When Your Wife Is Freaking Out

Philip Loving a woman into loveliness is messy work. You do have to get into the problem and stay in the problem and hold the tension as it needs to be held. And if a husband approaches that with a quick-fix mindset, most of the time that backfires. Like, I’m just going to say the right thing right now and it’s all going to get resolved — and if it doesn’t get resolved, it’s on her.

All right. Welcome to All Are Yours. We’re back. This is episode 30. We’ve made it thus far.

Sean We’ve been planning this episode for at least 29 previous episodes.

Philip That’s exactly right. I did get a little bit of feedback from our last episode about the potential conference. Some people did say yes.

Sean Okay.

Philip They said they’d be excited about that, or that they wanted to hear more about what it would look like. So if you’re listening and didn’t listen to the last episode, do listen to that and let us know: are we going to be wasting our time, or is it worth pursuing some sort of an All Are Yours conference? Did you get any feedback? I mean, in some sense, if people aren’t giving feedback, that could also be a bad sign, because then nobody cares.

Sean We haven’t gotten the feedback that I know you and I are both really looking for.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Which is extremely negative criticism.

Philip “Don’t do it.”

Sean I haven’t gotten any of that. At least one of our sort of mutual — he’s not a stranger anymore — one of our mutual pastor friends that we’ve met in the Pacific Northwest replied when I posted the link on Twitter. He said he’d come, and he’d be willing to speak.

Philip Look at that. And he’s not even a dispensationalist.

Sean No.

Philip Look at that — drawing people across the aisle.

Sean That might have been the only feedback I got. I can’t remember. It’s possible.

Philip Well —

Sean It was positive, though. So you got positive feedback.

Philip I did get positive feedback. Unfortunately.

Sean So that means we have to do more work?

Philip That’s correct. The work continues. We are drafting plans, so stop us before it’s too late. Otherwise it’s going to happen.

Sean You shared plans with me, ideas in a document. That was after our episode, wasn’t it?

Philip Correct. I wrote those ideas out more formally after that episode, yes.

Sean This is just like putting your hand to the plow — there’s no turning back.

Philip Yeah, things are happening. So like I said, stop us before it’s too late.

Sean Has that ever actually successfully happened in your life, where you had an idea you couldn’t shake and someone actually talked you out of it?

Philip I’ve had people slow me down, I guess.

Sean Okay.

Philip So that I’ve had to think more clearly, or come at it from a different angle.

Sean That’s not changing your mind.

Philip Right. It’s not so easy to change my mind. Especially by the time I’m talking to you about it, I’m usually already a little more set. But I’m not stubborn, so you can change my mind.

Sean I don’t know if I agree that you’re not stubborn, but —

Philip There you go. All right. For today’s episode, we want to discuss a topic we are very qualified to talk about, for a few different reasons.

Sean The topic is one we’re qualified for, for a few reasons? Or there are a few reasons why this is a good topic to talk about?

Philip Both. The episode is “Living With Your Wife in an Understanding Way,” from 1 Peter 3:7. And the reason we’re qualified is that we have wives that we live with. That puts some weight there.

Sean I’m not mad that you’re heading it up with a Bible verse, because that’s inspired and all. But it does seem like we could stir it up a little bit more with something like “Living With Your Wife While She’s Flipping Out.” Or “Living With Your Wife When She’s Freaking Out.” That’s more — living with your wife in an understanding way when she’s flipping out. Then what do you do?

Philip So, a little more specific context. Not just the days or weeks when things are calm, but when the anxiety pressure is steaming — and whether the reason for that anxiety is the husband, or other things going on that are related or unrelated to him.

Sean Yeah, because 1 Peter 3:7 probably assumes that everything isn’t going amazing. Just like all of verses one through six, which are instructions for how the wife is supposed to be handling her husband. And that is explicitly in the realm of “your husband is an unbeliever,” or he’s disobedient to the word — which may even mean he’s an unbeliever, because that would be disobedient to the word as well. So he’s not behaving like he’s supposed to. What is the wife supposed to do? She’s got instructions.

So “live with your wife in an understanding way” is probably not “she’s doing everything you can obviously understand, therefore live with her that way.” It probably assumes some sort of conflict or misunderstanding, some kind of confusion.

Philip Yeah, the context is just like you’re saying: there’s some sort of unreasonableness going on. This situation is unreasonable — how am I supposed to deal with this? And that’s where I said there are a couple of reasons for our qualification. One is that we have wives. Two is that I think both of us have succeeded in seasons of not being understanding.

