Growthtrac Community

[j3anjean]

My husband and I took our boys to a theme park yesterday. We were waiting in the line to pay for parking. My husband pointed to a van that had a really negative bumper sticker. It said, "All men are idiots and I married their king." My husband said, "She's probably divorced.' I don't know why but this stuck in my head all day. I wondered if a woman was driving, we didn't catch up to see. What a horrible attitude! How unbelievably sad. I never saw the person in the van. If she isn't divorced-if it was the "idiot" husband driving-can you imagine the disrespect he must feel every day?

We live in a world that takes the way things should be and mocks it and perverts it and turns it into some crappy bumper sticker joke. I know there have been times, when angry, that I have treated my husband poorly. I am ashamed to say that there were times early on in our marriage that I treated him like he wasn't very smart-and I have been disrespectful. In our early years I developed a horrible habit of making snide remarks about him to my coworkers. We, a group of women, would try to compete with the worst "Guess what my husband did.." stories. God really convicted me on that one. I'm horribly ashamed of the things I said at that period in my life. For the past few years I have made it a point to look for things to admire to in him and qualities I respect. I am amazed at how easy it is to find exactly what I am looking for. He is a my sweetheart and my best friend and I am honored to be his wife.

I don't know why I put this on the boards today-like I said, that sticker just rubbed me wrong. It's the poor attempt in comedy we hear on TV and in movies and in our homes. It is everywhere and it is pathetic.

[km]

It seems that one of the very last groups it is permissible to attack full force is men (particularly white Christian men).

Imagine the same sticker with a shot like that against women. Or blacks. Or Hispanics. Or Muslims.

Most of the men I know are fed up with the crap that is not only tolerated but encouraged in the way of slamming men (look at pretty much every sit-com on TV).

We see that the university system is approaching a 60/40 female/male split. I think that a lot of young men, after being subjected to the anti-male system of the public schools, are opting out of a system that expresses such inherent contempt for them. Our daughters/granddaughters are going to have even greater difficulty finding decent men to wed.

[FaithHopeJoy]

Dear Jeannie

Your post really struck me today. The problems/challenges my H and I are going through in this season of our marriage have a lot to do with respect and ambition. Not enough of one and too much of the other!

We are all being bombarded by influences that are far from Christ-like - on TV, on billboards, on bumper stickers, in unsolicited emails. I fell for the 'lie' that it's possible to 'have it all'. God is showing me in a number of painful ways that I have paid a heavy price for trying to combine a high-flying career with marriage and motherhood. I did not have my priorities right. I see that clearly now.

When I was offered a CEO post in my late 20s (with 2 pre-school children), my H said 'go for it', my parents said 'you're amazing' and my sisters said 'this proves that women can do anything that men can do'. A quiet voice in the background, my MIL, said "are you sure this is the right thing to do?" I remember feeling insulted that she was questioning something that felt so right to me AND, apparently, to her son (my H). How wise she was, with hindsight.

20 years on, with a grown family and a career track record, I have come to see how much my dear H felt marginalised as my priorities got mixed up. I have loved him throughout (and still do) but I went through a phase where I was not in submission to him. For 20+ years of our marriage, everything seemed near 'perfect' - we were close, connected, communicative ....... then I noticed a change in his demeanour. He was starting to withdraw. I discovered why. He had found in his co-worker what he missed from me - someone who was reliant on him, deferred to him in everything and overtly showed admiration for him. Their affair started in April 06. And it isn't over - my H's heart is still full of the OW even if their physical contact has stopped.

Strange as it sounds, and painful as it's been, I thank God for bringing me to my knees - for creating the circumstances that stopped me in my tracks, shocked me to the core - but re-ordered my life so that my priorities are now:

God
Husband
Family
career

If it's God's will, I have learned this lesson before it's too late. I do believe that all things will work together for good, because my H and I both love the Lord - but I also acknowledge that God's purpose for our lives will unfold in His time and in His way.

I looked around the office today and tears filled my eyes as I counted the number of women who have successful careers but failed marriages. It was another reminder that marriage is precious - and fragile - and hard work.

As Shaunti Feldhahn noted in her research for the book For Women Only, "Most men said they would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected."

I went for years thinking that love should be unconditional in marriage but respect needed to be earned. I'm probably not alone! The bumper sticker you saw, and the situations described by km, are examples of the same mistaken attitude, aren't they?

