By Sandy England
Wives Ministry Facilitator, Blazing Grace
Recently, in one of our wives groups we started looking at the fact that our husband is not the real enemy. The responses from the other women were telling, and included:
“What?? Then who is?”
“My husband is the one who is selfish and self-centered; he’s the enemy to me.”
“He’s like a roller coaster. Some days he’s remorseful, others, he’s mean. He can be ugly, and he attacks me.”
“He keeps telling me I need to get over it, and says things to me like, “It has been 6 months! How long are we going to keep going through this?”
I hear this one often in our wives groups: “My husband tells me God says you must forgive me, so why are we still going over this? When are you going to let it go and forgive me?”
I usually end up parking on this subject for a while.
We discuss spiritual warfare at length. Do the women understand it’s real and how it impacts their marriage? Then I hear, “How can this be warfare when it’s my husband who is saying and doing these things to me?”
The enemy has had your husband in bondage for years, if not decades. He won’t surrender that ground in your husband’s heart without a fight. It’s important that they understand that the enemy is playing their husband like a marionette. The battle is fierce; your husband can’t serve lust and God at the same time and the enemy is trying to keep him on the fence. He may be suffering in guilt, shame and remorse, while trying to break away from his decades-long bondage to lust. The next minute he may be angry, deflect blame, and turn into a self-centered Mr. Hyde. Many men don’t realize the ferocious battle they’re in or know how to cope with it.
You are also under attack. The enemy will relentlessly hit you with fear, doubt, and lies. One lie many of ladies start to believe is that the husband can’t and never will change. The enemy may whisper to you, “he’s acting weird again; he must be binging on porn”. The enemy may be playing on your fears and telling you to search and prove that your husband isn’t doing something he shouldn’t be. You may become obsessed with finding things that your husband may or may not be doing. This keeps you focused on lies and validates your anger and pride. We women can build walls with our anger, fear and pride, all of which keeps us from healing.
If the enemy can keep you obsessed with his lies, he can deflect you from your healing, forgiving your husband, and spending time with the Lord. Then we risk hardening our hearts.
You and your husband are at war with the real enemy, who is Satan. Your husband is not the enemy.
You may be the face of the enemy to your husband. He may be listening to lies such as, “She will never believe in you”, “She will never change”, “She’ll never forgive you.” Or, “She just being emotional; all you did was watch a little porn. She’s over-reacting again.” The list goes on.
Our wives groups typically park on the topic of spiritual warfare for a while because it’s critical that the ladies understand that their husbands are not the enemy and that they need to fight with him and for him, not against him. We talk about what warfare looks like to both the husband and wife; we pray with each other and we speak truth to each other in love, especially when we see that we are under attack and being lied to by the true enemy. We must take every thought, trigger, and action to the Lord.
We are learning grace from the Lord, towards our husbands and ourselves. We do good somedays, somedays we don’t do as well. That is how we grow in our relationship, we keep walking and growing. We must remind each other and ourselves we are learning to trust in the Lord and growing in our walk with Him. We need His strength every day, sometimes on a minute by minute basis.
Sandy England facilitates the wives ministry at Blazing Grace. She leads the wives groups and does counseling.
Contact us for more information or to speak with Sandy.