If Only He Knew: A Valuable Guide to Knowing, Understanding, and Loving Your Wife by Gary Smalley

Author:Gary Smalley
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780310599319
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2012-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

Sincerely Work to Change Your Ways

Finally, let your wife see your consistent and sincere efforts to correct offensive actions or words. This is another way of saying, “Repent.” For the Greeks, the word repent literally meant “to turn around.” It means that you are to change your way of thinking or acting to the way Christ thought and acted (Luke 17:3 – 5).

God called the man to be the leader in nurturing his wife and children. If he leads in offensive, harsh, angry behavior, he will reap the results in a weakened or fractured marriage. But if he leads with a positive tone and a gentle and loving spirit, he will reap positive benefits.

Just listen to this husband who deeply offended his wife and had no idea what he had done. She divorced him and he had no clue why.

“She was always the main problem, right from the beginning,” Mike told me.

“Were you at fault at all?” I asked.

“No, I had nothing to do with it! Take this one example,” he said, confident that he could show me that his wife was really messed up from the start. “On our wedding night we had sexual relations. She was turned off by the whole experience and from that day on, for over twenty years, she never really enjoyed our sex life. She never initiated it. She didn’t even want to be involved. She was more like one of those life-size sex dolls from Hollywood than a living, breathing person. How would I be the cause of that? On our wedding night, she changed on me!”

Mike had dated Carol for three years. So I asked how he treated her during those years.

“Well, okay,” he said.

“Mike, I happen to know that it wasn’t okay. You and I both know that you had a reputation of being mean and extremely insensitive to her. Do you remember some of the things you did?”

When he admitted that he did remember, I said, “You really hurt her feelings. During all those years that you dated her, did you ever clear up your offenses with her?”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

“Why did she marry you — to get away from her family?” “Right.”

“Then the first night she realized that sex wasn’t that great. And do you know why?” I asked. “Because you two weren’t in harmony. Besides this fact, did you prepare her for sex?” I explained that many women tell me they need as much as three days’ preparation for sex, romantically and emotionally, before they can respond to their husbands. Men are microwaves, women are crock-pots. She warms up to the sexual expression, while he turns on immediately.

“Did you ever clear your conscience with her? Did you ever clear those past offenses when you were married?” I asked him.

“No, I never did.” Mike had never admitted he was wrong.

“Did you criticize your wife a lot?” I asked.

Mike’s head sank lower and lower. “I’m ashamed

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