you can't fix him!
BY: fEDENA PINET
Counseling director, step out
A major lesson I had to learn within my marriage is that it is not my job to fix my husband. Yet for years this is what I tried to do. My efforts were mostly met with resistance. To me this was because of my husband's rebellion. I was blinded to how big of a stumbling I was being in my husband's life until the Lord opened my eyes to the truth. Like so many wives, I had fallen prey to the mindset that I had the power to fix all of my husband's issues.
From the very beginning, wives were created to be helpmeets. But being a helpmeet must begin with Christ. When we seek to fill this role on our own, we end up doing so from a selfish place, all the time convincing ourselves that our efforts are sacrificial and all about helping our husbands. But what we end up unknowingly doing is try and turn our spouses into quick fixes to pacify our own issues. Control, manipulation, and seducing is never sacrificial. They are tactics to get a person to bend to your will. These are tactics many wives blindly use against their husbands. Anything that is out of line with Christ ultimately has "self" at the root of it.
While most wives honestly feel that they are helping their husbands, the truth is they are only helping themselves and their husbands to remain in bondage to their issues. The husband remains bound because he is not free to see himself beyond his issues because the wife becomes a constant reminder. And the wife remains bound because she places so much focus on the husband and what she perceives to be wrong with him that she can't see her own areas that need aligning. This is definitely not the way to fix your husband or your marriage.
Learning to shift our focus from our spouse to God is what will bring order into a marriage. We cannot fix someone else when we ourselves are broken. By focusing on God, we are able to pinpoint our own issues. In doing so the Lord is able to heal, cleanse, and align us. True alignment can only begin with the Lord. We simply don't have the capabilities to fix each other no matter how hard we try or how deeply we desire to do so. God did not create things in this manner. We are vessels … vessels that God longs to flow His fullness through.
As we come to this revelation, we will understand that it is about us allowing Christ to use us to draw our husbands to Him verses us trying to draw them to us. Once we learn to humble to the order of the Lord, we will find just how easily our marriages will transform. So, the next time you get the urge to fix your husband, turn to the Lord instead … so that He is able to work His perfect will in you, your husband, and your marriage.
