Respect

I come from a line of women whose tendency is to belittle men and show them little respect. Therefore respect does not necessarily come naturally to me. My paternal grandmother showed the opposite side of the coin by being very respectful of her husband, my grandpa. However, my grandpa was a prince of a man that I never saw any reason to disrespect!

Although I have tried to be a biblically submissive wife, I will say I am not always as respectful as I should be. Put on top of that the pornography disclosure and we had a recipe for what could be disastrous. I am sure most wives will have an initial reaction of great disgust towards their husbands when they find out he has viewed porn. It is a dirty thing and makes us feel dirty and look at him as though he is dirty. This does not command respect! I also had always looked at my husband as being more spiritual than me, and now found myself in a place where this was obviously not the case. This lowered my sense of respect.

But examining all these things does not do away with the Bible. What is more important than the Bible? Nothing. Paul said: “let…the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Eph. 5:33) What comes before this? A command for the husband to love his wife as Jesus loves the Church. BUT nowhere does it say that should our husband fail in this regard, we have the right to fail in our calling. Just as with the keeping of vows, I am to respect my husband as my husband and head of the home no matter what. Respect does not look like blindly following someone into sin. And thankfully I have not had to experience anything like that. But especially as my husband walks out a life free from porn and endeavors to grow into the man God wants him to be, I can choose respect. Even though he has failed me. Even though he will never be a perfect man. I choose to respect the man God gave to me. And honestly, by respecting our men we are helping lift them higher into their calling to be the leader God wants us to have.