When Your Husband Won't Lead (Or Doesn't Lead Well)
There is a lie that many women believe and that you’ll hear women teach to each other. The lie is that, even though our husbands are “supposed to” be the leaders, our husband’s ability to lead (along with his happiness and ability to love us) is up to us as wives. It can sound something like this:
A man who doesn’t have his wife’s support can’t lead well
A wife is supposed to be a “helpmeet” to her husband, doing what he wants her to do
A wife should help her husband be successful
A man needs respect from his wife in order to love her well
A man can’t lead if his wife won’t let him
A man will rise to the level of his wife’s praise
And even…a man who gets sex from his wife won’t go looking for it elsewhere
The implication is that if a woman doesn’t submit to her husband with affirmation, obedience, unconditional support, respect, and even sex, then she shouldn’t expect him to be able to lead, make good decisions, or treat her well because he will be frustrated, unable to focus, and trying to pour from an empty cup.
In other words: It’s all your fault that he isn’t leading. That’s what we’re told. But it’s all lies.
The Truth About Leadership
1. Who is responsible for the other’s emotions?
The filling of a man’s emotional cup is not the responsibility of the woman. It’s the man’s responsibility - just as the woman is responsible for filling her own cup. As human beings, we are too broken to be able to give someone all that they need in order to feel satisfied. You certainly can provide some affirmation and other positive experiences to let your spouse know you love him, but there will always be a void that can be filled only through our relationship with God. And . . . news flash . . . that isn’t you! You are not God. Don’t try to take on what only God can do. You can’t possibly give your spouse everything he needs to feel satisfied, loved, and respected. He needs to go to God for that and stop putting that on you.
2. Who is really in control?
The message that these lies send is that the wife is really in the driver’s seat - she’s the real leader. If she does things the “right” way, then her husband will, too. But if she doesn’t give him everything he needs, then she can expect that things will not go well.
Not only does this put way too much pressure on the wife to be perfect and completely focused on pleasing her husband, it also sets her up to be the victim of his blame when things don’t go well. [Get my free resource on 40+ unhealthy relationship tactics]
3. Who’s the man?
Most tragically, it is an insult to true manhood to say that a man has no control over himself unless his wife is doing what she should be doing. Could it possibly be true that a man has no control over his emotions, over how he treats his wife and children, and over whether he looks at porn or lusts after other women unless his wife is doing her part?
Certainly not! To say that he has no control over those things is to reduce him to a mere animal rather than to give him the credit for his personal power and free will as a human being. Furthermore, it is an insult to Jesus to say that all men must have their “needs” met, because as a man, he did not lose control over his emotions or sex drive, despite being tempted in every way, just as men are.
4. Who is leading?
Finally, the message that is sent through these lies is that the husband is not the leader but, rather, that the wife is the head of the home and the only one capable of influence. She controls whether the marriage is good or not. She controls whether he is successful or not. She controls whether he leads or not.
Because these lies place women in the leadership role, there becomes an obvious tension that leads to the equally false assumption that the solution is that the wife needs to step down or the man needs to step up (or both).
But leadership is not about who has the power, the leadership skills, or the decision-making power. If you believe that the Bible says that there is only one person who is head of the home and that is the husband, then he isn’t a leader because he stepped into that role, he’s the leader because God says he is, whether he is fulfilling any definition of headship or not.
You see, if you understand that leadership is about influence and if you believe that God placed the husband as the head over the home to lead, then it becomes clear that the condition of a family is the direct result of where the husband has led that family.
You are exactly where your husband has led you
No matter how strong a wife is or no matter how weak a man is - if the husband has been designated “leader” by God, then his family will be exactly where the husband has led them. Because it isn’t about whether a man is being “allowed” to lead - the fact is that he IS leading whether he believes he is or not.
If God has given him the role of leadership, then a man will either lead his family to peace, unity, and joy . . . or he will lead his family to chaos, discord, and hurt.
How do you know what kind of leader a man is?
If you believe that the man is the head of the family, then you can know what kind of leader a man is by looking at the condition of his family. A family led by someone who is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of His church will exude freedom. Each member will be allowed to be unique - and not just be allowed to be unique, but their uniqueness will be celebrated. The family will demonstrate a genuine love for each other unhindered by any sense of duty to love or any pretension to play the part.
As described in the book of Titus, a godly head of the household “must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.” This is the kind of man who will love his family well and compel them to holiness with his love.
On the other hand, a family led by someone who is not mature (in either faith or emotion) will feel the pressure to present themselves a certain way. They will be fearful of doing things “wrong” and the relationships will demonstrate an imbalance of power and lack of freedom to be themselves. There may be reluctant submission or outright rebellion, and the members of the family may show symptoms of trauma.
