Too Many Angry Wives
Older women are to teach the young women to love their husbands. This does not come naturally nor easily for most women. They look and act their best before marriage but after marriage, many no longer care about looking or acting their best for their husbands. Instead, they spend their time being angry and upset with their husbands because their husbands are not living up to their expectations and the wives fail to realize that love is a commitment and an action, not feelings or emotions based.
Jamieson Commentary wrote this about Titus 2:3: “That they (the older women) school (admonish in their duty) the young women to be lovers of their husbands, etc. (the foundation of all domestic happiness).” Older women are to admonish (instruct and direct) younger women to be lovers of their husbands since this is the foundation of all domestic happiness. (I had to repeat this because it is a profound statement and if women believed it and acted upon it, their marriages would be dramatically changed for the good.)
I know that all those years when I was continually upset with Ken, I was not a happy person. Nothing is right in our lives when there is strife with the person we are one flesh with and now that there is no strife in our marriage, life is much happier and more enjoyable for both of us!
The problem with most women is that they spend their married years being mad and upset with their husbands. Why is this? Why do so many women spend so much time and energy being angry with their husbands? I asked the women in the chat room and here is how some of them responded.
Debbie: “We are trained with every book, show on television, and movie to be ‘our own women’ and no one tells us what to do. We are also trained to think men are stupid, weak, and in need of manipulation through our feminine wiles. When we get married with this secular, sinful mindset, it’s easy to stay mad, because men just aren’t naturally wired to obey everything we want. Even when they don’t know it, they want to be in charge, and when we are the bosses, nothing will ever be truly peaceful.”
Robin: “Anger boils down to I’m not getting what I want when I want it, and I’m mad about it: whether it’s husband or wife. People can be angry at God, misplacing the blame on Him for giving them this spouse to begin with. (“Lord, the woman YOU GAVE me…”) is the oldest example of this fleshly response. Women can often misplace their Source, trying to make their husband the source instead of CHRIST, THE SOURCE of all for women.
Anger is fear: fear is the satanic anointing opposite of Love, Who is Christ. When someone is angry, they are fearful underneath the anger. Basically this indicates a lack of trust in God in whatever the area of anger is manifesting. There is a righteous anger, at evil. Even if a woman’s husband is actually enslaved by evil, it is possible to redirect the anger to the real source, hell, and have compassion for the husband while she wars for his freedom from a place of compassion, as Jesus did.”
Sarah: “I agree with what other ladies have have said. It seems many of us from the day we are born are taught to be independent and not let a man tell us anything! We also have all kinds of media that tells us what love *should* be and causes expectations which are not met then we get upset because our husband is not textbook romantic or some other quality.”
Expectations, selfishness, desire to control, fear, and bitterness are all of the reasons why many women live in a state of constant anger towards their husbands. How does a woman give all of these up and change into a woman who truly loves her husband? She confesses it to her husband and asks for his forgiveness. This is the first step to getting rid of sin in our lives. Once it is recognized for what it is and then exposed to to the light, it has a hard time of continuing.
Then practice being loving towards your husband. Every single time a negative or critical thought about your husband comes into your mind, kick it out and replace it with something good. Don’t allow it to take hold of your thoughts. Keep practicing not allowing yourself to be angry with your husband and over time, you will one day realize that you are no longer angry with him at all and that your marriage is bringing you both happiness!
For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
James 1:20
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.
Ephesians 4:31
12 thoughts on “Too Many Angry Wives”
“Nothing is right in our lives when there is strife with the person we are one flesh with” and the verses provided…wonderful. Thank you 🙂
It must be awful to live in constant strife with someone. None of the marriages in my circle, including our own, are like this. I truly believe you must not truly like or love (both are important) someone when you marry them if either party are constantly staying upset with the other.
You’re welcome!
You are blessed because I have mentored many women in the 14 so years I have been mentoring women who are in strife with their husbands as I was for 23 years. You are right; it’s root is selfishness and wanting our way. It’s not loving our husbands as ourselves.
Lori, I’ve been reading your blog and facebook page for months and wanted to thank you for what you do! I am at the door of the “older woman” phase of my life and while I take the time to study scripture and make sure whatever message I’m sending through my words or actions are hopefully God-honoring, I am saddened that many older woman are actually terrible and embarrassing role models and I would never want them to counsel younger woman. Unfortunately, wisdom and grace does not always come with age!
