Am I Responsible for My Spouse’s Reactions?

Have you ever experienced a conflict with your spouse like this one I described in my book Love & Respect?

The husband is gone for a week on a business trip. As his plane lands, he starts envisioning a romantic evening with his wife, so he hurries home as quickly as he can. As he walks in the door, his wife’s first words are, “What are you doing home so early? Well, since you’re here, I need you to pick up the kids from school. And don’t forget, we have parent-teacher meetings this evening. Oh yes . . . I want to talk to you about Billy. The teacher called today and said he’s been showing off and distracting his friends in class. And on the way to school, can you pick up my clothes at the cleaners? Oh, I almost forgot. Dinner will be late because my sister is dropping over for coffee.”

So much for the romantic evening planned by our knight of the business road who has wound up playing second fiddle to the kids, the cleaning, and his wife’s sister. On his way out the back door he calls sarcastically over his shoulder, “Great to see you after a week!”

His wife is bothered by his sarcastic tone, but just as he walks out the phone rings and she doesn’t have time to follow him outside to ask him what he meant. Later, during the parent-teacher meetings, she senses he is still angry, but on the way home she says nothing. She is exhausted from all the week’s activities, and she is upset because he has never asked her once about all she has had to deal with. She wonders what right he has to be upset with her when he is the one being unreasonable.

As they retire into bed that night, the husband decides that he will “make up” with his wife in the most obvious and natural way. As he reaches to rub her back, which is usually a good way to get started, she groans, “Don’t. I’m too tired.”

Angrily, he rolls away from her without saying a word. Wounded by his anger, she says, “You’re so insensitive!”

In disbelief, he replies, “I can’t believe you said that. I’ve been gone for a week. I come home and instead of any kind of greeting, you just go on about the kids and your sister. When I try to get close, you tell me you’re too tired. And then you call me insensitive! Am I just a meal ticket to you?”

By now the wife is very hurt, and she retorts, “You never asked once how I was doing. The only time you get interested in me it’s for sex!”

“I was gone a week!” When we were first married and I had to travel, you couldn’t wait to see me get home. You’d greet me at the door with a smile and a kiss. Now you simply look up and say, ‘Why are you home so early?’ Thanks. That makes my day.”

As anyone married for longer than the honeymoon knows, stories like these are not unusual. Perhaps yours haven’t revolved around travel and sex but instead have been about finances, in-laws, or where to spend the holidays. But I am certain every couple experiences instances like these that I call the Crazy Cycle.

The Crazy Cycle says that without love, she reacts without respect; without respect, he reacts without love. Around and around they go . . . he feels disrespected when she throws everything on him but herself when he returns from a weeklong business trip. She feels unloved when he doesn’t ask her how her week went. He feels disrespected when she turns down his sexual advances. She feels unloved when he responds sarcastically. How many more rounds can they go?

About all this unloving and disrespectful back-and-forth, there is one particular question I receive often. And though the concept applies to both husbands and wives, interestingly I almost always hear the question from the wife’s point of view: "Are you saying that I'm responsible for my husband's action if I talk to him in a disrespectful way? That I have provoked him?"

When applied to the opening story, the wife might ask, “Are you saying that I’m responsible for my husband not asking about my tough week home alone with the kids, because I didn’t greet him with a passionate kiss?” She could also ask, “Because I had coffee with my sister, which delayed dinner, does that mean I am responsible for his sarcastic and unloving response as he left?”

Of course, what she is really asking here, and what all are truly getting at when they ask me questions like these is: “Are you, Emerson–a man–justifying my husband’s unloving reactions because they are in response to something I did that they perceived as disrespectful? Is this what you’re really getting at here? Are you saying it’s all the woman’s fault?”

No. Never. Not at all. Neither I nor anything in Scripture justifies a husband’s unloving words or actions toward his wife. Not for any reason whatsoever. Even when Job’s wife told him to curse God and die, had he responded in any unloving way whatsoever he would not have been justified in doing so. His wife would not have been responsible for any sinful outburst he had.

The husband is responsible for his response. Always. Ephesians 5:33 does not say that the husband “must love his wife as he loves himself, if the wife respects him.” No, it says, “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Two separate commands, independent of the other. And yes, they can be obeyed independent of the other. Despite the hateful words from Job’s wife that no person would wish to hear from their spouse, Scripture says, “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said” (Job 2:10).

So to be clear, no it is not the wife’s fault when her husband says or does something that is unloving toward her. But let's ask the question differently. Can your husband ask me, "Are you saying that I'm responsible for my wife's actions if I talk to her in an unloving way? That I have provoked her?"

Whenever I am asked the question from the wife’s point of view, I respond by asking her the question from the alternative view. “How do you feel about that question?’ I reply. “Do you want me to say to your husband, ‘No, she is responsible for her response. And based on Ephesians 5:33 you are responsible for your response’?

Of course any reasonable, goodwilled person understands that “my response is my responsibility.” Your spouse did not cause you to react in the unloving and disrespectful way you did. Rather the situation itself revealed what was already inside of you. The husband above was not forced to respond sarcastically and unlovingly to his wife when she was not as ready as he was for a quiet, intimate evening. Nor was she given no other choice but to be angry when he did not ask her about her week in his first moments of coming home.

Having said this, all of us need to realize a simple reality. When a husband is unloving toward his wife, she will struggle against reacting negatively. That is why Scripture commands her to respect her husband unconditionally. God is not in the business of commanding that which already comes natural to us. All wives will struggle to maintain respect toward their husband when feeling unloved. And when a wife is disrespectful toward her husband, he too will struggle against reacting negatively. Because showing unconditional love toward his wife even when feeling disrespected does not come natural to him either.

We will all struggle in obeying these commands to love and respect. Some days we’ll do better than others. But no matter how well we do or how difficult the struggle is, we are never responsible for our spouse’s unloving or disrespectful reactions. Their response is their responsibility. And your response is your responsibility.