Men, pursue your wife! We must continue pursuing our wife even after we’re married. It’s ingrained in so many of us men to chase after something and keep at it until we get it, but then what happens?
What happens when the dogs at the race track catch that silly rabbit?
Or your dog at home breaks free and finally catches the UPS truck?
What happens when you train hard every day of your summer break and this is the year you finally make the basketball team.
Or get accepted into the school your entire family attended?
Or get the perfect job you’ve always been wanting?
Or the paycheck you’ve always thought was the amount that proves you finally made it?
What happens when the girl of your dreams walks into your life and after countless attempts to win her over, you convince her to marry you?
What happens next?
Do we stop pursuing? Stop working so hard? Train and practice less? Stop chasing?
I ask these questions today from a heart of humility because I have been that guy so many times! For the first few years of our marriage, my natural instincts to “win” my wife over and “woo” her, slowly faded. The worst part is, I denied it! Anytime I’d hear someone talk about seeking after your spouse, or continuing to date your spouse, or even just a story about some guy’s elaborate wedding proposal, I’d deny the fact that I wasn’t still making it that high of a priority anymore.
Now don’t get me wrong, we’ve been married 9 years now, and there hasn’t been a single year that’s gone by that I’ve even remotely questioned my choice to propose to this beautiful and amazing woman of God. There is no doubt in my mind that she is my soul mate and the exact person God intended me to spend the rest of my life with. I know she feels the same way because she goes out of her way to tell me and to show me. However, at times, even that can add to the “I’ve already got her” mentality that we have to stop thinking! Whether you’ve been married 2 hours, 2 days, or 222 years, you must continue to pursue your wife!
It’s still not natural for me. It’s still hard. I’m still bad at it.
In fact, quite a few years ago, when we were just a couple years into our marriage, and I was much younger (and less wise), we had a rather heated discussion regarding this very topic. Dayna was feeling less and less loved because I had been expressing it less and less to her. She brought it up to me in a loving, careful, and sensitive way (as women often have such an incredible gift of doing), and I responded in a not-so loving, careful, or sensitive, but rather quite defensive way (as we men often have a not-so-good track record of doing). I got so defensive, that I think at one point I even tried to explain to her that God was the only one we should still be seeking daily and anyone else (spouse included) that detracted from that goal, was actually a bad thing. WHAT? How does that make sense, Mager? Needless to say, that conversation lasted a couple days…
Build Her Up
Now I know what some of you are thinking…a confident, Godly woman shouldn’t need all that constant reassurance and ego-boosting, right?
WRONG! For starters, not all women are confident, and it’s not only kind, but it’s actually Biblical to build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11, Romans 14:19, Hebrews 3:13), so dudes, let’s not stop building up our wives! Plus, how can she find her identity in Christ if the person closest to her isn’t reassuring her along the way? It’s not for her ego, it’s for her identity in Christ. As her husband, you can be a part of building that in her; what a privilege and honor (and responsibility)!
It is summed up very nicely in Ephesians 5:25:
“And to the husbands, you are to demonstrate love for your wives with the same tender devotion that Christ demonstrated to us, his bride. For he died for us, sacrificing himself”
I once heard a guy say to his wife, “I told you I loved you on our wedding day, and if anything changes, I’ll let you know.” While there’s a bit of (sarcastic) humor in that statement, it’s really not too far from the truth for a lot of us men. If you’re like me, you don’t particularly enjoy vocalizing your feelings. Many of us feel weak or less manly or just straight-up uncomfortable when it comes to expressing our love for others, but the truth is, there’s nothing more manly! It really comes down to pride. If I’m more concerned with how I’ll be perceived than how it’ll make my wife feel, than I’m focusing more on myself, and self-centeredness always derives from a root of pride.
Once I was able to convince myself of that, the only thing I had left to overcome than was how uncomfortable it made me feel. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been working on this for many years now, and I still struggle with it.
But what if I told you that the discomfort goes away? The more you pursue your wife, the simpler it gets. Maybe not immediately, and maybe not the first time, but as we push through the uncomfortable feelings, they will start to fade and it will come easier for us to express. I’m not saying we go shout our love on national TV or live in front of a stadium full of 100,000 people. Start small. Tell your wife you love her. Increase how often you say it day by day. Don’t let the busyness or routineness of life get the best of you. And if it has been getting the best of you already for years, don’t wait any longer, start now.
Walk up to her right now or shoot her a text and say, “Hey, I love you. That’s all.”
Pursue Your Wife; Don’t Just Chase Her
I think where I got tripped up and didn’t even realize it, was actually on one word. I was looking at pursuing as merely a chase. We spend so much time chasing our future spouse before we “catch” them, that we start to develop this incorrect idea of what it means to pursue or seek after something. It’s important to have ambition, but what’s the motive behind the ambition? If our only reason for chasing something is to catch it, then our pursuit will be fueled by the entirely wrong motives.
The reason the dog doesn’t know what to do when he catches the rabbit or the UPS truck is that he’s only chasing it because it’s moving faster than him. The reason no school or job or paycheck amount can truly bring satisfaction to us is that God created us for so much more than that.
So what does this all look like?
How do you continue to pursue your wife in the busyness of everyday life?
Where do you even begin?
Check out PART 2! In part 2, I share 5 practical steps that are absolute MUSTS on how you and I can start (or continue) pursuing our wife.
One Response