FHJ

[charity1]

FHJ,
I can really relate to what you are saying. Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if I hadn't been pulled in so many directions too. I, like you, am thankful for the lessons I have learned through my ordeal, but your post sounds like you may be blaming yourself for your husband's affair, and you really shouldn't. No matter what, adultery wasn't the solution. If he felt neglected, he should have told you. Don't blame yourself for his spiritual weakness. Only he and God can fix that. Since you have been married a long time, like I have, I really believe our husbands just got bored and started feeling old. I have analyzed mine and my husband's situation to death, and have come to the conclusion that there was nothing I could have done to stop what happened. I actually tried to stop it before it started but couldn't. He was at a point in his life where he was very low and needed something new and exciting to bring him up. The ironic part is that that same ego high brought him lower mentally and spiritually than he has ever been. God has brought us both closer to Him through all of this, so obviously good has come from bad just like God's word promises, but my point is, yes, you could have done things better, but so could he. It is ok to improve yourself, but don't take the blame for your husband's sin. It was not your fault.

[j3anjean]

Absolutely! I am well aware of the "man-bashing" that goes on around me. It repulses me now. It almost seems permissable in today's society. Watch ANY sitcom. Pick up any magazine. I think we tell ourselves that it is all in fun but it is immoral and wrong.

Km, you are right, we would not allow this bashing in any other group. I have heard this before and I don't know who said it,

Great nations are not destroyed by outside forces. They crumble from within.

The disintigration of the family unit is destroying our nation. The Lord calls wives to respect their husbands FOR A REASON.

FHJ, I know you are a woman who is following God's direction in your marriage. That wake up call makes you wish you could just roll back the clock and start over, doesn't it? I am praying for you. Hang in there.

When my husband and I lived in FL I had my career and my life and he had his. I was money motivated and ambitious. I was stressed and angry most of the time. That anger filtered down to my husband and my children. My job got the best of me. My family only got what was left over at the end of the day. I was recently offered a promotion at work and I turned it down. I think I would have become all stressed out and I would lose track of my priorities. I'm not willing to do that again.

[km]

charity1 noted - as to her situation - "He was at a point in his life where he was very low and needed something new and exciting to bring him up". I cannot say that this was not what happened in her situation (I don't have any doubt that it was in her particular case) - but I have to disagree that this is the norm per se.

Do some men need "variety" so as to have to cheat? Yes, a small percentage do.

Do all men like "variety"? Yes, but the majority could be perfectly satisfied with the 'variety' that is possible within monogamy - if the marriage is truely good and fully healthy in all respects. Men and women both share the responsibilty for making their marriages truely good and fully healthy in all respects. A marriage only gets there if both partners fully commit to it - and it takes difficult compromises for both amn and woman to get there (and these are generally NOT the compromises we expect or want to make).

Even in the pretty good marriages I see around me, most of the men complain that they are far from the (entirely monogamous) variety they crave (no doubt due to the fault of both, and I believe most of them acknowledge shared fault on that).

The break up of many marriages comes when the man has a dramatic moral failure, and his wife often has the outward appearance of blamelessness. But what I have seen among the men around me is that the marriage was long term choked off by the actions of BOTH spouses - it is simply that the men reacted at the cracking point by an obvious overt outward display of misbehavior, whereas the woman tended to shrink inward with no overtly bad behavior.

Men tend to break with outward action - women tend to break inward.

[j3anjean]

Men tend to break with outward action - women tend to break inward.

I've never heard it put that way but it is incredibly insightful. Women, at least the ones I know, collapse inwardly. If that goes unnoticed then they tend to act out but the outward expression of moral failure comes later. It is true in my case. My husband and I were not Christians and we were living pretty far off the path. We were run down by the day to day stresses of a young marriage and children and work. I got depressed. He told me to suck it up. I got angry and bitter. He disconnected and shut down. I started drinking. He had an affair. I started using drugs. He had 2 more affairs. We were counter attacking one another with everything we had. I wanted his attention so badly. I was destroying myself to get it. Every self destructive step I took -he would take a step further away from me. I knew the women he was with and knew they were "damsels in distress" who made him feel needed and loved. I was just "doing it wrong."

God was what turned me around. It took a while but we are finally in a marriage where we lift eachother up and don't see who can hurt the other one worse. It takes a lot of compromise and a lot of forgiveness.

[km]

j3anjean - Thank you for illustrating the point I was trying to make. You laid out a pattern I have seen over and over.

In your situation, your husband would likely get all of the condemnation while you would get great sympathy. But you were both simply living out the respective paths that commonly play out for men and women in unhealthy marriages.

[rdsmith3]

This is a huge generalization, which is dangerous, but in our society it seems as if it is assumed that men are either idiots or evil perpetrators, and women are victims either way. We are either Al Bundy (from the sitcom) or Ted Bundy (the serial killer), or a little of both.

