Sacred Influence (17 page)
You have to wait for your husband to give more of himself to you. If you don’t panic and if you resist the urge to try to force him into intimacy, things will go much better for you in the long run. Let him have some times of silence. If you can just give up a little, you can get so much more.
In fact, it’s the wise wife who encourages her husband to occasionally go off on his own. My friend Dave Deur, the pastor I mentioned in chapter 4 who asked his class members to list five ways they love to be loved, said that the third most common response (after affirmation and sex) was this: many men mentioned that they simply wanted the freedom to occasionally do something “fun” without being made to feel guilty, without a sigh of disappointment or a guilt-inducing, “So, you’d really rather go scream at some football players than spend an evening with your children?”
If a guy asks for two nights out a week, I’d say he has priority issues. But a hardworking man does occasionally need some time away to do something he truly enjoys. Some men will feel guilty asking even for this, but a wife can build tremendous gratitude by taking the lead. In fact, my wife did this for me recently.
Because of an approaching book deadline, several speaking trips, and a seminary class to prepare for, I canceled a planned golf outing with three friends. Lisa phoned me and said, “Gary, the weather is beautiful; you really need to go.” I started to protest, but she said, “I don’t mind making the extra trips to get the kids; you deserve an afternoon off.” I went — and enjoyed the break immensely. It meant a lot to me that Lisa willingly did the afterschool pickups so that I could spend a late afternoon with some close friends.
In this, Lisa showed me Jesus’ love. Consider a telling episode of Jesus with his disciples; what I’m talking about is exactly how Jesus cared for his men: “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’ ” (Mark 6:31). Notice that when Jesus said this, many pressing needs remained, and much work needed to be completed. People were still “coming and going.” But Jesus, concerned for his disciples, told them to leave the work and get some rest.
Lisa loves me like Jesus loved his disciples.
Author Linda Weber tells of the time she let her husband go on a trip. She initially wanted to be part of it, but she knew that “he needed a little time away to enjoy reflecting on a lot of things that are important to him.” She goes on to make this observation:
Because I was happy for him to have this time away, he knew that I cared about what was important to him. In his frequent calls home, he was bubbling to share with me the fun of seeing this or doing that or just remembering good times. I loved getting excited with him, and I was glad that he wanted to share his feelings with me. It was my privilege to enter his world by being interested and showing my pleasure for him. It was good for us.
14
That last phrase, “it was good for us,” can be difficult to understand. Keep in mind, what’s good for your husband is good for the two of you. Repeat after me:
If it’s good for him
,
it’s good for us
. A healthy husband is a happier husband, a more caring husband, and a more attentive husband.
There’s a positive corollary to this, of course. Few women today get the refreshment time they need. Just as your husband needs an occasional break from work and family life,
so do you
. You’re more likely to get this time if you remain sensitive to your husband’s need for it. I’m much more eager to go out of my way to make sure Lisa gets time for herself when she’s encouraging me to take that same time. Guys may not be terribly altruistic, but usually we’re sensitive to fair play.
Don’t Expect to Understand Him
Because of the different ways in which our brains function, you will serve your marriage well by accepting the fact that there are some things about your husband you will
never
understand. Some of the following comments may sound all too familiar:
“I don’t get it. You wouldn’t hang up the Christmas lights last year because every weekend day was rainy, yet you just played eighteen holes of golf in a monsoon?”
You’ll be trying to live a science-fiction novel if you ever expect to fully understand your husband. He probably can’t even understand himself! Men seem better able to accept this, while wives often feel as though they
have
to understand their husbands. They can’t accept that some things about their men don’t make sense and may never make sense. Sometimes, you simply have to accept that
this is the way a guy is
— and love him accordingly.
I learned with my kids that when something annoys me, sometimes the real problem is my annoyance. I used to think I needed to change what annoyed me; then I realized that sometimes the problem is simply that I allow myself to be bugged by something that is morally neutral or merely inconvenient. Solomon once wrote, “A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue” (Proverbs 11:12).
