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Transcript 649A — Coping With a Difficult Husband
HC: Good evening.
CALLER: Brother Camping, I've been married for almost thirty years to a man who has been drinking for thirty-six years. He claims he just has a drinking problem, and he will not admit he is an alcoholic. Our children are no longer home. They're dispersed throughout the United States. Since the children aren't home, I take the complete brunt of my husband's arrogance, his obnoxiousness, and his shabby treatment. About three years ago he started listening to Family Radio. He reads the Bible. The station is on twenty-four hours a day. He believes in God. I'm at the point where I don't know what to do. If I leave him, I know what I'm condemning both of us to, but I can't take it anymore.
HC: Let me make some suggestions to you. I understand what you're saying. We are in a very difficult situation. It goes on and on and on and on, and pretty soon we feel like we can't go on another day. We feel like we've had it. And we are ready to take some kind of drastic action. Now this is why it is so wonderful that God has given us His Word so that He has established principles for us to live by.
Now one of the marvellous principles God has introduced into His Word is that His mercies are renewed each morning. No matter how bad the day has been, and we think tonight, "I can't go on this way. Tomorrow is going to be worse, and the next day is going to be worse. How can I go on?" First of all, God says, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." That's a principle we have to follow. And then secondly, He says that His mercies are renewed each morning.
That incidentally is found Lamentations. In Lamentations 3:23 we read, "It is the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Because his compassions fail not, they are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness." Beautiful promise of God.
Secondly, God tells us not to be anxious. Now you can become very anxious, ''How can I live under this kind of a situation?" But God says, "Don't be anxious, But in everything, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving." And there's a lot you can be thankful for. You can be thankful that the Lord has sustained you all through these years. You can be thankful that you are a child of God. You can be thankful that you can go to the Lord in prayer. You can be thankful that God has promised that He will never leave you nor forsake you, and so on. And you can therefore go to the Lord in your anxiety. Don't be anxious, but with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known unto the Lord.
Now God does not promise He will take the problem away. But He says, "And the peace of God which passeth understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." That's the wonder of it all. God will give us a deep abiding peace.
Now the snare that we get into when we do have a difficult situation is that we begin to feel so sorry for ourselves. We take our eyes off Christ, and we look at ourselves, and say, "Poor me. How can I go on?" And in ourselves of course we have no strength. But do you remember that beautiful song? "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will go strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace."
Just think of yourself abandoning yourself afresh on the Lord Jesus. Lean back on His almighty arms.
And so when your husband mistreats you in some way, when he abuses you, just think of this as another opportunity to show the grace of God. Now there is a practical suggestion that I might make. I say this very very carefully. If I were talking to your husband, I would say, "Husband, if you really think you're a child of God, you ought to love your wife as Christ loved the church. You ought to love her, regardless of whether she is loveable or not, or whether she makes you feel good, or whatever. This is the way Christ loved His church, when we were completely unlovable. As a husband we are to make it our business to love our wives." This is the way I would talk to your husband.
But now as I talk to you from the Scriptures, the Bible says of course that the wife is to submit to her husband. Now one area that provokes more problems in the home than any other place is the bedroom. And let me explain what I mean by this. The husband deals crudely with the wife. He is brusque, he is unpleasant, he is downright nasty with the wife. She feels very inferior, she feels very incapable. She's not strong enough to lash back. But there's one area in which she subconsciously, if not consciously, can even the scale, and that is in the bedroom. When he wants to have intimate relations, she can hold back. Oh yes, she can give in, but she's holding back. And so there isn't any real pleasure in it for him. And subconsciously she feels she is entitled to this.
Now let me say this. The Bible says that that is wrong. That is an area a wife is never to use. The Bible says that your body belongs to your husband, even as his body belongs to you, and you are not to withhold yourself from the other. You belong to each other. You are one flesh.
You see, what happens is, when a wife holds back, then the husband is up against something that he cannot conquer. This is a real problem for a husband. He cannot get on top of that. There's no way that he can force his wife to be the intimate person that she should be, where she really gives herself wholeheartedly. The more he forces, the colder she becomes. And so he has got an unsolvable problem. And so his reaction to this is that then outside of the bedroom he becomes even more nasty. He becomes more abrasive, because he is living now with a problem he cannot conquer. He doesn't know what to do. It's beyond his ability. And so he is going to take it out on his wife. And the only way that he knows is by calling her names and becoming abusive in one way or another.
And so we get a vicious circle going on. As he becomes more abusive outside of the bedroom, or even in the bedroom, because he can't conquer this problem, she becomes more withdrawn and less responsive. And so that only increases his frustration. And so we've got a battle royal going, for which there is no solution.
Now the one area where a wife who loves the Lord must never never take advantage is in the bedroom. This is the place where you should drop all barriers "Husband, I love you", even though he's been a so and so all day long, in the bedroom, "I love you." And give yourself wholeheartedly. And only by God's grace can you do this. But God will give you that grace, if you really mean business with Him.
Now this has a two-fold effect. This is very dynamic. First of all, it removes this potential area for further frustration and therefore a rationale for ill treatment on the part of the husband against the wife. He is not frustrated, and so the reason for being abusive outside has greatly lessened. That in itself. is already a big start.