Sean We have succeeded in living in times where we’re not obeying the verse.

Philip Exactly right. We have experienced disobedience and what that feels like. So we can empathize with those husbands. Those are the qualifications.

Sean So the third possible title is “Living With Your Wife With Great Empathy.”

Philip There you go.

Sean Something like that.

Philip But as to why it’s relevant — I gave you our qualifications, you give us why this topic is relevant. Why should we be talking about this?

Sean I mean, should we be?

Philip We are.

Sean Here we are. Well, even as those who not only have our own wives but are seeking to be blessed — because the end of 1 Peter 3:7 actually says that if you don’t live this way, your prayers are hindered. So it’s built into the verse. Presumably we want our prayers to be heard. We want our prayers to flow. And if we’re not behaving toward our wives in the right way, our prayers aren’t even going to be heard the same way, or make it through to our Heavenly Father. That’s a pretty big deal.

In addition to the fact that we do actually have a vision of fruitful and glad homes. Even in Colossians and in Ephesians, where the household codes are laid out, the spouse relationship is the one that’s always mentioned first. So whatever we’re teaching our kids, and however we’re trying to obey God’s word in terms of how we’re treating our kids, the husband-wife relationship is sort of the linchpin of the house. We’re probably not going to get our kids to do better than we’re treating our spouses.

Plus, as elders at a church — isn’t the number one counseling request related to marriage issues? That’s a hot button topic. So it definitely is brutal. You’ve mentioned, at least in general, having learned ideally from some failure, from not living understandingly with our wives before. That really doesn’t feel good. So it makes sense when other couples — or one of the spouses, at least — come looking for help, because it actually stinks to live out of fellowship with your wife, or with your husband. These are where we live.

Philip Yeah. And the other part too — as elders, as Christian brothers, even for our own households, we want there to be as much fruitfulness as God would allow, as God would have us: for our own houses, for people in our church, for our brothers and sisters. And I do think that fruitfulness is either limited or multiplied based on the condition of the house, based on the level and quality of fellowship the husband has with his wife.

If there is sound leadership and peace at home, it’s an environment where fruit can grow more and better. If there is constant strife and anxiety and avoidance of dealing with something that should be dealt with, that limits the fruit. So apart from even the peace — as we go out and do things, whether it’s in our work, whether we’re building something, whether we’re sowing or reaping — the relationship with our spouse and being on the same page really does affect our sowing, our reaping, and the quality of all of that.

Sean Yeah, it’s like even if we wouldn’t use the words, we’d sort of be saying, “It is good for man to be alone.” Or acting as if he’s alone, which is obviously the opposite of what God Himself told Adam. So we can live in a way that makes the point that we wish we were alone, or that it would be gooder to be alone — and that’s not what God says.

Philip Exactly right. So: your wife is in an emotional crisis. She’s freaking out, she’s flipping out. Does the reason matter? What happened? Does it matter if you’re the reason or if you’re not the reason? Is the husband’s approach different? What’s his mindset even going into a situation like that? What is he standing on?

Sean Well, our men are trying to be fixers or feelers — I just made up those categories. “Fixer” is a thing guys get made fun of for: they’re actually trying to solve a problem, maybe even too quickly. It’s said that ladies want to just be heard.

Philip It’s not about the nail.

Sean Right. They want to make sure that the relationship is solid and connected, and if the guy immediately moves into problem-solving mode, fixer mode, he can actually run over her.

But in terms of the actual question — does it matter what the reason is? I have a hard time coming up with a scenario where that doesn’t matter at all. Like, no, we are moving past what the cause is, we’re just going to address the symptoms.

How to go about trying to uncover the cause is probably going to require some patience, some willingness to ask questions and actually find out. Even living with your wife in an understanding way would include any particular day’s situation, as well as what her frame is. “Live with your wife in an understanding way” doesn’t mean you just know what her personality type is — though that can be helpful. I think it assumes understanding any given scenario she’s dealing with.

“Well, what’s wrong?” It’s immediately more difficult if you do care and you say “What’s wrong?” and she says, “I don’t want to talk about it.” That then requires a whole other level of logic gates: if this, then this; if this, then this. You can tell she’s upset. She doesn’t even want to talk about it. “Oh, okay, great” — and then you just go away. Too late for that.

Though I’m not convinced that has to lead into an immediate three-hour conversation, an all-night-long summit where everything gets dragged out as fast as you can, or however long it takes.

