I Did It My Way

When you demand your own way….
Perhaps it’s a bit hard to use such strong words as “demand.” Maybe you would prefer manipulate, reason or perhaps convince. We rationalize our actions by telling ourselves they (meaning our husbands) don’t know all the circumstances, they aren’t listening, or they are wrong, so we get our way. 

When the Israelites refused to obey God in the wilderness, they still got what they wanted. 
“And God gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.” Psalm 106:15 KJV. Other versions say, “a wasting disease.”
What's that?
When they should have been satisfied, they are not.
Like the spoiled child getting what he wanted, but finding it wasn’t what he wanted after all.

When wives coerce our husbands to DO IT OUR WAY, we undermine our marriage and our family.
How?
Men are hard-wired not to fight with a woman. It goes against their grain. 
​They relent. They agree. But inwardly they have not changed their minds.
You both know it.
You get what you want.
But is that what you really want?

You are not convincing your man into thinking your way is better.
You are merely deceiving yourself.
What IS happening?
Your man concedes. You WIN!!!
But do you?
Marriage is not a fight to see whose plans get to the top of the pile.

Your man stops making decisions. 
Because You know better.
You are going to do what you are going to do anyway, so why should he tell you.
You don’t need your husband.

What can he do, if you won’t listen?
He can’t lead, if you don’t follow.
He can’t protect, if you aren’t going to obey.
He can’t provide, if you are going to get what you need on your own.
He has no place. He is not needed.
He shuts down what he could and should do for the sake of peace. 
(After all, he does have to live with you peacefully.)

It is not how God designed man. 
He made man to conquer and subdue the world! But not his wife.
He is to lead, protect, and provide for his wife.

Where does the leanness show?
He becomes another child for you to control. The old saying “hen-pecked husband” comes to mind, never exerting his own thoughts, always conceding.
Or he becomes distant and disinterested in family things, spending more time at work or his own hobbies.
This is when you hear the wife bemoan that her husband won’t help with family decisions and he just isn't interested. ("If only he would lead our family...")
How can he be interested in something he has no power to change?
You have undermined your marriage. 
You have not enabled your husband to be the MAN God has made him to be.
You are not his helpmeet, he is yours.
He learns to co-exist in the same house with you with no common interests.

But this is not where our disobedience ends.
Not only will our husbands not become the men they should be, but our families will be effected.

Studies have shown a link between the detached, hostile father and the controlling mother in producing sons that are gay.
These mothers were “more restrictive of active play, over-anxious concerning health, more afraid of injury, and more overprotective than the controls’ mothers.” (O'Leary).

That rough-and-tumble play that moms like to restrict is what makes boys ready to conquer the world when they become men.
When our boys were doing something “dangerous,” I asked my husband, “Is this OK?”
His answer would determine whether they could continue. And I would not watch!
I would not ask my husband, then try to convince him to change his mind. (See how we can manipulate?)

Boys need a male role model to become men.
Without your husband’s leading, your son won’t know how to lead.
Nor will your girls see how to submit.
Obedience doesn’t come by DOING IT MY WAY. Nor will blessing.

By not submitting to your husband, you are not only undermining your marriage and family, but you are not obeying God. 
“In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the Word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.” I Peter 3:1.

God said that’s what we are to do.
By our disobedience, no matter how justified in our sight, we disobey God.

There’s been a few things my husband does differently then I would in our marriage. I cannot tell you it is easy for me to wait for him, but I must, even when it doesn’t seem right. Because I must obey God, submit to my husband and allow him to lead our family. 

Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
By my obedience to God and my husband, God blesses. (In His time.)
And I find doing it my way is not so important as doing it God's way.

___________

O'Leary, Dale. Mothers and Sons. Fathers for Life. October 23, 2000. https://fathersforlife.org/dale/child3.html. accessed October, 2019.

I write about what matters...to you---
women, wives and moms---
about your family, faith and future.
I write about what's hard, what helps and what heals.
I show you how it's done. And not done.
I hold your hand as you find what matters to the Savior.
And let go of those things that mattered to you, but not to Him.
I write about what matters...to Him.
               Sonya Contreras

Faith
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