A4P Guest: My husband brought me here to the US from Ethiopia six years ago. He came to the US way before me. Right after I came here, within six months, I applied to school and took a course and became a nurse assistant. I am now taking classes to get my nursing degree. My husband, on the other hand, drives taxi and he doesn’t want to go to school or find another better job. I sometimes bring him application forms for school or to apply for jobs but he always put all those papers away. I believe he has some “inferiority complex” and he always says that I despise him just because I challenge him. We have two little kids and they both go to a daycare all week days. I told him to take care of them during the day and he can go to his work when I come home. Since he can make his work schedule flexible, I always ask him to do that but he is not listening to me. When he is home, he watches Ethiopian politics on YouTube instead of reading books, improve himself and get a good paying job. Our friends who came to the US after me bought a house and drive brand new cars but we live way below everybody I know. Is it the will of God for me to submit to this kind of husband?

A4P: Since you are asking about “the will of God,” I will try my best to align my answers with the will and word of God.

My sister, your little ones need you!

Little kids need their mothers more than anything and anybody and of course more than they need their fathers. You are very important for them especially at an informative age (zero to 7 years of age). No best daycare can replace a mother and no nanny can take the place of a mother. This is the season and the time for you to invest in the hearts and minds of your little ones.

I understand your desire to grow and be educated. And it is good. I believe this desire is instilled in you by God. It is not sinful for you to desire to improve your quality of life. However have you ever asked yourself how much it cost to make your dream a reality?

I am not just talking about money here. I am talking about everything else that is demanded of you to go to school and get all what you want to get in life.

The word of God says, “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?” Luke 14:28 NASB

As a Christian, you need to sit and calculate your cost to go to school, get that dream job, buy that dream house and car?

Is it only money or does the cost include your children’s prime childhood age and your marriage?

Jesus said, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:26 NKJV

Wow!

Did you see that?

If you gain everything you desire to gain in life, all the degrees, masters, big houses and brand new cars but loses your kids and your marriage, is that profit to you?

As a Christian, I believe it is always wise to see if what you desire to get aligns with your moral and biblical values.

If you go to school after ten years, for example, you can still go and get whatever you want to get but after ten years, you cannot go back to raise kids. By that time, your kids are going to be teenagers. You can catch up with school and job careers later but not with raising kids and your marriage. Once they slip out of your hands, they are gone forever.

For example, your main call as a wife is to be “a suitable” helper to your husband for the Bible says, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”” Genesis 2:18 NASB

“A suitable helper” doesn’t mean a mother, or a mentor, or the one who coaches him to go to school and get a better job; rather it means, a life partner who helps him in whatever he chooses to do in life. If your husband chooses to make taxi driving his life career, so be it.

Remember this: You cannot change your husband.

There is one saying that goes something like this: A man marries a woman thinking that she will never change and she will; a woman marries a man thinking that he will change and he will never.

How true that is!

Adaptability is a natural potential a woman has, not a man.

So, instead of trying to change your husband or his conditions, what about changing the way you see your life.

Be thankful that you are able to work and make money. Until your children get to the school age, try your best to be with them, making use of the money your husband brings home wisely.

Instead of telling your husband to go to school and get a better job, why don’t you pray for him for God to bless him in whatever he chooses to do in life?

Note: I am not saying here or implying to say, “Let your husband get away with every wrong and unloving thing he does.” No, I am not saying that. I am just focusing solely on what you’re complaining about.

As a God-loving woman, a wife of one man and a mother of nations, be a praying woman. Take the woman in Proverbs 31 as your role model that you strive to emulate.

Listen:

“An excellent wife, who can find her?
For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
And he will have no lack of gain.” Proverbs 31:10-11 NASB

Wow! He will have no lack of gain!

Why?

His wife is wise! She influences her husband to be the person God calls him to be.

“Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,  when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ” 1 Peter 3:1-4 NIV

Wow! Did you see that?

She doesn’t nag him; she doesn’t annoy him; she doesn’t lecture him; she doesn’t complain about him being lazy. Instead she quietly walks with the Holy Spirit, in prayer and reading/studying the word of God. This influences her husband to be the person God calls him to be.

Lastly, you said, your husband watches Ethiopian politics on YouTube.

My sister, what if your husband gambles after work or goes to one of his friends’ house and drinks alcohol? You are blessed that your husband comes home and watches about his country, Ethiopia.

You are from Ethiopia too, aren’t you? What’s happening in Ethiopia right now should concern you too. But I understand. I too don’t have patience or interest to sit and watch political and rhetorical interviews but I still watch news so that I know about my country and my people.

If you are not at all interested to do that, your husband is interested and you cannot change that. As they say, “If you can’t beat them join them” – sit with him and watch for few minutes so you and your husband will have something common to talk about so that in the process, you build and nurture your marital relationship.

Do you see that?

Otherwise if you continue complaining and whining, you will be a contentious woman. Do you know what the Bible says about a contentious woman?

Listen:

“A constant dripping on a day of steady rain
And a contentious woman are alike;
He who would restrain her restrains the wind,
And grasps oil with his right hand.” Proverbs 27:15-16 NASB

“It is better to live on a corner of the roof,
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” Proverbs 25:24 NASB

“It is better to live in a desert land
Than with a contentious and irritating woman.” Proverbs 21:19 NASB

I mean, you get the drift, don’t you?

The Bible doesn’t say things of this nature about men, not because all the letters you see in the Bible are written by men but because the Bible is the inspired word of God and what we find in the Bible is nothing but the “T” Truth of God.

May God give you wisdom and understanding into these important matters! ///