Philip Correct.

Sean But definitely I think you’d want to, as much as possible, try to get to the reason for what’s wrong.

Philip Right. I think the starting point — or even why the man cannot cede the ground, cannot abdicate — is that he’s responsible. God holds him responsible. He’s the one accountable for the condition of his household, for the condition of his wife, for her state and her actions. God is asking, and will ask, an answer of the man for how his wife is doing and why he didn’t do anything about it.

Starting from that position — I’m responsible for this — can for sure be twisted. Maybe you have the right starting point but you took it to the wrong conclusion. But that starting point is still critical. The man is responsible. He is not allowed to abdicate. He has nowhere to go.

So if there’s a problem to be dealt with — and in this case an emotional crisis, a wife freaking out, is something that needs to be fixed — how does he go about fixing that? Whether it’s playing the long game, where there’s more undercurrent that needs to be developed, or a short-term fix in a simpler situation, the man cannot just walk away. He is responsible. He starts there.

Sean Yeah. Even in the Ephesians 5 passage, with instructions to both husbands and wives, one of the comments it makes about the husband — in terms of why he is dying like Christ died for his bride — is explicitly the connection to nourish and cherish her as he would his own body. She is his own body.

And that means, if your hand was bleeding, if your wrist was squirting blood — well, that’s a pretty bad deal, but it’s part of you. So your wife is not actually something you can successfully ignore. She’s part of you, dude. You need to pay attention and see what needs to get fixed.

Philip Right. And I think that’s probably a big part of why husbands back away, abdicate, or even lash out in anger: because they don’t like being bothered at all, and in particular being bothered by an unreasonable woman, an unreasonable wife who is making his day more complicated or more difficult. He doesn’t like this mess. And so if it’s not an easy, simple solution, he’d rather just back out.

That abdicating, backing out, looks different in different men. It doesn’t always look like just leaving. It could look like getting angry — and again, you’re putting all of that on her instead of carrying that burden on her behalf. The way that’s done is by getting angry at her for being unreasonable, for not making it easy for you to live with her in an understanding way.

That type of responsibility the husband has as the head starts with him representing his wife before the Lord. He is her representative. He is her head. And that kind of representation means he stays connected with her. He cannot disconnect. It’s not “my problem and your problem” — this is all my problem. Before the Lord I represent you and I answer on your behalf to Him.

Maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but think about the way Moses represented the nation of Israel before the Lord. When God said, “I’m going to kill all of them and start a new nation from you,” Moses said, “Start with me” — meaning kill me first. And that was in the context of the Israelites throwing Moses under the bus, being tired of his leadership, and God coming in to stand in the way. Even then Moses stays connected with the people he’s representing.

So for the husband to be a qualified representative, he must stay connected with his wife, even in those moments of her being unreasonable, of her being difficult to understand. When he’s distancing himself, one of the ways that looks is anger — getting wrathful with her. That anger could be vocal and explicit, or it could cause him to get very quiet and back away. But either way, he is refusing in that moment to represent her, refusing to stay connected with her. He’s saying, “God, it’s me, and then it’s her. It’s not all me.”

Sean Obviously a big subject. A few things immediately come to my mind. Generally speaking, I do think more women are probably the chaos part of a relationship. Obviously sometimes that can be the guy. But usually the guy is more the order and the lady is more the chaos, and that actually can be a benefit to him. Even in the sense that if she’s having a super hard time with a thing, it may be helpful in terms of him actually paying attention to something that’s wrong.

That doesn’t mean she’s handling the wrong thing the right way. But bringing to his attention a thing that does actually need to be dealt with is valuable for him, because it’s all his stuff. Whether it’s her specifically, or a thing with a kid, or a thing with the house, or another kind of relationship with somebody else.

It’s sort of like leprosy — the wife is not being the leper in this illustration, just to be clear. Leprosy, where parts of a body would get rubbed off, is because the nervous system doesn’t work. A person with leprosy couldn’t feel the tips of their body, their skin. So they’d be trying to grab something and using way too much pressure, putting their fingers down onto the table to grab the screw or whatever it is. Over time they’d just rub off the external parts, or rub off parts of their arms or shoulders running into walls or doorways, because they couldn’t feel it.

The pain or the pressure that our nerve endings let us feel lets us know where we’re at. And if it’s a certain kind of pain — well, stop doing that. Quit putting your hand on the fire. That’s not good for you.

