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“Underneath a Wife’s Hurt, Anger, Pain and Frustration is a Heart that Just Wants to be Loved. Underneath a Husband’s Hurt, Anger, Pain and Frustration is a heart that Just Wants to be In Control.”

This is the bottom line of Genesis 3:16

God created women with a desire for their husband. THAT is not a curse. See Song of Solomon 7:10. When this Hebrew word is referenced between a man and woman, it is an intense, longing, romantic desire.

The CURSE is that this man who she so desires – whom she has that “do not quit” attitude toward (which is the only hope we men had when we were bad husbands!) – that man who she is created to desire with all of her heart…  he will RULE over her.

This RULING is the CURSE of SIN.

When we are born again, we are REDEEMED from the curse of the law, so a man who is born again should say, “I redeem you honey, from the curse. I will not rule over you, ever. I will nurture, love, honor, value and support you.”

So – at the bottom of every woman’s heart is a desire to be loved and cherished by her man. That desire is put there by God, before the sin happened. God was simply setting the curse up…   a wife has a desire for her husband and he will crush that heart.

At the bottom of every man’s heart, is that desire to be in control. The desire to be in control is the curse of sin. So in the carnal nature of a man, the desire is to be in control.

This control is not just to be in control of his wife. It is to be in control of HIMSELF!  Think of the passive husband we wrote about in “The Man of Her Dreams/The Woman of His!”  She is flipping out, being VERY aggressive (Passive aggressive: He is passive and that makes her VERY aggressive!)  So she is being aggressive and he is digging his heels in… “I shall not be, I shall not be moved…”

His determination to be in control of himself is the curse of sin. A man is designed to GIVE himself to his wife.. not to be in control of himself.

So – for a wife – underneath the pain, the hurt, the wounding, the anger.. their is a heart that just wants to be loved.

For a husband – underneath the pain, the hurt, the wounding, the anger.. their is a heart that just wants to be in control.

“Being a victtim” is really scowled at in the world of .25 cent pop psychology. That is sad.. because if the Bible is true, a woman IS a victim of the curse of sin.

She has a desire for her husband and he crushes her heart. Her heart is reaching out to him and he is defrauding her.

What is her second curse of sin? Pain in childbirth. If THAT is not being  victim, I don’t know what is.

We men take great PRIDE in OUR part of the curse!  We take great pride in “being in control” (the first part of the curse) and we even take great pride in working hard to earn a living! (the sweat of our brow!)

So we men are activated by the curse! We are ENERGIZED by the curse in our carnal nature! We become workaholics and our narcissism and self-centeredness increases…  we PRIDE ourselves on “overcoming” the challenges of earning a living.  Then we PRIDE ourselves in being control of ourselves and our wives.. whether he are aggressive or whether he is passive.

Ladies, your temptation to “sin” is in getting angry, hardened and embittered. That is Satan’s goal. If he can get a woman to be hardened and embittered then he wins. If he can get her to react in the opposite way – desperately enabling her husband to continue to treat her like crap because she is afraid of losing him, then Satan wins.

Men, your temptation is to EMBRACE the curse by demanding that YOU are in control of YOU – and for the aggressive guys, that YOU are in control also of your WIFE.

We have been taught for at least the past 50 years that the bedrock of all marriage teaching, the rule that we should live our lives by, can be summed up by a single short passage — Ephesians 5:21-33.

We’re sure you know the passage we’re talking about, but here it is just in case…

Ephesians 5:21-33

Submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord.

For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.  Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

This passage has been the foundation of teaching for those who believe that a wife is to submit to her husband’s authority; authority that this passage is believed to bestow.

A woman is taught that her husband is to be the final decision maker in the household.

Her job is to submit her desires, convictions and leadings to the desires, convictions and leadings of her husband.

We have been conditioned to view this passage by consistent and repeated reinforcements that slant it a certain way.

The years of conditioning make it almost impossible to read the passage without coming away with the idea that a woman’s submission to and respect of her husband are the key to happiness in marriage, God’s way.

Ephesians and the Dangerous “Doctrine of Authority…”

The church has taken these ideas that appear to address wives and built a doctrine of authority in the home that has brought harm to Christian marriages.

