How to Mother Your Husband
All the premarital books and classes warn against it. I never thought I would struggle with it. Somehow, I began to do it. Just three years into our marriage and I found myself being confronted with a sin I thought was beneath me. What is the dastardly deed that I am speaking of? Mothering your husband.
It is something that slowly makes its way into your speech, creeps into your facial expressions, and alters your submission. Submission? Really? Yes. When you begin to treat your husband like a child and take the role of his mother, you place yourself in an authoritative position within your relationship.
This is something I never would have imagined struggling with, I mean I loved my position as my husband’s helper! I was not looking to usurp his authority, in fact I welcomed it–or so I thought! How is it that my sinful flesh had found this chink in my armor and created friction within my marriage? There are many possibilities, some of them arising from good intentions and some from prideful ones; all of them springing from a desire to see my will accomplished according to my timing. What I know for sure is that hearing your husband say, “you are treating me like a child,” and then hearing the voice of your old pastor in the back of my head saying, “he married you for a wife, not a mother,” is not a good feeling.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24 ESV)
Together my husband and I dissected this growing problem and found there were several ways a wife (particularly this wife) could mother her husband rather than respectfully and lovingly submitting to him as her head. Here’s what we came up with:
1. You mother your husband when you expect him to do things your way and become frustrated when he chooses not to. My husband has a different way of thinking about things, planning things, and executing things. When I look down upon his methods and expect him to fall in line with mine (even though they may not be better), I am treating him like a child and telling him to submit to me.
Trusting/submitting to your husband means believing that he is competent and that his methods have merit and value. Obviously communication is the key here. The first step to understanding another person is to talk to them and find out what they are thinking. We get into trouble when we assume we know what our husbands are thinking rather than asking them. Ultimately I have come to realize that there is a certain level of trust that must be applied to a situation where we disagree. I should not assume that he is doing something the wrong way, but simply a different way. As my God-given head, I must be willing to trust that following him in this different path will bear good fruit as I walk in obedience.
2. You mother your husband when you tell him what to do. Originally I thought there were good intentions behind this, but was quickly convinced that even my good intentions were causing me to sin (by usurping my husbands authority). Often I found myself in the habit of telling Richard to do something instead of asking him to do it because I didn’t want to give him the option of saying no (especially in areas I knew he was going to disagree with me!). Ultimately I did this because I wanted to control the situation; meaning I didn’t want for him to control it. Realizing the heart of this problem was really a shock to me. Could it be that I was really this sinful? Yes, it really could.
Trusting/submitting to your husband means gently asking him to do something rather than telling him to do something and then being content with the results. Again, communication is key as you try to engage your husband with your motives and point of view. Most of the time knowing the reasoning behind your desires gives your husband the opportunity to agree or be persuaded, while telling him what to do conveys that you do not trust him and believe he needs leading. By asking, you are able to make your desires known, and then given the opportunity to follow his lead as he makes a well informed decision.
3. You mother your husband when you use a condescending tone while talking to him. This can happen when you think he is doing something he shouldn’t be (mothering), when you are not happy with something he has done (mothering), or when you try to manipulate his actions (mothering). Somehow this tone is something we as women are either born with or hear so much growing up that we instinctively use it when trying to control the people in our lives (namely our husbands and children). It conveys an attitude of superiority and says, “you are so stupid.” Of course this is something I would have never thought, much less said out loud, and yet it is exactly what my heart was saying through my tone of voice to the most precious person in my life.
Trusting/submitting to your husband means always speaking in a tone of respect and admiration. This can be particularly hard when you disagree, but is a particularly good tool in putting to death the flesh that seeks to destroy. We must seek to bring all things under the authority of Christ, including our tongues. We are called to honor and respect our husbands–even in our tone of voice.
Do you ever find yourself mothering your husband? It has been over two years since my husband and I talked through this issue and I still find myself giving into these tendencies from time to time. The temptation to take charge and give orders is something I am constantly on guard against, and yet the moment I let that guard down I find myself quickly falling into old patterns of sin.
If you struggle with mothering your husband like I do, remember that your relationship with Christ (your Heavenly Bridegroom) has made a way for you to say “no” to your flesh and “yes” to godly submission. His precious blood was poured out so that you could be free to deny your old, sinful ways and walk in newness of life–to honor and respect our husband as the leader of your marriage.
But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:20-24 ESV)
Take some time to survey your relationship with your husband. Do you see any of these tendencies in the way you speak to him? What are some other ways that we as wives tend to mother our husbands? Praise God that we do not have to rely on our own abilities to overcome the sin in our lives. He has given us the grace to overcome! Let’s seek together to press on toward greater obedience to the Lord by honoring our husbands and speaking to them with respect.
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