Did you bring baggage into your marriage?
I did. I had baggage from my father issues, but also baggage from Keith breaking off our initial engagement. And that baggage led to real trust issues.
When we have baggage, that often affects our marriages. Instead of seeing our husbands as they are now, and reacting to just what’s happening in front of us, we look at things through baggage-coloured glasses.
Every Wednesday on this blog we talk marriage, and today I just want to ask a simple question: Do you have any of these “glasses” on when you interact with your husband? Do you see him through a certain lens, rather than seeing him just as he is?
Here are a few “baggage” lenses that can impact our marriages:
1. The Father Lens.
Did you have a close, loving, supportive father? If you didn’t, that likely left a hole in you. My father, for instance, left me when I was two, and I’ve always had rejection issues. For the first few years we were married, whenever we were feeling particularly close and snuggling, I would find “you’re not going to leave me, are you?” coming out of my mouth instead of “I love you.” I was programmed to assume that this relationship wasn’t going to last.
And that can lead to a lack of trust in your relationship, which makes transparency hard, intimacy tricky, and happiness difficult. What we tend to do is to push our husbands away before they push us away. We get defensive, and believe that everything that they bring up that is negative means they’re going to leave us–as opposed to the fact that they just want to work on something.
So we assume the worst. We think that when he’s being insensitive it means he genuinely doesn’t care, as opposed to maybe he’s just being lazy or preoccupied. And so we start attacking him and accusing him of things that he has no intention of doing and aren’t even on his radar screen. And yet what’s happened is not that he’s doing anything in particular; it’s that we have read too much into things because of our own prejudices.
2. The Past Bad Relationship Lens.
Often our lack of trust is magnified if we’ve had really bad romantic relationships or marriages in the past. I have a friend who was abused in her first marriage, and is now married to someone who loves her dearly. But she has a hard time believing it. He says that he often has a nightmare where he’s lying in his coffin, about to be lowered into the ground, and she’s standing above it, saying, “See! I told you you’d leave me!”. That’s the only way that argument can end, because he can never prove to her that he is going to stay.
3. The Pathetic Man Lens.
In our culture men are thought of as incompetent when it comes to relationship stuff, housework stuff, and parenting stuff. We are the wise ones; they are the dolts that we put up with for some reason. And it becomes in vogue to make fun of men for how they can’t share their feelings, or can’t do laundry, or can’t play with a baby.
The problem is that many men CAN share their feelings, CAN do laundry, and CAN play with babies. They just may do it differently than we do. But because our lens tells us that he is pathetic, we assume that when he launches into his version of it that it’s wrong, and we berate him for it. Not a good way to build intimacy!
4. The “He’s Always Right” Lens.
This one perhaps is not as common as it used to be, but it’s still out there, and it goes something like this. God has called me to submit to this man, and He has made this man head over our marriage. Therefore, what my husband says I must obey, because my husband is right. Nope. God is your final authority; not your husband. We must submit, yes. But God never asks us to do that without thinking for ourselves. And if your husband isn’t close to God, and isn’t leading your family close to God, then you need to pick up the slack and do those things on your own.
If your husband asks you to do something in the bedroom that you feel is wrong, you don’t have to do it. If your husband is addicted to pornography, it’s okay to confront him on it. Submitting does not mean letting go of our wisdom or our discernment.
5. The “My Kids Are My Main Concern Right Now” Lens.
Too often we weigh everything in our marriage in terms of the kids. If our husbands want a night away with us, we wonder how that will affect the kids, and why doesn’t he love the kids as much as I do? Our children are our main priority, and we give them the majority of our time and attention, and we wonder why our husbands don’t seem to do the same thing. We assume that we must love the children more. Actually, our husbands might have the right idea. What children need is to feel that their parents have a stable relationship; if you put the children first, you’re sacrificing their stability.
6. The “All Men Are Perverts” Lens.
For several years after I was released from my indoctrination program at university, I believed that all men were evil to a certain extent, and women were superior. This isn’t the same as believing all men are buffoons; it’s actually more harmful. We learned that “all sex is rape”, for instance, and that makes it very hard to figure out how to handle intimacy in a marriage.
Others of you may have grown up with sexual abuse, and couple that with a culture which is so degrading towards women, and it’s easy to think that all men are perverts. Then, when our husbands are interested in sex, we think he’s just an animal, confirming our worst fears about the male gender.
In each of these cases, though, we’re allowing our biases to impact how we see our husbands. And that can seriously harm our marriage!
Often we have very good reason to have these biases. Perhaps your childhood was very difficult. Perhaps men did hurt you in the past.
But even if you have a good reason to have this baggage, you’re still left with this:
Are you going to let your past baggage hurt your marriage, or do you want to have a fresh start with the man you love?
Here’s my assignment for you this week: figure out what lens, or lenses, you have. If you can identify your biases, then it’s easier to take off those lenses and see him with clear eyes. Then, next time you find yourself getting upset with your husband, or ticked off about something, ask yourself this question:
“Is he really doing something very wrong? Or am I assuming something about the situation?”
That’s a good practice to get into in marriage: start with yourself when there’s a conflict. And you just might find that those conflicts magically disappear!
Now, let me know in the comments: which lens is the most difficult for you? Or do you have one I didn’t even mention? Let’s talk!
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I get the “roommate lens” sometimes. Which generally ends up him feeling like “just anybody” instead of a special partner.
I wore the father lens for far too long, and have only broken free from it in the past couple of years, because a.) I have done so much stupid and hurtful stuff to my husband, and he still hasn’t left me, I feel I can trust him to stay now (not a route I would recommend!) and b.) I now have a relationship with my Heavenly Father, and He provides the comfort and reassurance I need, when I need it.
