The Idolatry of Marriage and the Comfort of God

Hi Friends,

I hope all my East coast friends survived Hurricane Irene. Thankfully, we only had minor water leakage in our basement and lots of leaves everywhere from all the heavy winds.

Just a reminder, next Tuesday, my newsletter is going out. I will be talking about Holy Listening. Do you know how to hear God? If you’re not already receiving it, you may want to visit my home page at www.leslievernick.com to sign up.

Today’s Question: "I'm not sure how to pose this as a question, exactly. I've come to the realization that I've bought an awful lot of relationship books - even Christian relationship books - that are basically about how to do what you need to do to make your relationship look like you want it to look.
And I've realized that ultimately, the focus is always about establishing my kingdom and not God's. Many of the things I want are good things and things the Bible says should be a part of marriage, but what if my spouse, for reasons I may never know or he may never overcome, is just broken in ways that most hit me at my own brokenness? How do I know when to grieve and accept that part of suffering in marriage may be God's will for me and when I'm asking too much or too little of my husband?

What does it mean, in a practical sense, to be comforted by God? How do I become satisfied in Him so that I can be more gracious (even, or especially, when I need to set a boundary) toward my husband?

Answer: Your question is one every married person needs to ask themselves because in every marriage, there are seasons of dryness, unhappiness, and discontent. It might be that our spouse isn’t hearing us well, doesn’t meet our needs in the way we’d like him/her to, or is deceitful, abusive, controlling, or unfaithful.

The hurt, disappointment and anger we feel can either motivate us to try harder to get what we want from our marriage, turn to another human being to satisfy us, become despairing and depressed, or that pain can turn us toward God to cling to him in a deeper way.

Interestingly, studies at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) indicate that the highest rates for depression for both men and women are among those who are separated and divorced as well as those with high conflict marriages.

So what is the answer?

The Bible clearly affirms the importance of fellowship and relationship (Romans 12:10). The two greatest commandments God gives us have to do with loving connection (Mark 12:29-31). We are to love him first and to love others deeply from the heart (1 Thessalonians 4:9, 10; 1 Peter 1:22).

Wanting good relationships and a loving marriage are godly desires. The challenge begins when we try to do just that but we don’t get the results we hoped for. How do we respond when we don’t get what we want?

Depression, anger, and anxiety result not only from relational distress (as the research has shown), but also from trying to make our human relationships give us something only God gives us. Having a good marriage can become an idolatrous desire when it becomes the centering desire of our heart and rules our life, not to mention our emotions.

The Bible tells us that it’s not only what we think that’s important, but what we love and what we love the most. The scriptures often refer to these things as the desires of our heart. When these other desires rule us, then even good and godly desires like a great marriage become our functional gods, or our idols.

Many people say they love God the most, yet evidence shows lesser loves rule our life (2 Kings 17:40-41). We say God is enough but feel we need God plus more.

So, with that backdrop, let me answer your first question. How do I know when to grieve and accept that part of suffering in marriage may be God's will for me and when I'm asking too much or too little of my husband?

We will always grieve some things we don’t get in our marriage. No husband (or wife) has all 52 cards in a deck as I often tell my counseling and coaching clients. If you want to succeed in marriage, you will need to learn to live with and love a real person, not your idealized version of him/her.

So what is asking too much of a spouse? Is it asking too much of your husband to love you like you’d like? To be honest with you? To never watch pornography? To support you in the manner you’d like to live? To treat you with kindness and respect? To clean up after himself? To be able to fix the toilet and the sink when they have a leak?

Is it too much for a husband to ask his wife never to nag or criticize him? To keep her weight close to what she weighed on her wedding day? To want to have sex every time he desires? To make dinner regularly? To work outside the home to help with finances? To put him first before the children? To respect him, especially in front of others? To not read steamy romance novels or visit internet chat rooms?

One can desire any and all of these things in marriage. The testing begins when you don’t get everything you want. What happens in you and to you? Do you demand what you want more forcefully? Try harder to get what you want? Become depressed? Have an affair? Watch pornography? Eat too much? Drink too much? File for divorce?

