On Marriage: A Husband's perspective

My beautiful wife has started posting on this blog as well! Please welcome Stephanie as she will be adding a woman’s touch to the site and bring a slightly different perspective to Charles and I. Her first post is here if you haven’t already seen it. It is worth a read. References for this talk will be at the bottom. Please read them as they delve much deeper into the topic at hand.

My Background

Similar to Steph, I am a product of divorce. My parents split up when I was nine. Very tough times then. I think I am the only brother to remember that time in much detail. I also am the only one who remembers what life was like before the divorce and things started getting real bad.

My parents were married for less time than Steph’s. My parents are also much more similar to each other than either would like to admit to. In particular they are both extremely stubborn and unafraid of sticking to their guns. In a sports match that is a fantastic quality. In a lasting marriage less so. Their problems were to large and numerous to expound on here though I did definitely learn what not to do. In almost every way my parents did everything wrong. I don’t blame them for this as we are only human. They fell into the patterns of their own parents as they too were products of broken homes and fractured families.

One mistake was the lack of leadership in the family. This is not the fault solely of one spouse or the other, a pattern to take note as well. My father definitely tries to be “the man of the house” and he instilled that in my from a young age. He was however in the National Guard and was gone a lot during the beginning of the War on Terror. This left a gap that my mom had to step into. She did it easily but resentfully. Women do not want to be or should ever be placed in this position if at all possible. When my father would return he would want to resume his place as the head but find that everything was already taken care of without him. Feeling emasculated he also began to resent his wife.

In this instance there was no real helping the situation. The military requires things of families that is outside the norm. Military wives who are unable to take care of aspects of the husband’s role while he is away will flounder and those to assume too much compete with their husbands in an unhealthy way. The way around this would have been for my father to lovingly assert himself back into his role and for my mother to graciously concede. When neither of them did so nothing got better. Things only got worse.

A second mistake was more on my father’s side. He failed to love his family effectively. I do not mean that he failed to fell affection towards us or something similar to that. He may have but I don’t see that to be the case. I am speaking to a deeper, Christian meaning of love. A love from service. Love in the Christian sense denotes a service and sacrifice. Denial of self. A father and a husband is unable to be the proper head of household or head of the wife if he is unwilling to put aside his own desires for the benefit of the family as a whole.

Self denial and self sacrifice do not only have a place in a marriage but also in life as a masculine man. We see this in the life of Christ and of His Saints. Service in itself is an act of love. Without it we are nothing but children. Men have a special role in this sense within the family. The more he gives of himself the more his family is able to grow with his guidance.

The last mistake is more on my mother but it falls on both of them. My mother lacked the due obedience to her husband. This somewhat falls in line with the previous two. As will anything in life most of everything is interconnected. I’ll do my best to separate it out. Remember when I said both parents are super hard headed? That is what happened here. My father would attempt to assert himself, in often a very unloving and uncharitable way, and my mother would refuse. Or argue. Or some other such way of non-obedience. This undermined my father and furthered his resentment of her. He would look for other women that he could have his proper role with and committed adultery. My mother did a similar thing but she further went to her children for the love and support she desired and needed.

A lack of submission to the husband nine times out of ten will be the downfall of a marriage. It is the wife attempting to assume the role of the husband. It is simply not her place. The woman may even hate it more. Especially if she feels she was forced into that role due to her husband’s incompetence or emasculinity. There is little more hatred from women than that of a woman being forced into acting like a man. On the contrary the men also hate women who emasculate them. Rarely do I hear of men after a divorce not blame their wife of this. This ultimately falls onto the shoulders of the husband however. As the leader your are ultimately responsible for what happens. It is like this in regular life why would it not follow in a marriage. Women follow men and if the men do not lead the women are left to try and figure it out on their own.

Contract vs. Mini-Church

I have found that another sticking point for many divorced people is their feeling that their marriage contract was not maintained. They view their marriage as that, a contract. If both parties simply check their boxes then the marriage should have worked out. Sadly it is not this easy. A marriage as a contract misses the point of marriage’s true purpose: Salvation of its participants.

What do I mean by this? A marriage is a sacrament/mystery that is ordained by God for the Salvation of his servants. Two people coming together to help both gain their Salvation within the Church. Many who view marriage as a contract have this belief as well actually. The problem is the precedence they place on the Contract. The listing of duties and obligations is simply that a list. A simple guideline to help to orient you in the right direction but it is not the end. It is a means to an end. Marriage in reality creates a Mini-Church. The husband with the role of the Priest and the wife and children with the role of the parishioners.

As husbands we have an extremely important role in our family. It is not because we are the leader! Our leadership does not make us above anyone just as the Priest is not better or more special than a layman. Husbands are the bedrock of the family. We are the steady hand holding our family steady. We are the basis of everything. We mustn’t forget this. Our service to our families are paramount to their and our success. Be the man that you want your son to grow into. Hint: He’ll do that no matter how you are! Be the man that you would want your daughter to marry. Hint: She will look for a man like you no matter how you act! Stay strong brothers! Lean on Christ as your rock and guide your family they need you. Likely more than you know.

Reference

http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/orthodoxchristianmarriage.aspx