Libby Doe

The best way for you to contextualize your relationship with your Strong Man husband is this: you are essentially married to the equivalent of a King. Think of your husband as King David or King Ahasuerus in the Bible. Kings are not perfect and neither were these two, but they were Strong Men and great leaders. If you were one of their wives, how would you treat them? And how would you expect to be treated?

Obviously, you should never accept being treated poorly or with cruelty. But do you think your definition of cruelty or “poor treatment” would be the same if your husband was the King? If he responded to you quickly, matter of factly, and without much "emotional intelligence," would you accuse your husband the King of being a cruel, wicked, heartless, cold man who causes you suffering? Or would you recognize the King as a wise, intelligent, and efficient leader with a burden 1,000 times heavier than you could ever imagine?

You see, you reap the benefits of being married to a Strong Man, so you need to humble yourself and stay in your proper place. No woman should ever feel the right to be a contentious, brawling, toxic, burdensome wife; but the wife of a King should all the more eliminate these horrible qualities because her husband has so much more duties upon him and her negative influence extends so much further!

You’re a queen! Enjoy it! Sure, there are some shortcomings to being in this position, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives. And if you focus on the negatives, regardless of who you are married to, you’re only going to create a greater life problem that you will ultimately never be able to crawl out of. And it will all be your fault.

Remember, your husband is the King. He doesn’t need you. You are only his because he wants you. That’s a pretty high honor. To be wanted by a King! Think of it this way: your husband could easily pick up any other woman he wants and women are dying to be in your position. But they are not and you are. You are blessed. You are honored. And you are cared for as royalty. The only one who can, and who likely has destroyed that, is you.

Take the time to recognize your blessings. And take the time to recognize who your husband is in God’s Kingdom, what your proper role and relationship with him should be, and how devastating and destructive your potential negative influence in his life could be. The average man only has the burden of his family, but your husband, like the King, has the burden of the entire Kingdom. In the case of your husband, that “kingdom” represents his leadership role(s) and ultimately the higher calling that God has put on his life to fight, rule, defend, and expose, on behalf of so many other people. And the only one who can stop your husband is you. I plead with you to meditate heavily upon these facts.

TREAT YOUR HUSBAND AS IF HE WAS THE CEO AND YOU WERE HIS ASSISTANT

If you have a hard time picturing your husband as a King of some empire, then let me give you a much easier analogy to work with. Imagine your husband is the CEO of a major corporation and you are his personal assistant. Now let’s set aside any affection or romantic feelings for the sake of this analogy and just talk about the interaction and respect that a personal assistant must have with her boss.

Does she fight and quarrel with him? Is she angered by his requests or his high expectations? Does she consider her boss to be cruel or mean because he doesn’t often treat her with patience and love? Does she complain about not feeling cherished or treated properly because he is often short and to the point, requiring efficient responses to his requests? Does she whine about being under-appreciated or is she just happy to have a job working for a great man and earning a good salary? It never ceases to amaze me what women will endure in “corporate America” for meager salaries, compared to what women complain about when being married to a Strong Man!

Your husband is much more important than a CEO of some capitalist organization. He is God’s man! He is a Strong Christian Man and he has a calling on his life far beyond that of just making shareholders happy. So if a CEO can expect competence, efficiency, patience, kindness, submission, and grace from his personal assistant, without fighting, bickering, quarreling, or having a constant attitude of contention, how much the more should your SCM husband be able to expect peace, love, happiness, and servitude from you, his wife? More than a personal assistant to a CEO, your husband needs to be able to say, “she does me good and not evil all the days of her life,” and not that “she frustrates my life and burdens my soul with her constant contentions, poor communication, and fault-finding spirit.”

HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO YOUR DOCTOR?

Maybe one last way to think about it is in comparison with how you interact with and respond to your doctor. I mean, how do you treat him? If he tells you plainly that you have cancer, do you respond with arguing, bickering, fighting, and contention? Or do you ask him for direction, help, advice, support, and ultimately a cure?

So why do you give your doctor so much respect when doctors generally do more harm than good, yet you don’t give your Strong Man husband that same type of respect when he generally does good and would never do you harm? If you don’t fight with your doctor, why do you fight with your husband?

In the end, the point to all of this is to properly contextualize your relationship with your husband. Remember, he’s not just any man, he’s a Strong Man. So you need to remember that he has a special calling with God, and you therefore have a special calling with him. God likewise expects you to do right and to treat your husband appropriately. And the benefits for doing so are nearly infinite…