Or, do you run to God for wisdom, comfort, and practical help in how to handle these very real hurts and disappointments?

You asked in your question, “What does it mean, in a practical sense, to be comforted by God? How do I become satisfied in Him so that I can be more gracious (even, or especially, when I need to set a boundary) toward my husband?”
This is an excellent question, way too broad to adequately cover in this short blog. I talk about it in my book, How to Act Right When Your Spouse Acts Wrong, but let me close with just a few thoughts.

The comfort of God comes when we believe what he tells us. He told the Israelites that the reason they failed to enter his Sabbath rest was due to unbelief. (Hebrews 3:19, 4:1) Jesus reminds us that the hard work of faith is believing (John 6:28,29). Clinging to God in faith, trusting in his promises, his provisions, his presence, his protection, and his purposes gives us his peace. When we go our own way we forfeit that peace.

As we center ourselves in the love of God, we are no longer tossed about when our spouse fails us or disappoints us. Yes we hurt, but we have received from God the strength and courage to both forgive our spouse for his/her failings as well as set appropriate boundaries when he or she continues to be unrepentant and destructive to the marriage and to us.

With God as our center, we are equipped to love and be compassionate without being foolish and enabling because God shows us how to love in a way that is in the best interests of the other.

If you’re in that kind of situation right now ask God, “what is in the best interests of my spouse?" Is it to keep quiet, pretend, and allow sin to continue? Or, is it best to give the gift of consequences so that by experiencing the pain of one’s own sinful choices, one is more likely to wake up to the destructiveness of his or her own sin?

Topic: A Wife Can't Trust, A Husband is Repentant.Now What?

Good evening friends,



Whew, it’s been a whirlwind week of travel, counseling, coaching and writing. I attended Logos Bible Software boot camp last week to learn their software. We were treated so kindly by the entire Logos staff. I had the opportunity to visit with amazing women ministry leaders who wanted to study God’s word using this software.

In the photo above are just some of the women I had the privilege of studying with. They are (bottom left to right) Sharon Jaynes, Karol Ladd, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, (top left to right), Linda Evans Shepherd, Pam Farrel, Me, Carol Kent and Jennie Dimkoff. For more pictures, visit my facebook fan page.

I wish I could tell you I got home and became a bible study wiz, but alas my menopausal brain only could retain a fraction of what I learned but thankfully they gave us printed manuals that I can refer to again and again. But I have at my fingertips tons of commentaries, Greek language studies, dictionaries, various translations of the bible, maps, sermon notes and everything else my heart could imagine.

Pray for me. I can easily become overwhelmed with the responsibilities God has given me.

Today’s Question: I have been facilitating support groups for sexually sinful men for the past 14 years. We added a wives support group 12 years ago. We have had men referred to us by their counselor, pastor, or by their own wife. The deep stabbing pain a wounded wife feels over her husband’s betrayal is overwhelming. I am not able to understand my wife’s pain or entirely why she chose to stay with me in spite of the pain. We are both glad she made that decision from the first day back in 1994.

Many of the men I deal with struggle with a level of narcissism that is often comical. Their childish behavior, the petty lies and the denial that he wasn’t as bad as other men does not impress a wife. On occasion we are blessed with a man who gets it. He knows his actions will be the true indicator of how well he is recovering.

My question is this: If a husband is really working hard to win trust and he appears to be doing the right thing AND his wife refuses to trust him after months (maybe years) of anger, etc. What should the husband do next?

Answer: I am always thrilled to hear how God takes our worst sins and failures and uses them for his glory and to help other people. I am glad you and your wife have done the hard work of healing and are bringing the good news of restoration to other couples through your support groups.

Sexual infidelity strikes at the very heart of marital trust. I believe that is why it is one of the few biblical grounds for divorce. Trust is very difficult to rebuild once it is broken and it sometimes takes a betrayed woman a very long time to fully trust her husband again.

One way of looking at the situation you describe is that she may never fully trust him and that may be one of the consequences of his sin that he (and she) will have to live with if they stay married.

