A letter to the unaware husband

This is a letter I could have written to the 2003 version of myself.  It may well have applicability in a life close to you.  My experience is that this is what occurs in a lot of husbands.  The following letter goes beyond what was personally happening in me and my first marriage because I want to capture other examples in it too, but it doesn’t fail to catch the real problem: the heart.

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Dear husband,

I see you tell yourself, “I’m a pretty good husband and I’ve got a pretty good marriage,” all the while having no idea what’s really happening.  “Pretty good” in your own estimation isn’t anywhere near good enough, because you could be just about to lose the unlosable marriage.

The death of many marriages is a war of attrition—it hurts her heart when your heart’s not in it.

A big part of your problem that prevents you working on your marriage is you’re complacent and clueless, and I’m not talking about anything happening for her, your good wife.

The way you speak to her at times is lamentably disrespectful, and your disdain when you don’t speak but utter words under your breath is destroying your marriage and you may not have a clue.  I wish you did.  I wish you had a wake-up call.  And that’s about to happen.  This could be best worst thing to happen to you, if only you’ll see you had it coming, so now’s the time to change for good.

You don’t see the soul sadness she feels when you disrespect her.  If only your heart could truly see how cut to the core she feels when you do this... and when you speak to the children like this too.  You don’t see how they die just a little bit more each time you lash out with your words.  It’s verbal abuse, but it’s so much more.  And just because you’re “nice a lot of the time” isn’t any excuse.  Don’t bargain that your good outweighs your bad when your bad is bad enough for her to feel unloved.  Don’t make excuses like, “Well, you shouldn’t have pushed me...” because you need to be self-controlled.

You sit there and don’t even notice the extra things she does to make the family function.  You take her for granted in this way and in so many ways, and she knows it, yet you’re completely unaware.  The fact that you’re ambivalent about it makes her twice frustrated.

Then there’s the time of loss and grief and you check out, failing to see the sorrow crushing her heart that begs for your presence.  Just for want of your care and acknowledgement.  But you either can’t or won’t go there, or you just don’t or won’t see, cut off as you are to the stuff of life.  When she suffers, she needs you to get alongside.  It’s a marriage, isn’t it?

It’s that load of laundry you don’t carry and throw into the washing machine.  It’s those few items of clothing you won’t help her fold at 10 at night when she’s dog tired.  It’s the foot massage at the end of the day when she least expects it.  It’s the little things that make a big difference.

It’s that preference of sport or fishing or camping or being with the boys when there’s a wife and children at home that need your quality time.  This quality time isn’t something you can tick off as if it’s on a list; quality time is time from the heart and it’s immeasurable.  When your heart is in it, it’ll be quality time and not before time.

She knows she’s loved when the little things you do come from your heart, because you WANT to be there, and because you understand love is in the little things done consistently.

What she desperately prays for is that your heart would awaken to “where am I missing the mark?”  Something in your heart shifting will be the miracle she’s always prayed for, and you can be assured that she’ll respond to the signs and evidence of change in your heart.

Husband, your heart is the precipice.  Climb the mountain that connects intimately with your wife. See what she sees.  Feel what she feels.  See her honestly and neither be daunted by that honesty nor be threatened by it.  And make sure you let her into your heart too by being emotionally vulnerable, but not in a burdensome way, but by being in touch with the rawest of your feelings.

The prayer of this article is that husbands would wake from their mental, emotional, and spiritual slumber and truly desire to be men who connect with their dearest relationships.