Guys aren’t always as good at picking up those signals as our ladies are. And a good wife, even if she’s having a hard time figuring out what to do with it, may be identifying that there’s a fire — and the guy needs to pay attention to that. So help her work through how to handle it. Put the fire out. But be thankful. There’s a way to be thankful even in a bunch of these situations: okay, this is good.

I think it requires some discipline to reframe some of the chaos that gets brought. If you’re a person who’s just trying to be quiet and get through the day and have it all be nice and ordered — well, then forget living with other people, and forget fellowship. If you don’t have anybody to interact with, sure, it’s a lot easier. But reframing it, some of the chaos is probably even valuable. Some of the identification of things that are on fire is good for the sake of making progress.

Philip Yeah. If the dashboard on your car is going off and all these signals are flashing, it doesn’t make any sense to get angry at the dashboard — “Why are you showing me all these signals? Stop showing this to me.” That is bringing things to your attention that you need to deal with. You’re the driver of that vehicle; you want to deal with these things.

And for sure it takes wisdom even to diagnose the problem. The dashboard signals most of the time don’t tell you what the actual problem is, just that there is a problem. Then you need to have somebody look at it to diagnose the issue and be able to fix it.

I think even what husbands would call the wife being unreasonable could sometimes be something like that, where the dashboard signal is going off but the wife cannot tell you what the problem is. She just knows there is some sort of problem. Those things are being shown, and it’s for you to be the driver, to put things in order and figure out what the issue is and what you need to solve.

Sometimes the issue could very much be with the wife’s spiritual condition, where her heart is at, where her soul is at. Sometimes the issue could be with the way the husband has been neglecting certain areas of his responsibility, or where the kids are, or certain external factors. But whatever it is, it’s for the husband to figure out and solve that problem — as opposed to just getting angry at the dashboard for giving him all these signals.

Sean Yeah. A woman is more complicated than a car.

Philip Right.

Sean And a car is pretty complicated.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean There’s a lot of things that can go wrong in a car that keep it from running well, or even stop it running altogether.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Lots of guys are better at organized maintenance on their car. They’re more tuned in to when their car is running low on oil than when their wife is running low on time or affection or things like that.

Philip Right.

Sean And for me, the biggest problem I bring to those situations — we’ve already used the word a bunch of times — is anger. That has been the boring kind of response. It’s boring to just be a person who gets angry at all the things you don’t like.

And there’s irony in anger. One of the most brutal things, in a good way, that my wife ever said to me — this was a long time ago, so I don’t actually remember what the presenting symptom was, but she was having a hard time with something and I was giving her pretty simplistic counsel to just get over it, to get her feelings in order. I was getting angry about how she was not having emotional self-control. And she said, “Well, why don’t you show me how to do it?”

I don’t think that probably helped in the moment. It didn’t immediately calm me down. But it is super true. For a bunch of guys — I’m trying to think, because not every guy is getting angry, but let’s start with the large number of guys for whom that is their default response.

Philip Right.

Sean Whatever the thing is — like you’re pointing out with the illustration of the dashboard — whatever is actually wrong, getting angry does not enable anybody to fix it better.

Philip Right.

Sean And since it’s a person, it’s actually going to make it worse. The husband’s lack of emotional self-control is just as unreasonable. This person you’re committed to, this person you made vows to, this person you supposedly love — you say that you love them. In a Christian context we’d assume that’s what the husband would say about his wife. So it is unreasonable to get super irritated with this person. There’s nothing spiritual about getting angry like that with this person. Our anger is as unreasonable a response as whatever we think is unreasonable coming from the other person.

And that anger is distancing. It increases a break in fellowship. It does damage to the other person by teaching them that this is how you’re going to respond when they bring you something you don’t like. And so then, potentially, they let the smoke build up even more. They let the problem get even bigger before bringing it to us next time.

Philip You’re telling the dashboard, “Don’t tell me when there’s a problem.”

Sean You’re making your point that you don’t want to be bothered.

Philip Right.

Sean You are increasing the lack of fellowship. You’re also being an example of being unreasonable in a different way. And it’s actually just straight-up disobedient.

In Colossians 3, I think anger is the first thing mentioned in what you’re supposed to put off. Then the next paragraph is the put-on — Colossians 3, starting in verse 12 — putting on forbearance and patience and forgiveness, putting on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. These are probably relationships in the church, but it sets up the instructions in the house too. So, not disconnected.