Be a woman of understanding — learn
how
to communicate and
when
to communicate in such a way that your husband can fully participate. Part of living with someone is learning to accommodate them, and that includes all their nonsensical habits and rituals. Don’t let petty annoyances poison your relationships. Live with — and even celebrate — the mystery: “It doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way he likes it, and that’s good enough for me.”
The Power of a Persistent Pursuit
L
ouis XV inherited the French throne at the ripe old age of two, after both his parents and his elder brother had died from the scarlet fever. Almost immediately, adult nobles and dukes quarreled over who got to help dress him, serve his meals, hold his hand, and even carry his candlestick. Imagine a political campaign geared to secure the vote of a two-year-old, and you’ll have a pretty accurate picture of what was going on. It’s not hard to imagine the narcissistic personality that might result from being treated as someone so special from the time you started crawling.
Many males today grow up with a similar sense of entitlement. In all honesty, a part of us wants to be worshiped. Advertising executives understand this. The next time you leaf through a magazine, pick out the ads targeted toward men, and consider how many pictures show a beautiful woman looking adoringly, almost worshipfully, at a man wearing a specific cologne, consuming a particular drink, or wearing a certain designer’s shirt or slacks. That adoring look in the woman’s eye? That’s what we want to see from you.
Should we men be seeking this? Of course not. Theologically, it’s repugnant. I should live to worship God and bring
him
glory, not seek glory for myself. But a sinful core in all men seeks this adoration nonetheless. So it shouldn’t surprise us that the narcissistic tendencies of an eighteenth-century French king appear in men today.
How can a woman handle such a man — not so that she reinforces the narcissism but so that she earns the right to offer positive influence?
I believe the story of Jeanne-Antoinette contains some clues — but I have to confess, I’m really going out on a limb here. In fact, this may be the first Christian book to use an official
mistress
as an example for godly Christian wives.
I have a high view of marriage, a strong stance against unbiblical divorce, and a firm belief that extramarital affairs offend God and destroy couples. In no way am I justifying the immoral conventions of eighteenth-century France. But I believe a little bit of Louis XV lives in most men’s souls, and I know that Jeanne-Antoinette learned how to motivate such a man. So I think she may have some helpful lessons to impart to women today. So bear with me, and see if you don’t agree.
Courting the Court
Jeanne-Antoinette’s life got off to a rocky start. When her father was forced to flee France for political purposes, she ended up in a convent. After three long years, Jeanne returned to her mother, who had a quite different theological persuasion. She took Jeanne to a medium, who predicted that Jeanne would one day become the mistress of the king.
In an age of arranged marriages and political alliances, adultery had become practically a way of life (though the church still considered it scandalous). Many kings — including Louis XIV and Louis XV — had multiple mistresses, to the extent that “the favorite” became a semiofficial title carrying prestige.
On the face of it, however, any prediction that Jeanne-Antoinette would one day become a royal mistress must have sounded absurd. In pre-Revolutionary France, your birth determined your place; society considered it unseemly even to
attempt
to rise above your station in life. Kings simply did not take on a member of the bourgeoisie for a mistress: “Sharing the royal bed was an aristocratic privilege,” observes French historian Evelyne Lever.
1
Even though Jeanne Antoinette had many qualities in her favor — great beauty, poise, musical talent — at that time, beauty was seldom enough to leap the high walls of social prejudice.
It
was
enough to get Louis’ attention, however.
Somewhere around 1745, the debonair king (frequently called the most handsome man in France) couldn’t help but notice this young woman in her early twenties whose property lay close to where he often hunted. Somehow (nobody knows the specifics), JeanneAntoinette did the unthinkable, attracting the king so resoundingly that he determined to bring a commoner to Versailles as his declared mistress. It simply wouldn’t do to
completely
buck convention, so the king needed to invent a title for her. Fortunately for the king’s aims, the last of the aristocratic Pompadours had recently died without leaving an heir. Virtually overnight, Jeanne-Antoinette became the Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. The famous writer and philosopher Voltaire schooled her in her new surroundings.
Almost immediately, the young woman developed many enemies. One noble-born woman scoffed that Madame de Pompadour was “excessively common, a bourgeoisie out of her place who will displace all the world if one cannot manage to displace her.”
2