Of course there are some foolish men, and there are men who are abusive and violent against women, but we're not all that way. The stereotypes persist.

I really appreciate that not all women see men in that light.

[rdsmith3]

As Shaunti Feldhahn noted in her research for the book For Women Only, "Most men said they would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected."

I think I heard something like that in Eggerich's "Love and Respect" seminar.

Hmmmm ... what if I am dealing with all four at the same time?

[charity1]

km wrote:

Do all men like "variety"? Yes, but the majority could be perfectly satisfied with the 'variety' that is possible within monogamy - if the marriage is truely good and fully healthy in all respects.

First off, I didn't mean to insinuate that it was "variety" my husband needed. I believe he needed to feel desirable and young again. I don't think he was looking for an affair, I think he was just overwhelmed by the flattery and admiration of a younger woman at a time in his life when he was very vulnerable. Plus, as Jeannie mentioned, she was a "damsel in distress," so he felt like her knight in shining armor. Personally I believe any man or woman can be tempted by flattery and admiration from a member of the opposite sex if they aren't very careful and don't have strict boundaries in place, even in a "good" marriage. I see the "damsel in distress" as a very big temptation for a man. Unfortunately being married doesn't take attraction for members of the opposite sex away. That attraction just has to be kept in check and not given into. That is why I refer to someone that has an affair as having a spiritual problem. The Bible couldn't be any clearer on the subject.

Secondly, is a marriage ever "truly good and fully healthy in all respects"? I thought my husband and I had a good marriage, and when I asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 how he would have rated our marriage before the affair, he said an 8 or 9. He wasn't unhappy. Yes, there were things we have discussed since the affair that we have improved upon, but none of them warranted an affair. Even now, as hard as my husband and I both are trying to make a "great" marriage, we still misread each other sometimes. Men and women are just different in their thinking and the way they react to things. Unless we are both communicating very well, there can easily be misunderstandings. It is so easy for us to think our spouse should "know" what we want or what we need, or what they have done to upset us, when in reality, they may not have a clue. If we don't express it, how can it get better? I have said before, and I'll say again good communication is the key in a marriage for both men and women. If that shuts down, everything starts going to pot. We start holding things in and then the resentment and acting out starts.

[km]

charity1 - A long time back I would have said my marriage was about an 8, comparing to what I saw as the ones around us. Later I got to see some that really were 9 or 10 on the scale. It made me re-evaluate where we were (probably no more than 6 at best).

Communication is the key indeed - very few couples do this well.

[Joblom1]

Hi I appreciate the comments about why women think their hus have an affair. Guess I am still waiting for him to tell me why? I have some guesses, but I want him to share with me. When I have asked, he tells me he does not know why? I keeep praying for answers Jo-jo

[charity1]

Joblom1,
I have been waiting a long time for that too, and my husband still says he doesn't know. I am beginning to finally believe that. That's why I said I believe flattery and admiration got to him. I watched it in progress, and I know at the time he was stressing about turning 50. Also his mom died, which from everything I have read about men, these are two big risk factors. I know it doesn't happen to every midlife man, but apparently it happens to a lot of them. When I found out about the affair, I asked him if he loved her, and he said his mind told him he did, but deep down he knew he didn't. I asked if he thought he just loved the way she made him feel about himself, and he said he guessed so. I'm sure it would be very hard to admit you were a sucker, although he has said he was stupid, an idiot and played for a fool. Those terms work for me!! That's pretty much what Proverbs chapters 5 through 7 say. There can be no real reason it happened, only excuses. Thankfully he has never tried to defend himself in any way. He takes full responsibility although now he does see her part it in as well. At first he acted like he didn't. She had him believing she was just a victim of circumstances. She had her husband believing that as well. Her husband was blaming everything on my husband, but I reminded him that there wasn't an innocent party in a year long affair. HELLO!!

[km]

charity1 - There was a great line I recall seeing (but can't recall who said it): Every happy family is the same, and every unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way. There's a lot of wisdom there, and generalizing is difficult.

From what I have seen (I've been around a number of broken marriages and men having affairs - but no personal experience with it myself), the guys who don't know how it happened are the ones that one has a real chance of reconciling with. They usually fell into it because things were not right at home (and they probably couldn't have given a real good explanation of how they were wrong) and they ended up in a situation where someone else appeared to offer the respect/attention/affirmation/affection that they weren't getting out of the marriage (and they shared responsibility for that situation to a greater or lesser degree). The guys who set out to have affairs are the ones who usually don't have successful reconciliations.