But back to the put-off. The first one is anger. Obviously, the put-on/put-off is a clothing analogy. It’s like you take the anger jacket off and you set it on the chair, and then three minutes later you’re like, “Wait a second, how’d this jacket get back on?” It’s almost like the jacket is personified and it’s chasing you around. What’s the — is it Doctor Strange?

Philip Oh yeah, with his cape.

Sean Yeah, the cloak or whatever, where it’s got a mind of its own and it keeps trying to attach itself to you. I have thought that way about anger: “Well, how’d this anger get back on me?”

Philip Right.

Sean And so, consciously, the command is: put it off.

Philip Right.

Sean You notice it’s on — get rid of it. So being angry is just straight up not Christian.

Philip Well, and there are different manifestations of anger. Some guys, when they’re angry, are very loud and vocal, and it’s very obvious. But a lot of times anger is just quiet distancing. It’s even closer to irritability. I hate this situation, so I’m just not going to be involved. I’m not going to talk to you. I’m not going to talk about this topic. I’m distancing myself from you. And it’s this ongoing distance that builds up.

When anger is vocal or obvious, you know that it’s there. But when it’s quiet, it’s just as deadly. It’s just as dangerous. It still is the man being angry. He is unhappy. He is disconnecting, removing himself from that situation, from that person.

Sean Yeah, I don’t know sign language, but I am very capable of successfully communicating without words how ticked off I am.

Philip Right.

Sean That’s not a good thing. That’s not a virtue.

Philip Right.

Sean That is a thing that needs to keep getting put off. Put it off. Get rid of anger. Anger is not making anything better.

I suppose there are other guys who are just pushovers.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean I feel like I know fewer of those kinds of guys, at least in our context. But there are the guys who feel like they have a backbone but they’re just mad, and then there are guys who never actually hold any kind of line whatsoever — which is a different kind of abdication.

Philip Right. There’s a certain kind of fear a man can have. I think it’s still rooted in not wanting to be bothered — or maybe even fear of his own lack of competence in knowing how to deal with the situation. The wife is clearly in sin, and the husband refuses to address it because every time he’s tried before, it hasn’t worked. He’s failed. So in some sense he’s even scared of his wife in that way, scared to deal with this and fail and exacerbate the problem, make it worse. So his abdication could be motivated by anger, but there’s also abdication that is motivated by fear — by being scared.

Sean So have we provided any actual practical hacks or tips or steps?

Philip We just said that it’s hard.

Sean Yeah. We said that it’s hard. But I do think it is really valuable to at least try to not make it worse.

Philip Right.

Sean Okay, maybe I won’t know exactly how to solve whatever is wrong in this particular situation, but at least I didn’t make it worse.

Philip Right.

Sean I didn’t dig the hole further. I didn’t add a new sin or a new thing for her to be upset about in terms of my response.

Philip Yeah. But, Sean, you don’t understand my wife. You have not had to live with her. You don’t know what I’m going through.

And this is why I gave the qualifications. This August will be our fourteenth anniversary. You guys have been married for how long?

Sean I think this is twenty-eight.

Philip Twenty-eight. There you go. Double. So yes, I have had experience where it has been difficult to be understanding. I know that sort of pressure, what that feels like. And I’ve seen myself fail in it.

Sean Have you heard the story about the Jonathan Edwards book — the Sarah Edwards book?

Philip I think I know what you’re going to say.

Sean There’s a biography of Sarah Edwards called Marriage to a Difficult Man. I think I bought it for Mo. And it turns out — I hadn’t read it — it turns out “difficult” in that sense meant genius. So: how to be married to a genius.

Philip There you go.

Sean That is not the problem that we have, her being married to a genius. It’s more the straight-up usual way we think of being married to a difficult man.

Philip Right. And I do think that however difficult it is, however much freaking out or flipping out or emotional crisis your wife is in, it is possible for the man to have self-control and not get angry, to not join in that crisis, to not put logs on that fire. That is possible to do, and it is the Lord’s command. So yes, it’s difficult. I get it. And it doesn’t really matter. That is what you must do.

Sean Yeah, and you’ve got to do it for however many rounds she pushes back.

Philip Right.

Sean I know when I first started trying to follow this kind of counsel for myself, I made it through the first batch of conflict. But then on her tenth comment back, I couldn’t take it anymore. So it just became an issue of her figuring out how long it was going to take before I got mad. “I knew you didn’t mean it.” Not an if.

