Accept Him For Who He is

Have you ever been unpleasantly surprised by your husband’s response to you in a way you didn’t expect? You may have said something innocently, yet he responded with irritation or even anger.

When something like that happens, it’s usually a misunderstanding, but let me help you understand the misunderstanding! Your husband has feelings. Even if you didn’t intend to hurt him, he probably reacted in anger because his feelings were hurt by something you said or the way you said it. More often than not, the hurt feelings came because he felt put down and unaccepted by you.

Your husband wants to be accepted as he is, just like you do. When he reacts in an angry way, just know that he didn’t just start feeling unaccepted right then. Usually those feelings have been building up — then the “bomb” suddenly exploded! You just happened to say something at that moment that flipped the switch.

Maybe your husband feels you don’t think he can do anything right or that you’re trying to change him. If he’s thinking that way, he feels in his heart that deep down, you don’t think he’s good enough.

I know this from personal experience. There was a time in our marriage when I was hurting Rick’s feelings regularly and didn’t even know it! In fact, I didn’t even know he had feelings! He was so strong and such a great leader that I thought I was the one with the up-and-down emotions while he was the rock that never moved. But I was wrong.

 Let me assure you, your husband has feelings, and they are just as strong as yours. He may express them differently, but he feels things just as deeply as you do.

Don’t Violate His Trust in You

A husband looks for a secure, safe place in his wife. Proverbs 31:11 (KJV) describes this place: “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her….” This is not a complaining place on our part, nor a criticizing place. It’s not a place he wants to run from, but rather a place he wants to run to. Your husband needs you to be a friend to him who is supportive and kind — a person he can go to and know that you are on his side.

But when you try to change your husband, he does not feel safe and secure. In fact, when you try to change him, he will likely respond with resistance, resentment, and even anger. Why? Because you’re presenting an attitude that something he’s doing or not doing isn’t good enough, and your actions and words are translated to him as, I don’t approve of you. That lack of approval and affirmation causes him to withdraw from you. It’s a vicious cycle if he withdraws and you keep pushing for change, because the more you push, the more closed he will become to you.

Trying to change others is fruitless because we don’t have the power to change anyone! So why waste our valuable time and energy trying to change others, often damaging precious relationships? Only God can change people, so it would be wise for us as a wife to spend our time talking to Him about our needs and desires — and about how we may need to change — instead of trying to change our husband.

Show Respect Through Acceptance

Our responsibility is not to try to control or change our husband, but to be a friend to him. All of this is a part of showing respect and accepting him as he is. In Chapter Three, we looked at three primary aspects of respecting our husband: 1) humbling ourselves and being willing to see our own faults; 2) accepting him just as he is; and 3) appreciating and admiring him as leader of the home. We looked in-depth at appreciating our husbands as leaders in the home. Now I want to address this topic of acceptance because it’s such a big part of showing respect.

 Accept your husband as he is. It’s easy to say those words, but actually doing them on a daily basis is not so easy. For one thing, your husband is very different from you. The two of you probably think very differently. When you look at his faults, they might look very disturbing to you. You might even say to yourself, How can he do that? I would never do that. However, accepting your husband as he is will have a very powerful positive effect on your marriage. Accepting your husband just the way he is, without one change, gives him the freedom to hear God’s voice rather than yours. (We need to hear God’s voice above all others; He is the only One who can bring change in our lives.) When you show your husband acceptance, you also give him the freedom to rest in your love for him — and to show more love to you — without concern that you disapprove of him.

What I’m sharing can be hard to see for some women, so let me illustrate this point with an exaggerated, made-up story about how criticism and lack of acceptance makes people feel. As I said, your husband has feelings just like you do — and just like your friends, coworkers, and other family members do. All those other people in your life don’t want to feel criticized and unaccepted by you — and neither does your husband!

 Consider the following scene. You invite a new friend out for lunch, and she accepts your invitation. At lunch, you say to your friend, “I’m so happy we could get together today.” As you’re sitting there in the restaurant, you notice the “good” and the “bad” of your friend’s appearance: her cute blouse, her outdated accessories, her well-manicured nails, her wrong color of lipstick, her perfect shade of blush, her overdone eye makeup, her beautiful hair color, and her hairstyle that hides her face rather than bringing out her natural beauty.