Secondly, as he finds in this most intimate relationship that he has a wife who really does love him and does give herself wholeheartedly to him, this makes its own impact upon him. And if this is done consistently, pretty soon he wonders, "How can I have such a loving wife?" Hopefully in time a lot of the problem can be straightened out.
This I believe is very imperative. Now there are wives who feel, "You mean to say I have to give myself wholeheartedly when he treats me like a dog in the manger, when he is so abusive? He's not entitled to it." You see, that's not the question, what he's entitled to in our judgment. We have to be obedient to the Scriptures, and God knows what is best. And this is God's plan. And I have never found it to be that if we follow God's plan that in the long run it is going to work against us. It may seemingly do so for a bit, but in the long run it always comes out the best, if we can do it God's way.
Now it could be that your husband is drinking in frustration to some degree. Maybe not. Maybe he does have a problem as to who is his god. You know, an alcoholic is someone who can't stay away from liquor and has found that in the alcohol he has found someone that he can trust. Life becomes a little bit unbearable. A situation develops that they cannot really cope with. But they have learned that they can go to the bottle, and as soon as they take that first drink life becomes a little more unreal, it becomes a little more rosy. They can begin to cope with life. And so that bottle has become their god. And that's why the Bible says, "A drunkard shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven." You can't worship the bottle and be a Christian.
If you're a child of God, when things become unbearable you go to the Lord, "Oh Lord, have mercy on me and strengthen me." You don't have to go to the bottle. If you find that you are going to the bottle, it means that this is proof that the bottle is your god and Christ is not your God. And so it's very serious business when a person finds that he has to drink in order to cope with life. It's very serious business because it can be a very great indicator that after all Christ is not his God.
Now wonderfully, the Gospel of salvation provides victory over this kind of a sin. And if your husband would really mean business with the Lord, that Christ is his Savior (and you can pray that this might happen in his life), it could be that the day will come when he'll look at this squarely in the eye and say, "Look, I've been duped. I've been taken by that bottle. I have been abused by that bottle. I thought that it was providing some way of escape for me, and all it is doing is guaranteeing that I'm going to hell, because it has become a god to me. And that bottle has got to go. And nobody can make me drink. Oh Lord, help me to trust in Thee, and help me to have the strength and the repentance to turn away from this sin," as he pours the bottles down the drain. And nobody can keep him from it. This is the victory of the cross, you see.
CALLER: I also have another problem. When he drinks, he'll put five or six shots in one glass, and maybe have three or four. He has trouble going to sleep, which is his excuse for drinking. But then he'll take a sleeping pill and a tranquilliser. These are prescribed, but I wouldn't dare tell the doctor.
HC: What he's doing, without realizing it perhaps, is flirting with death, because when you mix alcohol with tranquillisers and sleeping pills you are really taking your chances.
CALLER: I work in an emergency room, as a nurse, and I see this often. This is the thing I also fear: falling. There have been injuries.
HC: What you want to do, first of all, is make sure that you in your life are doing things God's way. Now let me say something that may sound a little impossible, but I believe this with all my heart. God sends testing programs into our lives. Just about the time that we think that we have become a rather satisfactory Christian, we love the Lord and things are going reasonably well, then we discover there is someone in our life (and very frequently it is a husband or a wife or a son or a daughter), someone that is very close to us, who just won't let up. And they're a constant aggravation. Now does God know about this? Indeed He does. God has allowed this to happen.
"Why could He be doing this to me?" You see, as long as everything goes well, it's very easy to be a Christian and to think that I am saved. But if we're truly a child of God, the test of a child of God will be that in these aggravating circumstances the fruit of the Spirit can still be seen, the victory of the cross can still be seen.
And this is going to sound strange in a sense, but this is the wonderful place God has placed you. God has given you a husband who for the time being is a real testing program. And when he takes a shot that's too big and he begins to get a little abusive, or whatever it may be, you look upon this not as a disaster, "Oh, poor me. Now what do I have to endure? What's he going to do to me now?" But look upon this as a challenge, "Oh, tonight God is going to give me another opportunity to really stand for Him and show the fragrance of God." And you begin to pray, "Oh Lord, strengthen me now. My husband may begin to get abusive, and oh, could it be that I will speak very softly and very peacefully, and that I will bear no resentment against him, and that I will show my love to him. Oh Lord, could this be?"
And look upon this as an opportunity and as a challenge. Don't look at it as a defeat, "Poor me. Now he's going to let me have it again." Each time this happens, look at it as, "Oh, again tonight it looks like I have that opportunity." And you'll find that once you're able to do this (and by God's grace you can do this) you're going to find that your life is going to get much easier, and you're going to be a much greater help to your husband. He will have more confidence and security in you, once you're able to get on top of this. And by God's grace you can.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you very much.
HC: You're welcome. And many of us will be praying for you that God will give you His wisdom and His strength. And we'll be praying for your husband, that ye might see that alcohol and Christ don't work very well together. He's going to have to make a choice.