How To Get Your Husband Off The Corner of the Roof

Before I introduce this blog post, I’d like you to try an experiment. Follow these simple instructions:

  1. Fill up your kitchen sink till one quarter full.
  2. Leave kitchen tap just open enough to keep dripping at 10 second intervals.
  3. Pull up a chair, and sit in front of your kitchen sink for 60 minutes.
  4. Note your observations of how the dripping of the tap affects you.

This experiment may seem completely futile, yet within your very home, this may be a reality on a daily basis without you even noticing. I’m not referring to a plumbing problem, but rather a Proverbs 21:9 existence.

how-to-get-your-husband-off-the-corner-of-the-roof-womenabiding

There are two scriptures that you and I, as wives, need to remember and internalise. They’re not pretty, but necessary for our self-examination and for fixing our marriages:

A quarrelsome wife is like the 
dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm;
Proverbs 27:15
Better to live on a corner of the roof 
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 21:9

I must confess that I was dripping like a leaky roof in my marriage for far longer than I’d like to admit.

You see, my friend, this is the way I saw the situation:

  • My husband had weaknesses/sins.
  • I was given divine wisdom from God to identify his issues and know the perfect solution to each.
  • It was my God-given duty to change him by pointing these out  – repeatedly.

But alas, guess what? None of my nagging, cautious reminders, or blatant demands for him to change actually worked! In fact, if anything, my constant trickling had the opposite affect; In some cases my husband withdrew, in others he almost purposely continued in the ways that were bothering me, while in others, he tried in His own might to change (for my sake), only to come against a wall of frustration that he simply didn’t have the ability on his own to alter his ways.

Would you call my strategic mission successful?

Not at all. For my poor husband, often it would have been more bearable to sit on the corner of our roof than listen to me (yet again)! Not a scene I’m proud to admit that I almost led him to pursue :-(.

How To Get Your Husband Off The Corner of the Roof

So, after taking a good look at our marriage, and assessing the situation, some divine wisdom finally DID sink into my thick skull.

  • I am not able to change my husband
  • My husband is not able to change himself
  • The only one that I am able to control is myself
  • The only One who can change both my husband and I is God Almighty

Beloved, when you and I focus on nitpicking the thorns that we see sticking out of our husbands character, we are distracting ourselves from observing the obvious massive planks in our own eyes.

As our Lord clearly commands in Matthew 7:3-4:

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, 
but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 
Or how can you say to your brother, 
‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ 
when there is the log in your own eye?

Well, I made a decision. It wasn’t any more spiritual than that, I’m afraid.

I decided to leave my husband be! I made up my mind not to remind him to do the things that I knew he knew he had to do. I purposed not to point out the habits I would rather he didn’t have, and the qualities I thought he should do without.

I just stopped being the plugged up the leaky roof. Abruptly!

And alongside that change, I began to pray. Fervently!

Did he notice at first? Nope. Did it matter? Nope.

There are two significant others who did notice. That was God, and me.

How Have Things Changed Around Here?

I can’t tell you that I’ve seen spectacular changes and turnarounds in my husband yet, but I’ve certainly started noticing minute little ones. I can testify, though, to a harmony and peace in our marriage that I don’t recall being there before. My husband has shared that he feels so much more respected and esteemed in our relationship. And I feel so much more freed up to actually talk to him about something other than my own complaints at his (relatively few) weaknesses.

Bottom line is that if God’s Word warns of plumbing issues in our marriage, they are worth heeding and applying. Tweet that

So, you have my permission to bypass that first experiment, and just delve right into drawing your husband off the corner of that roof, and into your arms. Ask the Lord for the self control you need, and for your focus to be on Him rather than on bothersome issues in your significant other. If even I can do it, you can, too!!!

Do you fear that if you stop mentioning certain issues, your husband will never change? What little actions can you take today to step off the nagging bandwagon and obey God’s Word in your marriage?

 

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