Be a student of your man

It's easy to interpret the personality of our spouse in the most negative terms. I'm not sure why we do this other than we are sinful and we want so badly for them to be perfect by our own definition that we become their worst critics.

As a young wife I often saw my husband (Daddy) as weak and apathetic. I wanted him to be more outgoing and to have a strong opinion. I wanted him to stand up for things immediately and yet I saw him as less than passionate about issues, not taking a stand, and as a coward. Would he not defend his own wife? Why can't he be more valiant? Why can't he just tell people how it is? Why does he take so long to make a decision or form an opinion. It drove me crazy for we were clearly opposites. How am I supposed to respect, obey, and submit to a husband who is weak? How can I follow his lead when clearly I need to lead him? These were my sinful and completely blind thoughts.

As I've learned to be a student of my husband and actually taken the time to study who he is I've come to realize that he is not weak, he is very strong. Much stronger than I. It takes a very strong person to be slow to speak and self controlled on the outside when there is a passionate fire burning inside about an issue. He is far from apathetic, he just doesn't show it in the same way I do. He is very willing and able to lead in a very loving and gentle way. He doesn't use my brash and unloving tactics. He has a gift for bringing people along to see things from his perspective instead of just steam rolling them and demanding that they conform to his thinking. He takes time to think before speaking even if that means getting back to someone a few days later. Something I would never do...I always speak before thinking and often regret my words. He has never been a coward. He has turned the other cheek. He has led me through our marriage very patiently. When I crumbled under criticism and lost the battles I decided to fight, he carried me. He is the strongest man I know.

Not all men are the same. Some of born leaders...command men. They lead passionately and expect their wives to serve them as if they king but in the end they make their wife their queen seated royally by his side. Some are adventurous...always inventing and exploring often never finishing one idea before they move to the next. They expect their wives to fasten their seat belts and hang on for the ride of their life....literally. But he will take her places she never dreamed of going and life will never be dull. Some are steady men....the work horse that is loyal. He's the slower of the three...slow and steady. Always reliable and used by many. Work horses are strong. They expect their wives to faithfully serve the world along side of them quietly without much recognition. In all of those men are different personalities to be discovered. It's worth taking the time to study (in books), to observe other people, to learn from older women, and to just study your own husband to realize how maybe the things that you perceive as weaknesses in your husband very well may be his unappreciated strengths.