Is it better to try and fail? Yeah. But you actually have to keep it the whole way through. You’ve got to not get angry at any point. That is the goal. It is possible — in fact, by God’s Spirit it’s the only way it’s possible.

Philip Right.

Sean But it is necessary. And that is what builds the sort of context and platform where she feels comfortable to tell you how bad it is, instead of sort of playing around the door to see if she’s welcome.

Philip Right.

Sean “No, I am not going to freak out. Go ahead and help me by telling me as best as you can what’s wrong.” But if she learns that if she’s too clear then you just get mad faster — well, then why would she want to tell you?

Philip For sure. It’s very likely that her approach is wrong. She’s nagging; she’s in sin in the situation too. Her approach should be different, should be better, more mature, more godly. And the way you work toward that is not by you being less godly, not by you being less mature. So start with your own response first.

Then I do think it’s possible to distinguish and separate the sin. Let’s say the husband starts the situation sinless — he has not yet lost control, and the wife already has. Then on round three, he loses it and he gets angry. Well, you’ve added sin. The next step is for you to deal with your sin first. The last thing that got landed on the pile was your anger, so take that thing off first. Confess and repent of that.

A lot of times when the husband confesses that sin — or realizes that he’s in sin — he might feel like he has completely lost his platform to address her sin. “So now the whole conversation is over. I ended the conversation by acknowledging my sin and we didn’t even deal with the problem that started this whole thing.” Well, then be able to come back to the problem. That’s what I mean by holding it in different hands: okay, I added my sin, let me take that off, and now let me come back and talk about it again. Maybe not the same day, maybe the next day, whatever that is. But if this is a situation that needs to get resolved further, continue patiently pressing the issue — again, without the sin.

And when you do sin, that’s not game over for the husband. You can address it. A lot of times your confession and repentance is even platform-building. It builds up your own platform. And then God is still holding you responsible to continue pressing and continue working on it.

Sean Yeah. This is how we deal with things we don’t like — here’s the example. And this is how we deal with things when we’ve sinned handling things that we didn’t like. So both are actually opportunities, if you can be filled with the Spirit the whole time. Okay, we don’t like how things are happening, but this is how we trust God in the middle of it.

So the husband — even if the thing he doesn’t like is how his wife is acting — is showing her how to handle what he doesn’t like, just like he wants her to learn how to handle things that she doesn’t like. But like you said, if there is sin involved, okay, we confess that and we get that right, because that one is at least clear. Let’s deal with the clear things on our way to figuring out the things that aren’t clear.

Because if it’s a chronic physical problem, or a long-standing relational tension with a mother-in-law or a father-in-law or some other person in the church — well, these things might not get resolved overnight. But how are we trusting God in the middle of that, while still looking for Him to keep fixing things? That’s actually hard. But you can at least be trying to do it together in fellowship, as opposed to the spouses being at each other’s throats while there’s something else that’s wrong.

Philip Exactly right. And loving a woman into loveliness is messy work. You do have to get into the problem and stay in the problem and hold the tension as it needs to be held. If a husband approaches that with a quick-fix mindset, most of the time it backfires. “I’m just going to say the right thing right now and it’s all going to get resolved. And if it doesn’t get resolved, it’s on her.” That doesn’t work.

Sean Yeah, a formula is not a relationship. And a formula is not going to be as effective. That’s one thing.

Love bestows loveliness. It requires the understanding that love itself is potent, that love is effective, that love isn’t simply a response. It’s also not just behavior. I do think love includes the affections, some emotional feeling piece to it, even though it can’t remain just a feeling. It needs to be visible in other ways as well — whether that’s words chosen, or tone used, or actual behavior, gifts, things like that.

But that love is potent. Thinking about God’s love for us: His love overcomes our hostility and our rebellion toward Him and makes us humble, makes us lovers of Him. And this is the example. So it’s not just that we’re making sacrifices; it’s that that sacrificial love, because of how God made the universe to work, is actually effective to bring about good for that other person.

So in terms of “don’t make it worse, don’t get angry” — generally speaking, what can you do that you can trust is going to help? Actually love the person you’re talking to. Actually love your wife.

Then I’d say the second positive thing is: actually know what you’re talking about. And that sounds really simple. I think of it as connected to living with your wife in an understanding way. At least in my own understanding: know what it is you’ve been asking her to do. Know what her task list is. Know what the things are that, as a household, she’s responsible for in terms of what’s been delegated.

