This can be a difficult or joyous thing, talking to and with our husbands.
Many of you know the joy and the sorrow. Sadly, we often remember the sorrowful times more. Do you remember any of those positive times? Take a minute or two to think about it. We should remember those and endeavor to make them the most frequent thing that happens.
We know that only positive conversations won’t always happen.
For some of us those come easy as we have a naturally light heart and take things well. For others this is not so.
Some of us are built a little more sensitive or tense. Well, whether we are built that way or respond that way is between the Lord and us. If it is sin that causes us to respond that way, then we need to fix it.
Let us delve into the difficulttalks first.
Did your husband offend you? If not recently, has he ever? Probably! As he is human, he will at one time in your marriage. The key is not that we were offended because we are human and we feel. The key is in how we respond. Where do we go from here? Do we stand in our hurt? Try to blow over it? Or communicate?
If we choose to communicate our feelings, this can be a challenge. There is a right way and a wrong way. Often it is best to wait, take some time to pray and breathe and think through things.
The wrong way, well that is usually obvious to us. It can often be the path we take most frequently. I am sure you know that path. The shouting, pouting, stomping, slamming, irritated, or subtle ways that we can react to show our disapproval. Those are all wrong ways.
I found that learning to think like him is the best way. To try to believe the best of him. Show him that I am at least trying to understand why he did what he did or said what he said. It is usually always something that benefits me directly or at the least our family as a whole even if I don’t see it at that moment.
I love my husband deeply as I am sure you do. However, in these times when he thinks he is helping, he can cause me hurt. This is something that I am working on.
For instance, the other day he was trying to keep me from more stress. I appreciate that greatly. The words he used to convey his desire to help were terrible, to me. Not that he meant it that way. He was giving me an example of how I respond when under stress. He didn’t mean for it to hurt me.
I took it painfully. It hurt me, I let it. I realized that I had become angry and bitter about the comment. I started responding to my kids and him with a sharp tone and became easily frustrated.
It finally hit me that I needed to talk with him, but how and when?
Many times I have brought things like this up and it ended badly. I usually bring things up at the wrong time. Often, I haven’t taken the thoughts and hurts to the Lord first. I feel that I need to share everything. It isn’t always good to share everything. There are times that saying nothing is best.
This time…
I realized that the better way was to acknowledge his true, deep desire to help alleviate my stress levels first, then I could ask him to tell me a different way. Meaning make a suggestion as to what to say. A key point here. If you suggest “what” to say, then you need to be able to take it when/if he does this. So be sure that you can truly handle what you suggest to him. Stick to it.
I needed to commit to trusting his judgment the next time this happened, because this is not the first time. Respectfully remind him how what he said could be painful to him if I said the same thing.
I am not too sure that reminding him is always necessary but I felt that this time sharing this way was ok. Then, and another key, let. It. go.
Let’s say you do this but he didn’t change?
If you prayed about sharing and truly sought the good of your marriage respecting your husband in all things and he didn’t change or seem to listen, I assure you what you did was good. Why? Because you did something different.
You didn’t act unbecomingly. You didn’t follow your old ways. You came to him with a right heart.
If he didn’t seem to hear you or want to change, it may be that he is waiting to see if this new youis for real. How can I know? We have gone through this.
One way to test this theory is to respond better the next time. Take and do what you promised to do, even if he doesn’t change his response. Believe the best. Trust his love for your family. He is married to you still. He does care for you and his children. Men will sin, we all do. This doesn’t mean that he is against you.
I promise, as you seek to honor the Lord by honoring your man, things will change. God is a God of miracles, restoration and healing. He wants your marriage to succeed. He makes the way for you to do it. Seek Him and you will find that right way.
Are you struggling with what we chatted about? If so, please feel free to email me.
Think of ways that may help you talk to your husband. Pray that God will give you a “download” from heaven on your man. When you do that, He will answer. Do not use your knowledge of your husband to hurt him, rather to get to his heart in a God honoring way.
Remember, I am praying for you!
Please leave any helpful comments below so others can see ways that may help them!
Linked-up to Mama Moment Monday’s
Thank you! Just what I needed to read this week!
God is so Good! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thank you for this. It is a difficult thing to know how to respond or to react without it all blowing up in your face. I try to correct the problem at hand and it usually “goes down” opposite of the way I intended. There is a lot of wisdom here that I need to put into practice.
I’m glad it’s valuable to you 🙂 Thank you for sharing! Blessings! Amanda