Unhealthy Responses to a Husband's Sin
Pure Life Ministries Director of Women’s Counseling, Carol Bourque, has walked with many women through their trials. And today, she offers us some helpful insights on understanding the impact sexual sin has on a wife. She clearly describes how hard it can be for wives to respond the right way—both in their relationship with their husband and in their relationship with God.
Brooks: Carol, when the shock of the revelation of a husband's sexual sin comes out, there's got to be so much going on inside a wife as far as how she's responding to it all. I wanted to talk to you specifically about how the women you counsel respond both to God and to their husbands. So, first of all starting with the response to God, I would think there's got to be a lot of questions that come up in a woman's mind.
Carol: Yeah, I think a woman will sometimes question why God allowed her to marry her husband if God knew what he was really like. Or, sometimes, she'll question God and say, "Well, I knew he had a little struggle before we were married, but why didn't he stop this once we got married?" I've even heard women sometimes question God's goodness - especially the ones who have kept themselves pure prior to getting married. Some of these women can actually get angry with God. If a woman's mindset has been that her husband was created to be the source of her happiness and to satisfy all of her needs, then when she is faced with her husband's unfaithfulness, she's left devastated, and usually feeling very overwhelmed and hopeless.
Brooks: Well I know it's got to be hard to boil down all the different responses women might have in this trial. But I do want to talk about two kinds of women and the different way each might respond to this crisis. I would think that the struggle and the way it plays out in a woman's relationship with God would depend on how closely she was walking with God before this crisis hit. So first, can you tell me what it might look like for someone who hasn't been walking with God closely? Once this happens in the marriage, what kinds of things is she going through and dealing with?
Carol: The reactions for the one who has not been walking closely with the Lord are primarily focused on herself. The focus is on how this man has ruined her life and caused her this unhappiness and grief. This woman does not see that this is a spiritual battle. All she can see is that her husband has done this to her.
But for the woman who has an ongoing, abiding, and daily relationship with Jesus, I think it's easier for her to see who the real enemy is. After the initial shock, I think she understands that the Lord is with her in this and that she can turn to Him for what she needs to go through this painful process.
<pull-quote>The woman who has an abiding, daily relationship with Jesus understands that the Lord is with her and that He has everything she needs to go through this painful betrayal.<pull-quote><tweet-link>Tweet This<tweet-link>
Brooks: I can imagine that no matter how well prepared you are spiritually for this, some of the battles are just unavoidable, right? There's really no way to fully prepare for a revelation like this.
Carol: That's true. You know I believe it's going to be devastating for the woman who is walking with the Lord and for the woman who is not walking with the Lord. But again, I think for the one who has a relationship with the Lord she is more in tune to the spiritual aspect of what's going on. She's not just focused on how this has ruined her life and herself and what she's going through. She sees that her husband is in great danger spiritually. And so, once things come into the light, I think she's able to somehow come alongside and actually help her husband in this spiritual battle.
Brooks: Alright, let's pivot and look at how a wife is responding to all of this in relation to her husband. Again, talking in generalities might be hard because I'm sure each woman you talk to has a different kind of personality, but I want to zero in on two types of problematic responses that you've told me you've seen in the past. The first one that you've mentioned to me is that a lot of women are really focused on trying to change their husband. Can you tell me a little more what you mean by that? What does that look like?
Carol: Well, for this woman she's determined to change him, and she usually crosses that line into trying to control him and then she begins to monitor his every move. Some of these women begin to police their husband’s every move. Or they can become a nag if they aren't seeing the results that they want.
Brooks: You know you mention control, and I was reading the testimony of one woman recently who was talking about this kind of situation and she admitted to struggling with that very reaction. In fact, the two words I highlighted in her testimony were control and fear. You could almost reword it to be a fear of losing control. So, if that's really what's going on here, can you talk some more about how that dynamic plays into going overboard and trying to change a husband?
Carol: For her, she lives in a constant state of fear of what he's doing or what he isn't doing. She's trying to control his every move. It reminds me of a woman I recently counseled whose husband was retired and in sexual sin and during our counseling sessions we were just talking and she told me that she did not leave her house anymore. When I asked her why, she said because she feared that if she left the house, even to go to the grocery store, the first thing her husband would do would be to run to the computer. So, this poor woman had created this self-imposed prison for herself and for her husband. Her life became based on fear and trying to control him. It was so sad when she shared that with me.
<pull-quote>Our wives’ counselors definitely understand the hurt because we've all been through it, But as biblical counselors, we have to pair compassion with the Truth in the Word of God.<pull-quote><tweet-link>Tweet This<tweet-link>
Brooks: For wives who may be listening, Carol, you've been there. You know what this feels like. As a biblical counselor you have to point out where the flaws are in a woman's response. But I know that's not for a lack of compassion and feeling what she is going through. And you know that all of this is generated from her husband's sin, because that was your own experience. So, I know you come from that angle of understanding right?
Carol: Fear will paralyze a woman. So yes, there is a balance. You know, I have a lot of compassion for these women and for what they're going through. But sometimes, as people, we want others to come alongside of us when something devastating happens to us and sympathize with us or even give us a little bit of pity. Our wives’ counselors definitely understand because we've all been through it. But as biblical counselors, we definitely don't want to see a wife fall into that pit of self-pity where she is being swallowed up and even possibly justifying some of her reactions to her husband because she has been sinned against. So, we have to pair that compassion with the Word of God. I remember reading in the book of Second Corinthians where it says that God is the God of mercy who comforts us in our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted with. And that is our job: to point these women to The Comforter.
Brooks: Amen. Let's look at another type of woman that you have told me you have had to deal with before. Instead of the more aggressive approach of trying to change her husband all by herself, this woman would be the one who's falling into this tendency to want to appease her husband. Can you help us understand that idea a little more?
Carol: Well, I think that this woman lives in fear as well, but her fear is of losing her husband. And that takes her to a place of - how do I say this right – possibly allowing him to have his cake and eat it too. Because this woman is so afraid of what will happen to her and to her children, she would rather stay with her husband and turn a blind eye rather than confront him and take the necessary steps to get him the help that he needs. And really, I guess I would say that this woman is more concerned about herself than about her husband's spiritual condition.
Brooks: Well, I'm sure that this appeasing approach, again, may look different from person to person. But if I'm understanding it right, what you're saying is a wife is trying really hard to please her husband and avoid dealing with the problem of sexual sin for fear of what it's going to do. But as you've counseled people through this, what deeper issues have you had to confront when you need to change that approach?
Carol: I think there are several factors, but I'll touch on one and that is idolatry. It's trusting in something other than God to make us happy and to satisfy us or to fulfill us. I was reading in Jeremiah 17 and in verse five it says, "And thus says the Lord: 'cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord." And that is the interesting part of the verse, "whose heart turns away from the Lord." It's just so true that when a woman goes through this kind of devastation, they kind of become so consumed with what their husbands have done to them, that they turn their hearts from God. And then they turn them back onto themselves and onto their problem and all of a sudden the problem becomes absolutely enormous and God becomes very very small. So, it's more of a trust issue I think, but the second part of Jeremiah 17 is wonderful and it’s an encouragement to women that Jeremiah talks about this. He says, "But the one who trusts in the Lord, that one will be blessed." And the passage says he, but I think we can say she, "she will be like a well-watered tree whose roots go deep and when trouble comes, she will not fear or be anxious but she will yield right unceasing fruit." And that is just such a beautiful picture to me of the woman who just completely trust in the Lord who sees that she has made her husband and her marriage an idol and she acknowledges that and she realizes that and there's a turning from that and turning to the Lord.
