“I am the boss around here!”
“I make the decisions.”
“I can take care of myself and provide for myself, I don’t need your money!”
I am sure you get the picture. When a woman says things like that then do you really think she is a wife? On paper she might be but in her heart I think not. When you get married you become one with your husband.
Mark 10:8
and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
You take a completely different form, you are no longer your own but you are now a part of something new.
1 Corinthians 7:4
The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
Being a wife is so much more than having a marriage certificate. To truly be a wife you need to choose to be a wife by cultivating the attitude of a wife. There is no more his and mine but those two words become one = ours. You are not truly being a wife if you marriage still consists of yours and mine. No matter how hard it is, being a wife consists of letting go of your rights to ‘mine’ and embraces everything as ‘ours’.
If your husband likes golf and you are not interested it would be a great idea to get interested as it is not his hobby but ‘our’ hobby. It’s not that you are going to be by his side twenty four seven but it is more a case of finding ways to support his hobby and understand what is important to him as opposed to ridiculing his passions or desires. In our home Eric likes to play the guitar and before we were together I was not interested in guitars at all. Since we have been together I have supported him in his time alone to play his guitar, I have learned a little bit about guitar so we have something to talk about when he want to chat about his passions. I don’t even like his style of music but I have learned about it because he likes it. If it is important to him is has to be important to me too.
Eric does the same for me. I love to write and before anything goes to print he reads what I have written and checks for mistakes. I am sure this is not something he would do for fun but because it is important to me it is important to him too. If I sell a book or hear of a life changed as a result, we share the joy as it is ‘our’ book.
His career is no longer his own but you would do well to support his career in any way he would like you to as it affects ‘our’ marriage. No matter what area of life, it is no longer your own but ‘ours’. Areas of failure or success are no longer yours and mine but ours too, if either one of you are failing or succeeding at anything then the burden or joy should be shared.
Finances is another area where you could be maintaining your independence or giving up ‘mine’ and embracing ‘our’ finances. Yes it can be difficult to be a wife but unless you are bringing about a oneness in your marriage you are not truly being a wife, you are merely being a woman who has a marriage certificate.
There are several things that can cause us to not want to be a wife, even if we are married:
Past Hurt or Abuse
A person who has been hurt or abused as a child or even as an adult thinks that once the abuse stops, she can just get on with life and everything will be alright. After-all, the past is the past, right? Wrong. Sadly, unless a past hurt or abuse is fully dealt with it will affect your marriage. No matter how much you have dealt with it outside of marriage, I believe there is an element that has to be dealt with within marriage.
Even married women keep their defences up if they have been hurt or abused in the past whether it was by someone other than their husband or their husband. You might have taken your vows but you always hold on to a degree of independence for your own protection. I wife with this background might find it difficult to completely surrender to being a wife.
If you are not married you may reject the idea of marriage completely or find legitimate excused not the make the commitment. You do want to be a wife but you don’t at the same time and so you live in confusion about what you really want.
Temptation
You may be facing a temptation which is hindering your desire to want to be a wife without you even realising it. Temptation can come in many forms and can be anything at all. Perhaps you are tempted with ‘what ifs’. What if there is someone better just around the corner, what if we didn’t get married when I was so young, what if I married someone else, what if, what if, what if. You entertain ‘what ifs’ and their possible outcomes. Your ‘what ifs’ might even cause you to believe the current problems in your marriage wouldn’t exist if the ‘what ifs’ were a reality. Entertaining these ‘what ifs’ for too long could also lead to very real temptation that you end up acting upon. Perhaps you allow yourself to look at other men while wondering ‘what if’ or perhaps you become jealous of other women while entertaining your ‘what if’.
Your ability to want to be a wife is held back by these ‘what ifs’ and so you don’t really want to be a wife. If you want to be a Godly wife, let go of your ‘what ifs’ and deal with any temptation you might have. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Influences
Who or what is influencing you? Are you walking with other women who want to be wives or are your friends the sort of people that say nasty things about their husbands or marriage? Observe your friendships, the movies you watch, the books you read and anything else that may influence you. Is the message for or against marriage?
Spiritual Differences
Being a Godly wife whilst married to an ungodly man can be difficult at times. Even if your husband is saved he might not be at the same place as you in your walk with God. Even saved couples who are at the same place in their walk with God will encounter spiritual battles from time to time. The bottom line is that no matter who is where with God there is a spiritual battle going on in your marriage. The devil has a clear mandate and that is to steal and kill and destroy your marriage.
Understand the spiritual side of life can dramatically affect your desire to be a wife. At times you may feel that your desire to be a wife wanes without explanation. It is in these times that you might have to fight a spiritual battle. You decision to want to be a wife is half the battle won already!
The next step is to submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you . And finally, if you are trying to win an unsaved husband or a lukewarm husband, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
There are many more things that can cause us not to want to be a wife but the key will always be your choice. The Bible says that as he thinks in his heart, so is he . If you think you don’t want to be a wife you will struggle to be a wife but if you chose to think that you want to be a wife then you won’t struggle.
So I ask you now, do you want to be a wife? Don’t automatically assume it's a 'yes'. Search deep down inside your heart and be honest about how you really feel about being a wife. Decide if your hearts attitude is a ‘yes I want to be a wife’ or has there been a ‘no’ in your heart. Don’t feel guilty if you find a ‘no’. It is good that you have found it because now you can do something about it. If you are marriage intentionally change your no to a yes by sheer force of your will. If you are not marriage go to God with your no and ask Him to show you what you need to see – whatever that might be.
Find out more about Being a Wife here.
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