Husbands, Pray with Your Wife
Wendy
In a rare change from the norm at Practical Theology for Women, I'd like to give a small word of practical advice to husbands.
Pray with and for your wife.
In evangelical Christian marriages, the issue of roles and leadership tend to plague both husbands and wives. When hormonal euphoria begins to wane in a relationship, the friction of two distinct but overlapping genders becoming one heats up. Sexual heat may fade as relational heat rises. Women get emotional. Men hide from those emotions. The man doesn't feel welcoming to the woman. The woman doesn't feel safe to the man. Her cry for emotional and spiritual intimacy feels like fingernails on a chalkboard to him.
These are stereotypes and generalizations. Yet, I use them because they also fit the majority of conversations I have with friends and family on this topic. This may not describe YOUR marriage, but it does describe many.
If any of that resonates with you, dear Christian husband who loves his wife but doesn't know how to enter into her emotional needs, I offer you this one miraculous tool that won't cost you much at all.
Pray with her.