And it’s not just knowing what time of the month it is. It’s also knowing what time of the day it is. My wife has some chronic physical problems. Some of them have names; some are more obtuse, harder to pinpoint. But I definitely know that if she’s been out all day doing particular things, her fuel tank has been used up. I can’t continue to expect her to drive when her tank is empty. And that’s not just in my love for her, though that can help fill up the tank — it’s her own physical energy. She only has so many energy dollars that she can spend. I’ve actually got to know what her energy dollars are for the day, and I’ve got to have a good understanding of how many she’s starting with on any given day. Then by the end of the day I can continue to help triage: well, you’re not going to be able to do this, we’re going to have to throw this overboard.

So I’ve actually got to know what I’m talking about when I’m responding to her concerns, or when I’m helping her decide what to cut out and what to keep. If she can’t trust that I know — if every time I’m just like, “Well, just quit trying to do that” — that sounds like me distancing myself and not participating. That’s not actually an answer to the question. That’s just me running away from dealing with the problem. I don’t want to give her that sort of expectation. But that means I have to be paying attention, and I have to learn what the things are that we’re trying to accomplish.

I don’t know if I’ve said this in a previous episode of the All Are Yours podcast, but one of the hardest things in premarital counseling that I try to get guys to understand is: if their wife is in a car accident and becomes a quadriplegic, whose responsibility is all of the things? It’s amazing. If your wife is healthy and happy and all that she can get done — give thanks to God for that. But if she’s in an accident, and now you also have to take care of her, and you’ve got to shop and cook the dinners and give the kids their baths and pay the bills and go to work so you can make a paycheck to pay the bills — there’s actually a lot that our wives are doing. There are a lot of stresses they’re going through on our behalf. They took our name. If it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t be trying to do most of the things they’re doing. So we can be thankful for that.

And we need to know what we’re talking about — for her specifically, but also for whatever is happening in the household — so that we actually can lead well, as opposed to leading in a way that’s just trying to make no more problems. That’s not going to happen. That is unreasonable. Again, it comes back to some very basic principles for what the guy can make sure he doesn’t mess up to start with, let alone trying to fix the particular symptom of that moment or that day.

Philip Right. I also find the analogy of being a business owner helpful. When I hire people to help me in this work, a bad business owner hires in a way that abdicates — he throws the responsibility onto the employee and is negligent even in what he’s demanding of that person. Versus: this employee came in to help me build my business. I’m asking him to help represent my business’s reputation to the customers, to help create a certain kind of product for the customers, to build up the name of my business. My whole approach ought to start there.

In a similar way at home, if I’m the owner, if I am the ruler — well, a poor ruler, a tyrant, is one who refuses to understand what he’s demanding, or who demands rather than requesting help, inviting help. “Hey, this is what I’m trying to do. Would you be willing to come alongside? Would you help me in this?” It’s a whole different approach.

All of this I own. All of this I’m responsible for. And I have invited my wife to help me in this endeavor, in this mission, in this project of what we’re trying to build. All of her work, her co-laboring, is her giving of herself to help in this endeavor. I ought to understand that and have that approach, as opposed to a demanding approach of “you’re not carrying your weight” or “you’re not doing what you need to be doing.”

Sean So, out of thankfulness, being able to point the way forward. “I’m thankful for your concerns. I’m thankful for all the work you got done today, even while this piece is super difficult. I’m thankful for that. Let’s see if we can, in fellowship, figure out how to either fix it or make it more fruitful.”

And genuinely wanting fellowship, as opposed to wanting to just be right. Fellowship has to be in truth — there is no genuine fellowship apart from truth. But at the same time, it’s easy to want to get to what is true in order to be appreciated or seen as right, rather than on the way toward actually being in fellowship.

These are things we know. Jesus said if you pray according to His Father’s will, He hears you and He’ll give it. Well, not being angry is God’s revealed will. Loving — and especially husbands loving their wives — we know that is God’s revealed will. Being in fellowship, this is God’s will in truth. So we should have lots of confidence in praying that God would help us do these more basic things.

This is a significant platform: I’m not going to get mad at you. I love you. I want to be in fellowship with you. I’m thankful for you. We’re in this together on behalf of fruitfulness. If those things are all happening, then the freaking-out times are going to be shorter. They’ll be easier to absorb, and there’ll be a faster pathway back to joy — rather than everything hanging on fixing the particular thing that’s wrong, whatever the pain point is that’s causing the anxiety or the freaking out at that moment.

It sounds good, but I do actually think it’s possible. Again, because God is our God, and because I have learned from repentance. And it’s way better. It is better.

