You’ve learned how to make million-dollar decisions. But leading your wife the same way? That scares you. And it’s costing you real intimacy.

All of life has a way of shaping us, and then we often repeat the same patterns until we get a wake-up call.

There are learned behaviors that help us get what we want. Then there are false identities that helped us learn how to cope.

Here’s the truth most men miss: the reason you’re not getting the love and intimacy you want with your wife isn’t her behavior. It isn’t her being controlling.

It is because you equated “being a Christian nice guy” with not speaking up for your desires or needs, and you swallowed them. And now you have become an angry and frustrated husband. Not because of her, but because of a coping behavior you learned long before you said, “I do.”

You keep repeating the cycle because you have not allowed the Lord to examine this anxious place in your heart.

A few things you could experiment with this week.

• Pay attention to your body. When do you notice you want to shut down and withdraw?
• Play the agency game. If you were giving yourself permission to go after anything you wanted in life without fear, guilt, or shame, what would make you come alive again?
• Pray the disciples’ prayer. The disciples learned to be disciplined in the path of Jesus. When Jesus taught them to pray, if you read Luke 11, you will see the shameless persistence - is ended with “how much more will the Father give you the Spirit…” He wants you to fully surrender to a fresh outpouring in your marriage by His Spirit. Be disciplined to be shameless in your persistence in your desire before the Lord.
• Pause to ask. Where and whom you learned to act like a child in your adult relationships. Ask the Lord to reparent this part in you.

You can have a marriage full of peace, power, and passion. You get to choose to win on the outside or do the work on the inside. The life of abundance is on the inside.

Do you need a reset? I run a one-day in-person intensive that is full-out play, adventure, and prayer. We will do more work in one day than most do in a year. Reach out before you are ready.

Be Strong, Lantz Howard ​​​​​

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