Amen to #3.
You can add to it men are told they are doing emotion wrong. If they get excited about a football game, they are having an emotional response. What do many women say/do? That’s so childish.
Who will open up emotionally to that controlling woman? That’s right, controlling. Who gave her the right to determine how he should manifest his emotions?
Or when his sex drive is called base or carnal. He got married in part because he really wants to get naked with you pretty much any time he’s breathing. Critics of that place themselves in judgment of what God has made. Not to mention, such criticism is again controlling and antithetical to having an intimate in all of its forms marriage.
Unless one is willing to allow their spouse to devalue their emotional needs, I don’t think it’s a good plan to devalue the emotional needs of your spouse.
Amen to numbers one and three. My father was technically present, but not emotionally so. He was a terrible listener, so while he may have been physically around, I find my mentality and behavior is that of one whose father was not around as they grew up. more than once my husband has had to reassure me that he is not going anywhere. I’m guilty of number 3 as well, even if in my own head. I’ve gotten to where, nine times out of ten, my contemptuous comments never get spoken aloud. For awhile I figured that if I didn’t say them aloud, it was ok, and I was doing well, because they couldn’t hurt my husband. God convicted me that even if my husband didn’t hear them, God did, and that I was still just as wrong for my contemptuous thoughts as if I had indeed spoken them aloud. I’ve been working on that battle in my own head, and am slowly making progress. I’m realizing that just because my husband does certain things differently it doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way. Sure, he has weaknesses, but so do I, and I’d better keep those in mind before mentally castigating him for his. This post is spot on, and reinforces what I’m working on. Thanks for writing this!
You are very correct sheila, i agree, most women see their husband through the father lens and it ruin things, they fail to understand that, their father is not the one in the affair, a father daughter relationship is completely different from a husband wife relationship.
Once had this girlfriend that saw me through father lens, every time she would do things she felt was right because of what she believed and she would say i do things like her father and she doesn’t want what happened to her father to happen to me
It was so annoying
I had the “father” lens, but only in a really minor way. I have a fantastic relationship with my dad, but it was little things that would trip me up. Like, my dad HAS to be the one who drives. My mom doesn’t like driving and gets nervous on big highways, so my dad always drove the family on things like road trips. I had it in my head that my husband would be offended if I tried to drive, and it took a few months for me to figure out that, no, he really doesn’t mind if I drive and he likes to relax on the trip sometimes.
The hardest lens for me is seeing my husband as he has been. I’ve written a lot here — my husband is a straight up sexual refuser (it’s been an issue since our wedding night), he hid a drinking problem from me, he has a tendency to be super critical, he would do things like roll his eyes and sigh heavily if I walked into a room. (That more than anything made me feel unwanted.) The thing is … the past few months he’s been getting better. He’s being a lot more affectionate; like, instead of pushing me away when I try to greet him after work, he actually hugs me back. He’s taking a few minutes to cuddle in the morning before leaving, and he will talk for a few minutes about his day when he gets home. He only acts annoyed if I’m in the room, like, 50% of the time instead of Every. Single. Moment. This is even day 7 of no alcohol (he’s working on a full 30 days). THESE ARE HUGE CHANGES. It’s just that after nearly 4 years of treating me like he hated me, it’s really hard to trust (or even notice sometimes) the way he’s changing. But it’s there and it’s real. And when I focus on the changes, I feel a million times more hopeful than when I focus on the past.
What suggestions do you have for couples in which the man has ED? Viagra costs about $75 a pill. The ones from Canada don’t seem to be effective.
Those aren’t actually the active ingredient in Viagra (sildenafil). They’re not regulated by the government in the same way as the FDA regulates drugs you buy here. This isn’t a quick fix now but US viagra will be going generic at the end of the year. Are there health concerns such as high blood pressure or blood sugar that your husband could address? Often making changes in lifestyle can help with symptoms of ED. I’m a pharmacist, & I do hurt for patients for whom these pills are so expensive.
Sheila, this is a great list and it is most definitely what I needed to hear today. My husband & I are both really committed to our relationship and we have been doing so well the past 3 months, after nearly splitting up. We had our 21st Anniversary in May and it was so wonderful, especially to realize that we almost didn’t get there……. but God had better plans for us!
Just this week, I have sometimes looked at my husband through a very negative lens again. He’s doing nothing wrong, but I jump to conclusions. My old fears are (at times) trying to re-surface. I felt the beginnings of a wall of separation ( for my own feelings protection) going back up. Sad. Not what I wanted. A sure-fire intimacy killer. The lens of negativity.
And you know the root of it? Satan himself, full of lies, as usual. God is blessing us and so now there’s opposition. God designed marriage and he wants us to have intimacy together and with him. That is why the devil will use whatever tool- in this case a LENS of fear, or whatever has triggered us in the past to de-rail all the good that God is doing in our relationships.
Great post! Thanks.
Oh, I’m so glad you liked it, Lori! And fear is never from God. That’s great that you recognized that!
Good read as always! I guess all women, to a certain degree, see men through the “father lens” , consciously or subconsciously .. All the other lenses are also in the picture, but the father lens is the one that, in my opinion, has the least “reversible” and most powerful and permanent character .. You can almost formulate an equation to predict a woman’s emotional baggage based on her relationship with her father: absent father-> fear of abandonment; insensitive father -> fear of rejection; overprotective father -> guilt/shame of intimacy; abusive father -> trust issues.
I have issues with my husband and sex, because I was not only molested by my father, but raped as a teenager and kidnapped. It’s so hard to have sex if he strokes me a certain way or drinks, which he does daily. He does not understand that smells can put you right back where you were. Please what can I do to help? Thank you.