This doctrine of authority states:

– A husband is God’s “delegated authority” over his wife (her head).

– A wife is to be subservient, secondary, and a “subject” in her husband’s kingdom. (Subject to her husband.) She is told that if she is not submissive to her husband, her rebellion is not to man but to God himself.

– If she disrespects her husband, she is actually disrespecting God’s order in the home.

This doctrine of authority is a sacred cow.

But here’s the startling truth, and why it may be destroying your marriage from the inside out…

Click here for the full story…

A commonly heard complaint from many of the couples we work with is that their married life is so radically different from their dating life. Boyfriends who used to open doors and pull out chairs have become husbands who no longer bother, and girlfriends who used to listen have become wives who nag. What you get is a marriage in danger of failing and a lot of unhappy and unfulfilled husbands and wives.

If this sounds at all familiar to you, I urge you to consider getting Christian marriage help. We’ve even put together a free DVD to help you on your way! My husband Joel and I have been able to help over 10,000 couples overcome the problems plaguing their marriages. We would love to help you too.

We accept this sea change in our marriages as a natural progression; we’re told that’s just the way it is. Conventional Christian marriage advice says that we are expecting too much out of our marriage, and we ought to just lower those high expectations. Often the myth of married life as miserable is played up in sitcoms and on movie screens. But this is the wrong way to think about our marriages. You must never, ever lower the expectations you have for your relationship.

God did not give us the gift of matrimony so that we would be unhappy. God never once planned for our marriages to be less wonderful than our dating relationships. God is precisely the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never intended for our marriages to take on a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde life of their own. What we present to our spouses in the beginning is what we must continue living throughout our marriage. Joel and I believe that Christian marriage counseling should revolve around the fact that God loves us and wants us to love each other through marriage. This is why we must remember to honor our vows to love, honor, and cherish our husbands and wives today as we loved, honored, and cherished them before we were married. Through God’s strength and love, we can enjoy a relationship that is exciting and fulfilling for years after it first began.

Imagine that you are in a relationship that is problematic and confusing.

Imagine what it might feel like if your spouse were to ignore you or start an argument with you each day.

Think about yourself in this position and consider how your marriage would continue like this if something wasn’t done to restore the relationship to a healthy one. Now imagine that when you search for advice you’re told not to complain about your situation.

What if you were told that you were supposed to submit to your spouse and let them run the marriage any way they want. It may sound like a bizarre method, but this is what has been taught to couples over the past fifty years.

This grin-and-bear-it attitude won’t save marriages, it will dilute them further, forcing both partners apart. The Christian marriage help my wife and I provide tries to break free from these ideas.

Traditional marriage advice told women to submit to her husband and to praise him has harmed so many marriages before.

My wife and I are speaking out to teach people the opposite of that with our Christian marriage help. A wife SHOULD submit to her husband. BUT, the husband must also submit to his wife. We call this “mutual submission.” We want women to have a voice, and we want them to be able to confront their husbands when they are unhappy.

Imagine if a coworker of yours was bothering you in some way? Maybe they are spiteful and difficult to be around, or maybe they don’t do their share of work.

Would you to let the coworker continue on with their behavior and hope that your willingness to submit would please them enough to reverse their actions or would you talk to them and try to resolve the problem?

Most likely, you would talk to your coworker and try to work through the conflict. Doesn’t marriage deserve even more effort than a relationship with a coworker.

Because communication is paramount in a marriage it would not make sense to advise cutting off communication and blindly accepting every flaw in your partner?

Instead of that being a step towards a better marriage, it would be ten steps away from each other.

Through a new kind of Christian marriage help we want to show couples how to work together and understand each other. Women were told by ministries and marriage advice books to always submit to their husbands.

Men were not taught how to communicate and work with their wives at all.

Knowledge brings the healing, I strongly believe that. Men must learn to be the husband that their wife needs, and I feel that they can do that.

Now imagine yourself in a healthy relationship that works because of the communication between partners. We teach both spouses how to take responsibility for their actions as well as for their marriage.

When both partners learn to properly communicate they are able to achieve harmony in their marriage.