 And you’ve done all that in a matter of seconds!

 Then what if you said to your friend, “I’m so glad we could get together today…hey, I know a great place where you could get a complete makeover!”

Your new friend looks at you, stunned. Breaking the awkward silence, you quickly add, “I just think if you really saw your potential, you would want to change a few things to maximize that potential and be even more beautiful than you already are. I say this because I care.”

You already made your checklist of what you like and don’t like about your friend’s appearance, and now she knows it. Meanwhile, you stand completely ready to help her implement the life changes that you’re just certain she needs to make!

The next time you called this person, she would probably not want to get together with you or pursue a friendship with you at all. Why? She’d feel that your acceptance of her is conditional and that you’re bent on changing her appearance as a condition of continuing a meaningful relationship with her. And she’d probably be right!

 Of course, I’m using this far-fetched scenario to make a point. Most of us would never do something this drastic. Yet many of us do the same kind of thing to our husband. We think, I want him to love me and open his heart to me. I want him to be patient with me. I want him to bring me flowers and say nice things to me. But in the back of our mind, we’re working on our checklist:

 • He doesn’t go to church.

• He doesn’t talk to me right.

• He doesn’t read his Bible.

• I can’t stand the way he eats.

• He’s failing my expectations here and here and here!

We want a wonderful relationship with our husband, but we’re keeping a hidden list of all the things about him we want to change!

Now, please understand — when I talk about accepting your husband, I’m not talking about accepting physical abuse. If your husband is physically abusing you or your children, or if he’s looking at pornography, those are the types of deeply rooted, destructive problems that must be handled and not overlooked or ignored. You need to seek help from a pastor or professional counselor.

The ‘Calming’ Effect of Control

So much of the time, we want to change our husband just to meet our preferences or to exert control over him because of our own fears or lack of understanding. Control is a way to bring a false sense of peace or comfort to our lives when we’re feeling insecure or when we don’t understand something. But it isn’t God’s peace, and it isn’t His way. And it will never produce the right kind of change — the kind of change He desires.

 We may even try to delicately say something, in just the right way, to correct our husband, thinking we’ll inspire him to change something that we want to see changed. When he doesn’t respond, we think, He didn’t hear me the first time. I’ll say it again. Then when there’s no response again, we think, Maybe I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. I’ll say it a third time.

When there’s still no response, we think, He must be tired. I’ll say it a fourth time. Then we say it a fifth, sixth, or seventh time. It’s very counterproductive when we do this because, as I said previously, by the time we’ve repeated ourselves once or twice, our husband has probably closed his ears to us.

The truth is, your husband doesn’t need to hear from you for correction; he needs to hear from God. If you’re the only one he hears, he’ll be distracted because he’ll have to deal with his heart about you and the way you’re treating him. He won’t be able to hear God if all he hears is you.

Even if you don’t address the items on your “hidden check[1]list,” yet you keep them in the back of your mind, you’re not fully cooperating with God and His plan. If you’re still thinking and feeling those things on the inside and harboring a hidden agenda to change your husband, it will negatively affect your relationship with him. He will sense your attitude of disapproval.

It’s dangerous to keep a list of things you don’t like about your husband because in doing that, you might be guilty of desiring to change him into your image or ideal instead of allowing Him to be conformed to God’s image. The task of trying to change your husband is not in your job description! God is the only One who sees the whole picture, and only God can change a person.

Even if we could change our husband, we would probably make a lot of mistakes. What if we changed him into someone that God his Creator never intended? We need to leave the work of perfecting our husband to the One who knows him best and loves him most.

When I used to try to change Rick, the Holy Spirit would gently tell me to work on myself and to leave Rick to Him. It has taken years for the Word to develop in my heart and the grace of God to work within me to relinquish control and allow Him to work on my husband. I’m not telling you it’s easy to do, but I am telling you that the message I’m writing to you is one I’ve had to receive and walk out for myself. As I said, I’m not perfect, but I have improved in this area. Through the years, the Holy Spirit has shown me how to “let go” of trying to control Rick and to accept my husband just the way he is.

