Some Christian women get married. Then they somehow start to live their married life in ways they consider right. Because of that these wives are unable to be wives the word of God calls them to be.

So, what are identifying characters of a wife who is unable to be a wife according to the word of God?

I. She unknowingly tries to raise her husband

Every woman has natural “built-in” instincts to be a nurturer and be a mother. This is her God-given gift mainly given to use to her own children so she can raise children in the ways of God.

Unfortunately a woman, unless she is conscience and intentional, gets married and automatically takes the role of “raising her husband in the way he should go.” She strives to make her husband “a good citizen.” This very tendency of a woman rubs her husband the wrong way, rightly so!

She wants to teach him, for instance, how he needs to stop looking at women.

Hello! A man does not stop looking at a woman. If she is referring to “lusting after a woman,” she cannot teach her husband how to be sexually pure. That was her homework to do before marrying him to see if he was a sexually pure man, a man who fights for his sexual sanity by fighting with his pair of eyes. After marriage, trying to mentor him so he stops staring at and lusting after a woman is a lost cause! And doing so destroys a marriage!

II. She does not hold her husband responsible

She thinks she is nice or she is a good wife by not asking her husband to take part in the house chores. When she gets challenged by other wives why she does not do that, she usually says, “I don’t argue with him! I just do it myself. After all, I enjoy working in my house.”

Then the husband gets used to making his home a resort center. He comes home from work (if he chooses to work) to eat, watch tik tok videos and have sex.

Then the wife starts complaining, “My husband doesn’t care for me.”

How can he care? In what was can he care?

A man who is told, directly or indirectly, that he has no responsibility in the house will never come and ask, “But I feel bored by not helping you in the house!” Are you serious! He enjoys it and if anyone comes to change that, he fights as if he fights for his life.

III. She misses out from God’s call

God is the Author of marriage. He puts one man and one woman in a covenantal relationship so the two shall have a one-flesh relationship.

Then out of this one-flesh relationship comes the next generation through the woman. And God kindly and tenderly entrusts the call of raising the next generation mainly to the woman. He gave the gift of mothering to the woman.

But this particular wife, since she is too busy and fully mentally and emotionally occupied in “raising her husband,” she has little or no time for her little ones. Don’t get me wrong. She feeds her kids and she puts them to sleep. But when it comes to mentoring and shaping their characters in the word of God, she has no energy and she is unavailable emotionally to do that task. She is usually in an angry mode. So, her little ones are always scared of her. Why? She is raising “the already fully grown man” who takes all her energy and strength. Because of that her kids will be raised and mentored by games, nannies, daycare centers or entertainment shows. She will terribly be missing out in this precious and honorable call.

IV. She tends to gather people to help her raise her husband

When she is unable to raise her husband by herself, when “he misbehaves,” and doesn’t do what she tells/wants him to do, she goes and calls people, like pastors/priests/ministers, uncles and aunts, parents, his big brother and his big sister so they can tell him what she wants him to do and be.

Does this work?

Never!

Then why does she keep doing it?

First called these people because she thought it could work but for her nightmare she learned that it was a wrong thing to do.

But she did it again. If you ask her why, she says, “I thought they would change him this time since my other uncle was added in the group to talk to him?”

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

And she doesn’t open up to anyone, even when she called friends and relatives, she hides the worst things her husband did because “she protects her husband.”

The husband is called to protect his wife but this woman thinks that God made a big mistake when he gave this responsibility to a husband. So, she took it on herself and she fights for her husband, hiding him under her dress.

This is nothing but tragic!

A man has to be a man and there is no better motivator for a man than his wife for him to be a man but not this particular wife. This wife actually has a tendency to kill any “masculinity” left in a man.

V. She does not take any steps towards real change

When it comes to bringing change into her life, marriage and the lives of her children, she does not take any steps because she is not a person of action but “talking.”

She believes in argument, shouting and calling names to change her husband and raise him.

“A continual dripping on a rainy day
and a quarrelsome wife are alike;
to restrain her is to restrain the wind
or to grasp oil in one’s right hand.” Proverbs 27:15-16 ESV

“It is better to live in a corner of the housetop
than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.” Proverbs 25:24 ESV

If she asks for advice from people who don’t know her, like people who counsel her and when they tell her to take specific steps, she is not willing.

Then what does she do?

She gives “warnings” to her husband. This is totally absurd!

The truth is  no man listens to any woman’s warnings. He only understands and sees actions. But this woman literally made herself handicapped to take even one baby-step action. But she threatens her husband saying, “One day, you will see me walking away from this marriage.”

You know what this husband says in his heart – sometimes in his mouth so she can hear him –, “The door is open! Go!”

VI. Last but not least, this woman thinks she believes in God

This is a big problem! She claims she waits on God to change her marriage situations but the question we need to ask is “which God?” The god she is talking about is not the God of the Bible. To wait on God biblically, one has to know the word of God for God is nowhere to be found outside His word.

She doesn’t even open her Bible. She doesn’t study her Bible, doesn’t meditate the word of God because she has no energy and time. How can she wait on a God that she does not know!

Since she is in the business of “raising her husband,” she usually expends her energy in cleaning, washing 24/7 and cooking to make the man she is raising happy so he attends “her lecture classes.”

So, what is the solution to this woman? Only one thing!

Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42 NASB

What did Mary choose to do?

Mary “was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.” Luke 10:39 NASB

Listening, studying, obeying the word of God is the only one thing necessary for marriage and life in general. ///