Let me make an analogy. If while driving recklessly, the husband caused an accident that paralyzed his wife, no amount of repentance would change the reality that she is now paralyzed. But together they could learn to live in this new place if she knew he was repentant for his reckless driving habits and he knew she forgave him even though she still remained paralyzed.

You don’t mention the particulars but you do give a few clues that I want flesh out.

First you say that her husband is working hard and appears to be doing the right thing, but he is not getting the results he wants – his wife’s trust. My concern with your question regarding what he should do next makes me wonder why the husband is doing what he’s doing?

In other words, his actions, even though they look right, still seem much about him. Getting his wife to trust him, love him and forgive him so that he has a better marriage. If he doesn’t get those things, will that mean that he stops trying to love his wife and to earn her trust?

The second clue that you mention is that his wife still has a lot of anger toward her husband. Her anger is appropriate for the sin, but to hold on to it for years hinders her ability to forgive and reconcile with her husband.

To heal a broken relationship it takes repentance and forgiveness. Healing cannot fully take place without both. If you have forgiveness, but no real repentance, the relationship continues to be damaged and real trust can never be re-established. On the other hand, if you have repentance but no forgiveness, the relationship still remains broken and genuine intimacy and trust is forsaken.

It seems to me that the wife may be having more problems with forgiveness because she can’t (won’t) let go of her anger. If she could forgive, perhaps they both could lovingly live with the continued lack of trust and together work to rebuild their relationship.

Again, using the analogy of a wife being paralyzed by her husband’s reckless driving. If she forgave him, they could live with the paralysis but she still might be fearful for a long, long, time whenever she is driving with him. As long as he continued to be patient and compassionate with her lack of trust, knowing that his past foolishness caused her great pain and consequence, they would be able to have a loving relationship.

But if he grew impatient and angry because “she wasn’t over it yet” or drove the slightest bit recklessly, it would erase all the good work he had done previously in helping her to feel safe.

So the answer to your question isn’t simple. The husband can continue to work toward rebuilding his wife’s trust by being patient and loving with her lack of it. The wife must learn to let go of her anger and forgive her husband if she wants to have a good marriage. It will take both of their work to make that happen.

If the wife is in the support group, ask her what she gets out of holding on to her anger for all this time? Perhaps it’s her way to punish him. But at what cost both to her and her marriage?

Friends, you who have lived this journey first hand – what are your recommendations?

Thigs you can do to get healing if you can't afford a counselor or coach

Hi Friends,

I’m heading out to Dallas, Texas to be a part of a women’s ministry training in Logos Bible software. I am so excited to learn how to use this amazing program. I have had it for years but not being very computer savvy, I struggle with figuring out how to use it. I am thankful for this opportunity Logos has provided for me to be at Logos Boot Camp for a day.

Also my first blog, Is it Biblical, posted at www.christiancounseling.com. If you like it comment, tweet, and spread the word. I will be on there twice a month.

Today’s Question: I was in an abusive marriage for 22 years. Before that my grandfather sexually abused me when I was 2 until I started kindergarten. My father emotionally left me once I turned 12 and hit puberty.

Anyway, I am out of the marriage and my ex has remarried so that isn’t happening! I am not actively looking for a man. I am trying to let God heal the areas in my life that need to be healed. I have been in counseling for the sexual abuse but I am scared to death that I will find myself in another abusive relationship.

I also have a 21 year old daughter with issues because of the marriage and I would like to be able to help her more. Can you recommend any avenues of action for us? Books to read, etc? I am 46, single with limited income and no insurance.

Answer I applaud you for wanting to not only survive your abusive past, but to move beyond it. So many people stay stuck wearing the “victim” or “survivor” identity and forget that God has created them for more than that. You want to see your past as what happened to you, not who you are. It’s your history not your identity.

Here are some verses that I’ve been contemplating all month that perhaps you will find helpful in your healing journey.

“For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see –such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else,
And he holds all creation together.

Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.

So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, And through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News”. (Col 1:13-23)

For me, the most important part of this scripture is “don’t drift away” because if I forget who Christ is or what he has done for me, I’m still living as if I’m in the kingdom of darkness. Satan wants us to forget who we are in Christ. He wants to make us feel shame and think we’re damaged goods or that we still live in the kingdom of darkness and that we’re not holy and blameless.

