Saturday, September 27, 2014

Tearing Down Our Homes


Her husband is incredibly lazy, boring, addicted to video games, smokes and invests in the stock market. She is miserable so she writes a post about him and explains how miserable she is with him. Women respond and tell her she needs to leave him, that she's enabling him by staying with him, and that she needs to stop being a doormat.

The husband comes home, finds the post she wrote and wrote his version of the story. The home is in disarray; she spends hours on the computer every day, he works and goes to school full-time {he just got his Master's degree}, and is studying to take the CPA exam. He uses video games to relax in the evenings once in awhile. He doesn't drink or do drugs. He believes the advice these women were giving his wife destroyed his marriage. {All of this post was taken down finally due to its destructive nature.}

I only mentor women. I only hear one side. I almost always defend the husband, even ones that are not so good. {Of course, if she were in any physical danger, I would encourage her to call the authorities.} I know the only person she can change is herself. For me to tell her to leave her husband, say she is a doormat, or that she is enabling him without knowing the husband's side would be completely irresponsible of me.

There are two sides to every story. I don't know how the wife truly treats her husband. I don't know if she is disrespecting him in silent ways. I don't know if she is wearing the pants in the family and taking the leadership away from her husband. I don't know if she tries to control and manipulate him to get her way. Is she angry and upset with him all the time like many wives?

Many things that wives do make their marriage worse. This is why the Bible says, The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands {Proverbs 14:1}. It doesn't say the same things about men. We have a lot of power in our homes, women. Use it for good. Use it to build up and encourage your husband. Don't ever be accused of tearing it down with your own hands. Always remember, there are two sides to every story.