How Unconditional Love Transformed His Marriage

When we talk about a husband’s unconditional love, what exactly does that look like? How does a husband love a wife who lives with family of origin scars, thinks he wants sex too often, conveys distrust toward him, provokes him to see if he’ll get angry or violent and uses words purposely to hurt him deeply?

Few situations rise to this level of difficulty, but read about this husband’s discovery. Read what he found out about the core of his wife.

Could it be that many wives feel their disrespect is best explained as their way of protecting themselves from the fear they have of never really being loved?

How does a manly man endure this? How does a man’s man bring his wife under conviction so that she softens and stops these sabotaging behaviors?

Read on.

We received this letter from a man whose unconditional love transformed his marriage:

“My wife and I married full of hope and love like every other couple. But my wife had scars from growing up with parents who didn’t unconditionally love her and with boyfriends who were only looking for one thing. Deep down in her soul, she wasn’t sure if I would be different, and during our first year of marriage, she put me to the test.

“Was I the man she thought she married? She never verbalized this, but years later it came out in counseling.

“She tried to manipulate and control the relationship so she could protect herself, but also to see if I would stand up to her and what that would look like.

“Would I react violently, would I give up, or would I stand by my word and stick it out? Hurtful words were her most lethal weapon, which she used with deadly precision.

“I came into the marriage with too high expectations for our sexual relationship, but she felt sex made her feel “used,” and the less the better. This was an area where my wife tested me a lot (more subconsciously than on purpose). We’d have a great evening together, talking and having fun, and even fooling around, but when we got to the bedroom, it would end, and I was expected to not be disappointed, or else I only wanted one thing.

“This was really emotionally painful for me because making love to my wife was a part of my love for her, but she used it as a weapon against me. I had never been hurt to the core of my being like that before.

“But I had given my word, and divorce was too easy. I was also a Christian, and I knew that God’s Word commanded me to love my wife no matter what.

“I’m no saint, and I made my share of mistakes in our relationship, but one thing I did do right was to love my wife even when she didn’t deserve it.

“Some men may say, “I just can’t do that,” and to be honest there were times when I was so empty and hurting inside that I really didn’t have any love left to give my wife. It was at those times that I would approach God and pray something like this:

‘Father, I hurt so bad. You know what’s going on in my marriage. You heard all the hurtful things she just said to me. I didn’t deserve that. You know my heart, and I know she is hurting too. She NEEDS my love, but it just isn’t there in my heart right now. So, Father, I’m asking for Your help. I need You to fill my heart with Your love, so that I can go back in there and love her as You’ve asked me to.’

“I didn’t pray this prayer very often, but every time I did, God supernaturally put that love in my heart. I could actually sense it inside my being. Mostly, I would feel His love for me, and then it was just natural to give some of that same love to my wife.”

During the first year of their marriage, he remembers were some turning points. One that stands out is the night they had a “really big fight,” and she said she wanted to leave “for good.”

By then he had learned to recognize when she was manipulating him, and he had started standing up to her. He stood in the doorway of the only entrance to their apartment and wouldn’t let her go by. He wasn’t physical; he just wouldn’t move despite her repeated blows of frustration.

In about a minute she started crying, and he held her and told her he loved her. She says that if he hadn’t stopped her then, she would have left never to come back.

He believes this was a key turning point because she had already known that he would not leave no matter how she treated him, and she learned that even when she didn’t have the strength to keep going and wanted to leave him, he would still be there to hold the relationship together.

His letter continues,

I think she finally knew that it was impossible for the relationship to dissolve and she was safe.

I wish I could say it got better immediately. It didn’t.

We were on and off the Crazy Cycle for the first several years of our marriage. For the most part our marriage was unfulfilling for both of us. But slowly and surely, the love that God gave me began to heal the wounds in my wife and our relationship. As the Bible rightly says, ‘Love covers a multitude of sins.’

Gentlemen, you can do what this husband did when you recognize what he discerned about his wife.

Stay the course.

You have what it takes.

You are a manly man who can do this with God’s help.

A new day awaits you.

Begin by praying his prayer that this husband prayed. Invite God to show up on your behalf. He is for you, not against you. Then write out two things you can apply from what this man did and go do them this week.

Envision the day she breaks down and cries and comes out with, “Please forgive me. I was so unfair to you. Thank you for being a man’s man who loved me. Thanks for being strong and sturdy.”

Gentle women, if you are in this woman’s camp and treating your husband as this wife treated her husband, recognize the risk you run.

She pushed her husband too much, and came too close to pushing him out of her life forever. Had she done so, she probably would have gone on social media saying, “He wanted sex all the time, I could not trust him, he had anger issues, physically controlled me, never understood my needs, and was ‘holier than thou.’”

-Dr. E