Whose Love and Respect Does a Spouse Truly Need?

In the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire, the title character played by Tom Cruise enters his estranged wife’s living room in the climactic scene and tells her, “You complete me.” Cue the melting of hearts of every woman watching one of the more memorable romantic scenes in modern cinema.

It’s certainly a nice thought that an unsettled husband would come to the sudden realization that what was truly missing from his life was his wife. But could that actually be a dangerously unwise expectation to have toward one’s spouse—that a wife “completes” a husband, or a husband “completes” a wife?

A wife might say something like, “I need to experience my husband’s love.” True enough. She absolutely should experience her husband’s unconditional love for her. That is why Paul commands the husband in Ephesians 5:33 to “love his wife as he loves himself.” Needing to feel loved and cherished by her husband is a vulnerability every wife has, and as men don’t naturally exude all things love like their wives were uniquely designed to do, the Word of God reminds men what they are to be intentional about—loving their wives unconditionally.

But from the Lord’s view, while He certainly expects her husband to love her as he is commanded, He knows that what she truly needs is to experience more of Christ’s love. It could very well be that she is looking for her husband to meet a need for love that the Lord Himself intends for her to receive from Him. 

For example, most wives outlive their husbands. Will she be in a position to enter widowhood far more whole, though sorrowing beyond words, because of learning to enjoy the Lord’s love earlier in life? 

Take the prophetess and widow Anna, for example, in Luke 2. We aren’t told much about her except that she was married for only seven years before her husband died but remained a widow for the rest of her long life. And even at the age of 84, Scripture tells us, “She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayer . . . giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:37-38).

Did Anna “need” to experience her husband’s love in order to be find perfect joy? Definitely not. For seven years, assuming her husband’s love and goodwill toward her, God was grateful that she got to experience the love of her husband, if only for a short time, but He knew that she could only experience complete love and joy from Him, her heavenly Father. 

The same goes for a husband. Does he exclaim, “I need my wife to respect me!”? Indeed, he does, at the human level. That is why Paul commands the wife in Ephesians 5:33 to “respect her husband.” Needing to feel respected and honored by his wife is a vulnerability every husband has, and as women do not have this same vulnerability, the Word of God reminds them what they are to be intentional about—showing respect toward the spirit of their husband. 

But from the Lord’s vantage point, while He definitely expects the wife to show respect toward her husband as Scripture commands, He knows that what this man truly needs is to deepen in his understanding of God’s honor of him. As God says in 1 Samuel 2:30, “for those who honor Me I will honor.” Would it not be true that this husband needs God’s honor more than he needs his wife’s respect? Though not an either/or proposition, can he hold his head up high knowing he leans more into trusting God’s honor of him than he leans toward pushing his wife to show more respect?

After all, did the apostle Paul have a wife to show him unconditional respect? No, he remained single his entire life, as he was given the gift of celibacy. And he felt so honored by God during his post-Damascus road life that he said, “I wish that all men were even as I myself am. . . . One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:7, 32). Few would make the point that God had deprived Paul of honor and respect by not providing a wife for him. No, Paul received all the honor he could ever need from his Father in heaven.

Again, for those married, God expects and has commanded husbands to love their wives unconditionally and for wives to show unconditional respect toward their husband. As the Creator of both mankind and marriage, He knows the vulnerabilities each has toward the other and how the marriage was designed to work so as to best nourish those vulnerabilities. 

But do we think that God would create us with a vulnerability that could only be filled by an imperfect, fallen sinner such as our spouse? Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” How could one like this ever “complete” us?

Instead, while every husband is expected to love his wife unconditionally independent of her response, should he not seek honor from the “author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2)? And while every wife should seek to show unconditional respect toward the spirit of who her husband is as a man, independent of his response, should she not seek to experience the love that will complete her from the One whom it is said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8)?