At times our feelings deceive us and it feels like that’s true. But it’s not. We have been rescued, set free and given a new identity. Because of what Christ has done we are children of light and now our biggest challenge is to learn to live like it. To not forget. To train our mind and our emotions and our actions to live in sync with who we now are and as we do that, we become healthier as people and have healthier relationships with other people.

You may not be able to afford counseling or coaching but you can attend a good church, get involved in bible studies and avail yourself of recovery groups like Celebrate Recovery or other good programs that offer help toward healing and wholeness. Working on your healing in a group setting gives you the opportunity to practice the very things (healthy relationship skills) that you are so afraid you lack because you grew up in the environment you did.

There have been many books that have helped me in my own healing journey. I would have never had the opportunity to talk with these individuals personally, but by reading their books, they counseled and coached me to take the steps toward greater maturity and healing.

Below are a few of my favorites:

Restoring the Christian Soul by Leanne Payne
The Healing Presence by Leanne Payne
The Gift of Becoming Yourself by David Benner
Thirsting for God by Gary Thomas

But this is a community. Let’s share with one another what books, group programs, or other inexpensive things you have done that has helped you grow and heal.

Topic: My alcoholic husband has destroyed my belongings. How seriously should I take this?

Good morning friends,

I am so excited to be starting my blog experience with the Association of Biblical Counselors, specifically targeting abusive relationships. Please pray with me that biblical counselors and pastors will begin to see that the way many of them have been counseling couples caught in destructive and abusive relationships has been inadequate and at times harmful to the people in the marriage as well as the marriage itself. I think the first one will start next Monday, 8/15

If you want to read my blogs at that site, go to www.christiancounseling.com
I gave the wrong link in my newsletter last week. Thank you Mary for catching it and letting me know that my link was wrong. The blogs will come out twice a month. Tweet and respond them if you like what you read. They need to see that people are applauding their efforts to learn about this.

Next week (August 15th) I’ll be sending out my second newsletter for August, Four Lies About Anger. If you’re not a part of my mailing list but would like to be, please go to my website at www.leslievernick.com and sign up to get it.

This Week’s Question: My alcoholic husband has progressively become more abusive, hateful and vindictive. Last Monday he was angry with me for standing up to him about his mistreatment of our family (no, I wasn't mean or nasty to him, just clear). He went out to our shop and smashed and burned a number of neatly-stored family mementos, including things that belonged to me and to our children. He smashed and burned for hours. Yes, he was drinking but did not seem to be extremely intoxicated.

When I tried to reason with him, he shouted at me and told me over and over that I am "the problem". He has reiterated that to me since.

He has shown no remorse whatsoever. He believes that the whole thing is my fault. He says that I am a "hoarder" and that he is getting out of the "storage business".

We certainly do need to get rid of some things. But I am not a "hoarder". I am constantly going through, improving, organizing, giving things to the thrift store. My friends often comment on how "organized" I am. Managing our belongings is harder and slower when I have to deal with his drunkenness and nastiness so much... I am falling farther and farther behind.

But is keeping baby pictures "hoarding"?! Why didn't he haul off the junk around here, instead of targeting personal keepsakes? And why didn't he just ask me to go through some boxes, instead of violating my possessions like that? I would have been willing to work with him.

It actually would have been really fun to go through some of those things with him... there were some beautiful and memory-triggering items in there. But now they are gone. I am going through some of the things that are left but the job isn't pleasant like it could have been.

His smashing and burning feels like a very direct expression of hatred and disrespect, of power and control messages... like he is showing me that he can do whatever he wants to do to me (us)... only he did it to my (our) things.

How seriously should I take this? What should I do if he tries to do it again?

Answer: You should take his behavior very seriously. Studies of abusive relationships indicate that over time the incidents of abuse are often more frequent and increase in intensity, especially when there are no consequences for such behavior. Your husband’s problem with alcohol makes it a higher probability for continued abuse and danger to you as well.