Humility and the Heart of God

 The first step in relinquishing our self-appointed role of “change agent” in our marriage is to throw away our mental list of criticisms and disapprovals. God’s Word instructs us to respect our husband, not to try to change or control him. There’s only one Holy Spirit, and His name is not “Denise” (or your name, either)! Often I think God could do more if we would stop trying to be the instruments of change we think He wants us to be. The Holy Spirit is able to speak to our husband, deal with him according to God’s will, and change him — if we’ll just let the Holy Spirit do His perfecting work!

We covered the topics of appreciating our husbands as leader in the home and of accepting him just as he is. In this section, I’ll address the subject of humility, because without humility, we will never see change in ourselves, in our husbands, or in our marriages. Instead, our “happily ever after” will become a life of endless frustration as we spend our time, our strength, and our energy spinning our wheels, so to speak, and getting nowhere.

 It’s very humbling to say, “Lord, Your Word is true, and it says that I’m to be respectful of my husband and not to try to change him. He doesn’t need me to correct him like I’m his mother. He needs to hear from You.” But things work so much better when we humble ourselves — when we get a little quieter and softer before the Lord. As we begin entering a place of trust, we can take comfort in the fact that God has all the right answers for our marriage. And it’s up to Him, not us, to reveal and unveil those solutions.

 Humbling oneself is very close to the heart of God. Jesus is our Example. He had to humble Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane to do the will of God. He prayed to the Father, “…If it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). Although Jesus willingly yielded to the Father’s plan to redeem mankind, He didn’t relish the idea of being the sacrificial Lamb. Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame.” Three times He asked God, “If possible — if there’s any other way — please let this cup pass from Me.” But then He said, “Not My will, but Your will be done.”

 Jesus understands the humility it takes to put ourselves under the direction and leadership of someone else. When we make the decision to humble ourselves to obey the Word of God — to agree with God’s Word — He understands how hard it can be. Hebrews 4:15,16 (KJV) tells us, “…We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Jesus doesn’t stand at a distance in an unapproachable, high place with an austere expression on His face as He looks down on us. If He did that, we wouldn’t dare have the confidence to reach out to Him! No, He has told us that He is touched by what we go through. He is touched by the feelings of our infirmities, and it’s as if He is saying, “I know how hard it is. I was tempted just like you are. I didn’t sin, but I have compassion for you, and I have mercy and help available for you.”

This can be difficult to do in the natural. Making the necessary changes to respect our husband — not to say or do things to diminish or control him, but instead to be kind, supportive, and submissive — can be difficult to do in our own ability or willpower. You may be reading this right now, thinking, In my case, it’s not hard — it’s impossible! If you are, you’re right. That’s why we need a relationship with the Holy Spirit — so He can help us.

God’s order for the family — God, Christ, husband, wife — is right. It works, and we must humbly submit to it. In fact, it is the only order that works to build successful, fulfilling marriages and produce fruit not only in our lives, but in the lives of those our marriages affect. And we have a God who does the impossible! He can draw near to us and give us the power we need to make changes and adjustments and to live the dream of “happily ever after” in our homes.

 Depending on how long you’ve handled things your own way in your marriage, it might not be easy to make these necessary changes. But it is possible, and it begins with a decision. Even after you humble yourself before God and begin turning things around in your heart and mind, you will be tempted many times to pick up the reins of your marriage and go back to your old ways of coping with issues.

It may even take some time for you to see that your efforts to try to correct, control, manipulate, and change your husband are wrong. Often it’s easier to justify old behavior than to admit you need to make a change. Change can be scary, especially if God is asking you to do something you’ve never done before. But change is necessary if you want to get to the place in your heart God is calling you to — one of respecting and accepting your husband.

Actually, it will often take sheer determination and an act of our will to do what God has instructed us to do in our marriage.

Many times, we’ll just have to do what we know is right and trust Him whether or not we completely understand or agree with it. We’ll have to obey God in spite of our emotions that might be telling us to do otherwise, and we’ll have to persevere without seeing instant results.

Above all, it will take prayer and an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus to obey what He is telling us to do in our marriage. The great news, however, is that Jesus understands every struggle and pain, and He is the One who can and will help us. If we’re willing and obedient, and we humbly submit ourselves to His Word, He will develop something inside us by the Spirit of God that’s powerful — a gentle and quiet, confident spirit.