Morning friend,
I want to give you an exercise to try this week. Ask yourself what feelings you would like to feel. When I asked myself that question recently, I thought, “I’d love to feel more peace and calm, be more thankful, curious, and have loving, compassionate feelings.” In the past, I’ve asked myself what virtues I’d like to have, but I never asked myself specifically how I wanted to feel. So often, we get stuck in our “to do” list. We forget that we are not human doings but human beings.
God calls us to embody his character and to experience the fruit of the spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22,23). If that’s true, what kind of feelings do you want to have? Do you know that you even have a choice? So often our feelings become our default mode of reacting to the present moment or our own internal thought life. We were created to do better than that.
Start by asking yourself what do you want to feel? Then ask yourself, what do I need to do or stop doing to feel that feeling? For example, when I noticed I was feeling impatient, I reminded myself I didn’t want to feel that way. Next step: breathe. Slow down. Focus on what I’m thankful for. I need to remind myself I do NOT want to feel these irritable and impatient feelings and intentionally take action. I might need to stop trying to do too much, causing me to feel stressed out. Or I might need to change my thinking from internal complaining to internal gratitude or internal grumbling to internal compassion. And guess what happens when I do that? I’ve been feeling more of the feelings I want to feel and less of the feelings I don’t want to feel. Not because I don’t experience negative feelings. But because I’ve recognized I have choices on how long I will have those feelings and know what to do to create more of the feelings I DO want to have.
Try it for yourself and let me know how it goes. If you’d like a worksheet to use to help you do this, click here and we’ll send it to you.
This week’s question: I have a question that I’m unsure about. Obviously, there is a lot more to our story, but I am in a spiritually abusive marriage. The question I am hoping to get some insight into is why won’t my husband answer basic yes/no questions? This is a pattern. He will give a highly spiritual answer and say that this is the answer God has put in his heart and that he wished I would just accept it instead of pushing for the answer I want.
I am not asking complicated questions. What I asked today was inquiring about the status of counseling – is he going to go for himself, are we going to resume as a couple, or is he not interested? Very easy questions, but he responded with at this time he is waiting for God to work his will in our marriage through the Holy Spirit. Why is a simple answer something he refuses to provide?
Answer: The short answer is I don’t know any more than you know why he does what he does. But let me ask you a question. If you knew why, would it help you feel better when he does it? Probably not.
From another perspective, often what we see as a simple yes or no question feels more nuanced and complicated to others. I’d experiment for a bit to see whether he can answer some direct yes or no questions. Keep it to just one question versus multiple questions at the same time. Here’s an example. “Do you want me to make grilled chicken tonight for dinner?” Or “Did you pay the electric bill?” These are simple yes or no questions. Although he may say something like “I don’t want chicken, but I’d like you to make meatloaf”. My hunch is that when it’s one simple question, he probably can provide a yes or no answer.
The example you wrote about was not a simple yes or no question. There were multiple parts to your question. Part 1: Is he going to go to counseling for himself? Yes or no? Part 2: Is he going to resume couples counseling with you? Yes or no? Part 3: Is he even interested in counseling? Yes or no?
His response to your three questions was not a verbal yes or no, but he did answer you. He said he’s waiting on God to do something in your marriage before he’s willing to commit to a path forward. Bottom line: he said no to all three of your questions, or perhaps not yet. His answer was no, he’s not willing to commit to moving forward with more professional help until God does something in your marriage.
From your experience with him, it sounds like you see this pattern as an avoidance strategy or even a way of sounding hyper-spiritual so that you back off and stop questioning him. Especially if God language is part of his response.
You may be right, but my guess is you will probably never get to the bottom of “why does he do this?” May I suggest you change the question you’re asking? Instead of racking your brain over why he refuses to give you a direct yes or no response, what if you asked yourself, “How are his answers or non-answers impacting me physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually? And what do I need to do to minimize that impact?”
Friend, you may not know for sure what he’s up to or why, but you do have choices to make about how you are going to allow it to impact you as well as how you respond. For example, you can keep trying to change him. You can let it drive you crazy with spiritual confusion. You can react in anger, blaming, shaming, accusing him of stonewalling etc. You can give in to keep the peace or get some movement going.
Or you can stop focusing your energy on changing the way he answers and stop stressing over whether or not he’s going to do any of his own growth work and simply work on your own inner work. When you make that switch, you have your own power back to do something about this.
As you do that, you might discover he becomes less defensive and guarded, more ready to do his work, or then again you might find he becomes more directly antagonistic and/or spiritually oppressive towards the new you.
But at least now you’ve made some movement forward. How? First, you are stronger, and you’ve been able to model being a godly Ezer (helpmate). One that inspires (vs requires) him to look within and do his own work to grow stronger. Or, you’re internally stronger and not as easily manipulated or intimidated by spiritual gaslighting or bullying. It’s a win/win for you. It gives you inner strength from God, empathy and compassion for him, and wisdom and clarity for where your marriage relationship is at and what your next steps might be.
Friend, when you can’t figure out why he does what he does or doesn’t do, how might asking a different question help you make your own forward movement?