But your question is what should you do if he tries to do it again? Hear me. He will do it again. He is using his anger as a means to scare you into not questioning or confronting his behavior or holding him accountable for the way he’s treating you. You’ve already noticed the progression. It is time for you to ask yourself some hard questions and make some difficult but important decisions.

1. Are you physically afraid of your husband? Has he threatened harm to you or your children? He’s already destroyed your personal property as a statement to never confront his mistreatment of you again or “things will get worse” .

2. Do you have a safety plan in place when his behavior escalates? Living with someone this long you begin to know his patterns. I’m sure you can sense when he is working up to rage. Obviously when he is drinking, you are more vulnerable.

3. Why did you not call the police when he started his burning rampage in the shop? You knew he was destroying your personal property and family mementoes. You knew he was drinking and his anger escalating. Ask yourself why you didn’t take steps to protect yourself with some legal help?

I am encouraging you to look at these things because when you’re a repeated victim, you have to ask yourself “what’s my part?” That is not to cast blame or make you feel responsible for his behaviors, but you do need to look at why you are staying with someone who is repeatedly treating you in such disrespectful ways, not to mention being scary and abusive.

For example, are you afraid of him? Do you believe God calls you to stay for better or worse? Do you feel like it’s your fault he treats you this way (as he has already indicated?). Are you afraid of being alone? Is it that you can’t support yourself financially?

These may all be legitimate concerns why you have accepted living this way but facing them helps you to take some ownership back over your life. Whatever they are, begin to work on getting yourself to a healthier place so that your fears do not control you or make you feel helpless in this difficult situation.

Hear me: You’ve already tried speaking up. There is no “reasoning” with someone like this. Proverbs warns us, “It is safer to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than to confront a fool caught in foolishness” (Proverbs 16:12 NLT).

Reasonable people don’t purposely destroy someone else’s personal property. And if they did something foolish while drinking alcohol, they would make amends and restitution, not blame the other person for their destructive behaviors. The time for talking about his mistreatment of you and the children is over with. It’s time to take action.

I can’t tell you what specific action to take but let me give you some suggestions.
You may need to separate for safety purposes. I would definitely get some good counsel on this step because sometimes separating from an abusive person increases your risk of being harmed.

You can consult with your local woman’s shelter or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800 799 SAFE (7233) for advice in developing a safety plan for yourself and your children.

If you’re not prepared to take that drastic of a step right now, you will need to get ready because it probably will come to that. That does not mean that reconciliation is not possible. It just means that you cannot live in a home where you fear for your personal safety. Until he takes responsibility for his behavior, his angry attitude, and his drinking problem, and gets some accountability and help, you and the children are not safe.

If you decide to stay for now, it is important that you get ready to firmly take a stand. You may or may not announce this to your husband. You’ll have to decide the wisdom and timing of it however, if he ever does anything close to what he did in the garage, you must call the police.

It’s important that you send a very clear message to your husband right now and the only message he will hear are painful consequences, either you leaving or legal intervention. The crystal clear message you must convey now through your actions (because he has rejected your words) is you will not continue to allow yourself or the children to be treated LIKE THIS.

Police involvement is important because they are the only ones that can provide the vehicle (legal) to mandate your husband into some sort of treatment, either alcohol rehab or anger management. It also provides a document of your concerns if you should later need to get a Protection from Abuse order from the court.

Lastly, I don’t know your husband but you do. I don’t know what kind of man he’s become or has been but my guess is he doesn’t like himself anymore than you do, but his pride and alcohol is deceiving him.

Try to speak into his good qualities – whatever you have known of him to be a good father or husband and say something like: “I don’t know what is going on with you, but the man I’ve known all these years would not want to treat his family this way either. I want you to get some help. I can’t live like this.”

Do not say this as a request, it is a statement. You are not asking him, you are telling him. It is not a discussion open for debate. He needs to get the message loud and clear you will not live LIKE THIS anymore!

I hope you have informed your pastor, and/or family of your dilemma. You will need their support. You do not need to do this alone. Get some help for yourself.