Thinking of young couples who are trying to figure out how they work together: it is possible to mature in joy, not to mature in just getting really good at fighting. Actually fight less. You can talk about hard things. You can do it in fellowship. It is possible, and it is difficult. It’s possible.

Philip Yeah. And there’s a sense in which the man ruling, or leading, or owning the household, owning the situation, is not doable when his emotions are fused with hers — where his emotional condition is dependent on her emotional condition.

You say “love your wife, actually love your wife.” I think a big part of love is to give: to give of yourself, of your strength, your time, your knowledge, your protection. The husband loves by giving, giving himself sacrificially and cheerfully. But to give is not the same thing as to take. It’s not the same thing as to demand. You cannot love your wife if you are trying to take from her — even to take your own stability from her. “You are making my life more difficult.” That is you trying to take something from her. That is you not giving. So love your wife by giving of yourself for her good.

That does set up a certain kind of sanctified independence. It’s not good for man to be alone, yes. But for him to be able to lead, he stands apart in that way — he is, like Edwin Friedman talks about, differentiated. He’s not fused with her emotional condition. If he is, he’s unable to help her. But if he’s keeping his eyes on the Lord and walking according to God’s standard for his own life, then he is able to give to his wife. He’s able to give her what she needs in those times when she is flipping out, when she is being unreasonable.

Sean Yeah — giving her that, and not being a pushover. If, like you said, and it’s a big if, he is not sinning, he should not be a domino that gets pushed over by her. If her domino is falling, for whatever reason, and he is not sinning, he should not just be pushed over by that. He should be able to keep her domino from falling the whole way over, and help her domino get back up in place. That is giving.

It doesn’t necessarily happen in sixty seconds. Maybe it takes listening and time to talk through it. But he needs to hold on to his own self-control, and not be like a city broken down, whose walls are easily breached because somebody comes in ranting and raving.

Philip Right. And again, not looking for that quick fix. There’s the immediate situation right in front of us, the thing that came up, and we’re dealing with that. But then there’s also the underlying tone and current of the relationship, and the level of trust that’s either lacking or being built up. If the fuses are short, the trust is short.

You cannot develop robust, sturdy trust in a relationship from just one issue, from just one conversation. How this conversation or this issue is dealt with adds to or detracts from that trust. But years and years of working through things and building up that trust is what enables the relationship to be more sturdy and robust, so that when other things come up, they’re dealt with much quicker and easier.

By God’s grace, my wife and I are able to deal with things a lot more simply now. Or maybe things don’t blow up into big situations the way they would have ten years ago. Because there’s a certain level of loving one another, trusting one another, giving each other the benefit of the doubt, not assuming motives, asking questions in a certain way. We’re not walking on eggshells with each other, but there’s more mutual understanding that gets built up over time.

So it’s not a quick-fix solution to just this one issue. It’s nurturing and tending and keeping the soil so it’s able to grow and sprout good fruit — and when a weed comes up, it gets taken out quickly and doesn’t take over the whole thing. But that takes time, and it takes patient, consistent perseverance, which I do think must start with the husband. He needs to hold that line, to continue moving and to not let anger or fear or laziness get in the way of building this up. If he wants to be fruitful, if he wants his household to be prosperous and fruitful, this relationship does matter. And he needs to put in the time and the effort of self-control that it demands to make it real.

Sean Yeah. We’re emphasizing husbands in this particular episode’s angle. Though 1 Peter 3:1–6 does give hope that if the husband is an idiot, the wife’s nerve, the wife’s differentiation, the wife’s respect bestowing respectability, by God’s grace is also doable.

So again, we’re emphasizing that the man is the head, and ultimately it is his responsibility, and we do totally think that he should go first. That said, if a lady is listening to this whose husband is not even a Christian, or is being disobedient — well, not only should she probably get help and support from pastors or whoever it might be, but still, her obedience will be blessed as well.

Somebody has to go first in not freaking out and getting angry. It should be the guy. But if for whatever reason it is not, that doesn’t give the wife freedom to go off the rails herself just because the guy isn’t doing it.

Philip Right. There you go. All right. Well, we have solved everybody’s problems. All the marriages are going to be excellent after this.

Sean I mean, I’m not freaking out about it.

Philip That’s right. We’re playing the long game.

Sean Yeah.

Philip We can be patient. But there you have it. So: All Are Yours — living with your wife when she’s freaking out. Boom.