How to Motivate Your Spouse

God commands us to “… always protect, always trust, always hope …” in the ones we love.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from God through the years, He loves paradoxes.

He is strong in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). To the wise, His ways are foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18).  

But God’s love of paradox is never more obvious than in the way He wants us to love. You know …

“The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:25 (NIV)

I must admit that sometimes I forget one of the golden rules of a counselor—you can’t and shouldn’t try to change another person. When I forget this principle, I end up trying to hold on to my life by “playing God” in the life of my spouse.

Here’s how it usually goes …

He does something that I perceive to be hurtful. (Sometimes I’m right about how hurtful it is, and sometimes I’m wrong, and sometimes it’s a mixture of both! Often, very confusing!)

I feel hurt and want to withdraw. 

Sometimes this withdrawal can be good if I use it to pray and get my heart right and my mind aligned with God’s perspective. But there are times when I use it to lick my wounds—or even worse, lick my perceived wounds.

Now, let me be clear. I’m not talking about major boundary violations here. If my husband were abusing me, then I would need to take steps to protect myself by removing myself from the situation, setting boundaries, and seeking guidance and help.

But when it’s a minor infraction, where he’s being critical or giving me the dreaded “tone,” then I need to choose a different “tack.”

Because, honestly, what I’m doing when I withdraw out of anger is punishing my husband for not giving me the respect or whatever I want from him. (To be clear, I don’t consider it punishing in the moment—more like teaching. But who am I kidding?)

It’s my skewed attempt to show him his behavior is unacceptable. When I’m really on a roll, I try to justify my actions, believing that he needs to feel my pain. Basically, I’m letting my hurt determine the way I relate to him so that he won’t want to hurt me like.this.ever.again.sigh!

As Dr. Phil might say, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

The truth is it’s doing the very opposite of motivating him!

This is where the paradox of God comes in. God commands us to  

“… always protect, always trust, always hope …” in the ones we LOVE.

Therefore, I must hope for the best in my husband instead of believing the worst about him—even when he seems to be acting in the worst possible way! 

I die to my self-protective and self-righteous maneuvering and sacrifice control of my husband to God. When I do that very paradoxical yielding by placing my faith in my God and my husband, I find exactly what I desire growing in my husband’s heart, attitude, and life.

So my day-to-day challenge is to

Die to the desire to control.
 
Die to the belief that I can teach my husband how to love me.
 
Die to the fear and false belief that I can protect myself. 
 
Surrender in the glorious truth that God’s got this!
 

This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Worthy Bible Studies

Featured Image by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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