayer.

The frequency of sexual intercourse is also something a couple must discover together, so communication between spouses is vital. Talking with our husband about bedroom expectations is a must.

Pleasurable sex is God’s purpose. Have fun and make it good for your spouse. Make the effort. Did you know that mystery and anticipation are forms of foreplay? Do the setup—be part of it. If you’ve made plans for an interlude that night, spend the day thinking about your husband. Send him private messages that you’re thinking about him. Give him hints about
your plans. Be creative. Build anticipation. Make sure you’re the only one on his mind.

Third, I challenge you to pray. Cover your love life with the power of God. Pray over your marriage bed. This starts before you even hit the bedroom. Pray for God to provide special times for you and your spouse to be alone and for that time to be protected. The marriage bed is sacred. Do not let anything interfere with that. Keep in mind that this is a chance to bless your husband and a way to connect with him.

However, how do we connect with our spouse in the bedroom when his view of sex is different from God’s perspective? What do we do if what our husband wants to do in the bedroom makes us uncomfortable?

The answer is communication. It is okay to have boundaries in the bedroom and in marriage in general. Every healthy relationship exists within established boundaries. So talk. Get counseling if need be. I recommend reading
Boundaries in Marriage
by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. An intimate and healthy love life is a key to loving for a lifetime.

As for what to do if your unbelieving spouse fears that you will become a prude in the bedroom because you’re a Christian, reassurance is the key. Let him know that he is the only man in your world. Intimacy is a great way to reassure your husband that his place in your life is secure.

I realize that we are only touching the surface of this facet of marriage. I also don’t pretend to have it all figured out, but I do know that a great sex life makes for a fantastic marriage. As the only believer in my marriage, my faith and understanding of God’s design have made our love life better, sweeter, more fun and more fulfilling than I ever thought possible.

Intimacy, love, sex, trust, forgiveness, commitment, respect—all of these are components of married love and are gifts from the Lord. Enjoy!

This may likely be a difficult chapter for you, so pray now and ask the Lord to show you one area in your life where a change will draw you closer to your spouse.

1. Think of a time in your marriage where you made an effort to connect with your husband that was outside of your comfort zone. What were the results?

2. What are two or three things you can do to reach out and connect with your spouse?

3. What attributes do you most admire about your husband? Write a list, take it with you each morning and give thanks to the Lord for him.

4. What is one area in which you can make an effort to enrich your bedroom connection?

5. What is one area of your intimacy that you will commit to prayer?

O Lord, today I ask Your hand upon me to help me live out 1 Corinthians 13. Let this passage become alive in me. Help me to wear kindness and patience, so my spouse will see You in my eyes. Lord, help me to fiercely protect our love
from temptation and the efforts of the enemy. Help me to be considerate and forgiving. Also, Lord, show me how to connect with my husband. Show me where and how to participate in his life. Allow me to give of myself in intimacy so that it draws my husband and me closer together. I ask Your grace and protection over our marriage. Let my husband feel loved and may it move him closer to You. In Jesus’ powerful name, amen
.

This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband
.

EPHESIANS 5:32-33

One day I sat in my car at a traffic light and prayed about my marriage, specifically about respecting my husband. God had placed this subject on my heart like a slow-building pressure cooker until I had to face it, front and center. I wasn’t giving my husband the respect that I should.

I told God that I would seek my husband’s forgiveness for not respecting him, if that’s what needed to be done. Now I don’t hear God that often, not like this, but He was pretty clear this particular day. Our dialogue went a little something like this:

“Lord, if You want me to tell him I’m sorry, I will. I’ll seek his forgiveness, if that’s what You think I should do.”

“Would you even hesitate if he were a Christian?”

Ouch. Confession time. “No.”

“Then why do you treat him any differently now? Treat him as if he were a Christian.”

Needless to say, that conversation smarted a bit. And I did go to my husband and tell him I was sorry. My admission seemed to confuse him at first, but it did prompt him to ask me why I felt the need to apologize. I told him honestly that God had put it upon my heart to seek his forgiveness.

Thus my journey to understand how God wanted me to respect my husband began and led me to read several marriage books written from a Christian perspective. Interestingly enough, they all seemed to have a common thread: respect.

Men need respect and some even equate respect with love. Women, however, definitely go for the love first and need it in order to feel secure in marriage. And this does not mean the occasional “I love you” phrase thrown out randomly. We want to know we are the only woman who can make the heart of our man beat faster. The key here is security—not material security, but the security that comes from the reassurance that we are truly loved and desired by our man and that our place in his life is secure.

I wanted to see if some of what I’d read actually applied to my unequally yoked situation. What I read in Ephesians 5:32-33 fascinated me because it separated the roles of love and respect between the husband and wife, so I decided to do a little investigating myself through hands-on research. Basically, I put into action what I’d read and what I sensed God showing me.