Who is to blame?
When a family is falling apart or experiencing struggles, other people often put the responsibility for what’s happening on the wife. Is she doing enough? Is she supportive? Is she praying for her husband? Is she giving him enough sex? Is she being respectful? Is she being submissive?
Yet if they believe that the husband is the leader of the home, then the condition of the family is inherently the result of exactly where their leader has led them.
A man who leads with a strong arm and demands respect and ensures by force that his family knows that he is the leader will, despite his best efforts to produce the family he wants, yield children who are struggling to respect (or get respect from) him and a wife who is struggling to submit the way he wants her to (because if submission is defined as “doing whatever he wants” then it comes at the cost of her freedom in Christ). People can only subject themselves to cruelty and bondage for so long before they have to make a choice between dying on the inside or getting free. And submission that is not freely given is not given at all - it’s taken. And that’s not the dynamic of a mutual husband-wife relationship - it’s a master-slave relationship.
On the other side of the coin, if the man is the leader and he fails to take any leadership role at all but, rather, does little to guide or influence his family, he will also have a family that proves to be exactly where he has led them: to chaos, lack of structure, rebellion, or perfectionism and to a lack of connection and trust.
What can a wife do to help her husband lead well?
If you believe that your husband is the leader, and he isn’t leading well, his chance to become aware of what’s happening as a result of his lack of leadership will only come as a result of him being able to experience the consequence of his poor leadership. Sometimes people don’t change unless the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Here’s what you can do (or stop doing):
Don’t compensate for him by taking on the responsibilities that are his.
Don’t try to encourage him by lying to him, telling him that you appreciate his (meager) leadership or giving him accolades for leadership that is less than acceptable.
Let him know what you need from him (and expect from him) in terms of leadership.
Decide how far you are willing to pursue change and what’s considered a deal-breaker when it comes to how much indifference you will tolerate.
Submit yourself to the reality of where his lack of leadership has led you and act upon that reality
What does it really mean to submit?
Unlike the common understanding of submission as a willingness to do whatever your husband wants, the true spirit of submission conveys a woman’s understanding as to where her husband is leading her (whether good or bad) - and a refusal to try to be in control of the outcome.
The common understanding of submission puts a woman in a position to believe that her behavior and ability to make her husband happy (or her failure to do so) puts her in control of the direction of the relationship. But the true spirit of submission is a refusal to be in control and thus, a refusal to resist where he is leading you by means of trying harder, giving more sex, sacrificing more, etc.
This refusal to control the outcome allows his leadership to determine the outcome of the relationship - either a building up or a tearing down - and a commitment to be subject to whatever that means the future holds. With good leadership, it will mean a more unified front, but with poor leadership, it may mean a tearing apart.
What if the wife really is controlling?
As a caveat, and so as not to put undue responsibility on men, it is fair to mention that some men are in a marriage with someone who does not have the capacity to be healthy in a relationship. These men love their wives, provide for them, protect them, pray for them, have a servant’s heart toward them, and do everything they can to prove their love only to find that it’s never enough.
Just as when it is the other way around and a woman is with a man who does not have the capacity for emotional or relational health, it is important for a man to understand the five ingredients of a healthy relationship and to work within the reality of the situation that he is in.
That may mean learning and living out the difficult lesson that his wife is free to make choices, but she is not free from the consequences of those choices. Every choice that his wife makes should, in alignment with the natural laws of relationships, have a result that matches the nature of the choice. This means that he may need to stop trying harder or doing more than the situation warrants, which is only serving to enable her unhealthy behavior.
Instead, he will have to allow her to experience the realistic and natural consequences of her choices. In doing so, he will be the biblical head of his wife as Christ is head of his church, granting free will and unconditional love but not unconditional relationship.
Good leadership means more equality, not less
It is the responsibility of both people in a marriage to pursue a healthy relationship. When one does more to help the relationship than the other, it creates an imbalance, and the relationship is not mutually enjoyable and unity cannot be achieved. Likewise, when one asserts more power than the other, the relationship becomes less mutual and there develops an imbalance of power and, thus, less equality. And good leadership builds up and doesn’t tear down.
In cases where a woman is being told that she must do more to help her husband be a better man, she is being made to be responsible for the condition of the marriage, and the husband (and others) can blame his wife for her lack of attention to him. If the reality, however, is that men have a responsibility to their families, whether they take it or not and whether they handle that responsibility correctly or not, then in order for men to understand this great responsibility, women need to stop believing the lies that the wife is responsible for the condition of her husband. And they need to see that they can’t put their hope in their husband changing but that . . .
hope isn’t found in our situation changing; it is found in our situation . . .
Need help dealing with the leadership (or lack of it) in your home?
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