I really think a lot of mine was my upbringing and not being raised in a Christian home. I was not taught to be submissive, my mother was not very submissive to my father. My mother early in my marriage would tell me everything I was doing wrong and I needed to do this and that very critical. I looked back now I’m wonder why I would listen to someone that did not show Christ love. I trusted her because I thought she was my mom ,…and she had always had a way of dominating and controlling me and my sisters always making us feel guilty! I looked back at her marriage and realized I did not want one like hers.
I do not want to be like her! I love her though but how miserable she seems still. The Lord dealt with me. I realized I kept trying to work righteous up and out of my life. I realized what i truly was. I was a sinner in need of repentance. My works were as filthy rags and I could do nothing with out him. I had been trying to live and do it on my own. That’s why I think I stayed angry a lot at my husband and kids. And everyone else. I kept it hid. Everything eventually comes to light.
So true! As a “youngish” woman it is very hard to find an older woman who is willing to be a mentor AND leads a life you want to emulate. So many older women are too busy with their careers still and/or dominate their husbands which is not someone you want to pattern your marriage after. The few others seem to want only to serve their families and it leaves such a vacuum of Godly teaching.
I just finished watching a little house on the prairie episode where a ‘womens speaker’ came to town and stirred up only what i would call feminism and the wives tried to make their point and left their husbands and responsibilities and stayed in the local hotel. Unless their husbands signed a contract outlined by them. Didnt like the episode at all. It caused so much strife. Selfish insistance on personal rights is contrary to the spirit of Christ.
Lori, maybe you remember that a few weeks ago I told you that my father was putting pressure for me to have a job, so that I don’t have to serve my husband and I can force him to respect me with the possibility of a divorce (since I would be financially independent).
My parents are saying that again. They say that I’m virtually wearing a burka (the face veil of Afghan women), because I’m a servant of my husband and I cater to his every whim. They want me to find a job with career potential (in my opinion it’s very difficult but they are convinced that it’s not), hire a cleaner and put my child in full time daycare. They want me to do women in the West do, to be financially independent and be really free. They say that it’s 2017 and not 1957, so I have to work and force my husband to be a modern man.
All this is making me cry.
First, my husband won’t change his behaviour because of a possible divorce. He will simply let me go.
Second, I’m scared to leave my child alone for so long, especially after age 12, when after school care provisions end. There are so many dangers out there, like inappropriate content on internet available 24/7. We can’t simply rely on good examples to equip our child to avoid them.
I understand that my parents want me to work so I don’t waste the expensive (for our country standards, in America it’s below average) education they worked so hard to pay for. I don’t feel that I’m wasting my intelligence as they claim and I don’t want to dedicate the best of my energy to my employer, I want to dedicate it to my child.
It was easy for my mother to work, since she had no commuting, she could count on my grandmother support and adjust her working hours.
My parents are Christian and they attend church and several prayer groups several times a week.
I have to say that my husband hasn’t received any Christian upbringing at all (beyond baptism) so the notions of love as sacrifice, serving others and spousal duty don’t mean anything to him. To be honest, in the past I have forgotten a good deal of my Christian upbringing, but now it’s back again.
I’m sorry for this lengthy post, but I really don’t know what to do and I need to tell somebody because it’s making me very sad if I keep it inside.
Matthew 10:34-36
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
Acts 5:29
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
You are not obligated to listen to them. You can say while you understand their concern, you are happy at home and will continue to do so wether they like it or not. And you wont discuss it any further.
You need to put some boundaries in place to protect yourself. If you dont, people will think they can walk all over you and intimidate you. This does not mean you need to be disrespectful or disobedient to your husband etc. It just means that you learn to respond in a firm and gracious manner. And wont roll out the red carpet for negative influences.
If your husband wants you to stay home and all that it entails, thats it, there is no more to discuss. End of story. Like it or lump it.
Situations like this often call for deflection rather than argument. Rather than arguing, which is a dead-end, one simply refuses to engage and immediately change the subject. Something like:
Parent: “You really need to do such-and-such.”
You: “Mmm. And speaking of that, I was wanting to get your cornbread recipe!”
You will never win the argument, so just deflect and move on. Best wishes!!!