Both women and men are sinners who, in Christ, have been forgiven, but there is an ongoing consequence of the state of two human hearts within marriage.

Both men and women are culpable in the sight of God to the destructive patterns known to occur in the marriage relationship. Both men and women.

But it is both my experience and my belief, even as an egalitarian, that love must begin with the husband, before respect is received from the wife. If men can be men enough to be open to this regard, a great deal of good can be done within a marriage. This article does not dispute that abuses are not suffered by men. This article does not dispute that women, too, can be perpetrators of abuse. But this article must, for the common good, place the onus of responsibility on husbands.

I will often say in the marriage counselling service that I provide that the husband has more control over the success of his marriage than the wife does. There are some who would disagree with that. That is their prerogative. Again, my views have been formed through experience, even after running myself as a husband through the filter of my philosophy for marriage.

We must understand that we are married to someone who does not meet all the conditions that love demands. In this respect, God’s opportunity is to learn how to love someone who, occasionally (or perhaps regularly), does not deserve our love; yet, someone for whom the Father sent his Son to die for. At times they are difficult to love, let alone like. Our challenge as a marriage partner is to overcome, and grow through, our reluctance to love.

It is only when we have learned to love someone we don’t want to love that we learn something more of Christ’s love for us. We need to ask: how hard are we to love, yet how fully loved are we?

If Christ loves us unconditionally when we cannot even love ourselves, can we love our spouse at a standard much more than they could ever deserve, to a standard to which Christ esteems for them?

We must also understand that we are married to someone who needs mercy, so we are able to learn how to give it. We are married to a person who does not respond appropriately, so we can learn how to be patient. The person we married, like ourselves, is full of emotional junk, especially when their buttons are pressed, and yet every bit of imperfection in our partner is a very resource God uses to sanctify us.

Their disobedience is our opportunity: to love them to the extent of Christ’s love.

Put another way…

We know something of this love when our disobedience is met with their grace.

Imagine love being in the hand of the person who knows Christ’s love for themselves. Unlimited love. If that person can love their partner like Christ loves them, they have an effective premise for love.

Men, all this must start from us. At least in having read this, we commit to the only control we should ever take: to love and to keep loving. We do all we can to take our responsibility. That our wives are increasingly safer in our marriages. That we love them and keep loving them, even beyond our own feelings of disappointment. That we know they’re loved when they say they feel loved.

I can tell you that I know many husbands who have wrestled with love to the extent they discovered how to love their wives – and theirs, as a marriage, is comparative bliss to the attainment of contented marital maturity.

The disclaimer to all this is, of course, the situation of rampant abuse, where a marriage partner has no say or influence over their partner’s behaviour, where there is no repentance, to the extent the situation is unsafe to remain in.