The Angry Wife

Every Tuesday we’ll be posting an article about restoring and strengthening marriages that have been damaged by sexual sin. Hope it helps.

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The Angry Wife

It seems nothing works with her. A kind word is met with a rebuff. Touching and lovemaking are out of the question. Any little thing (or nothing at all) seems to set her off, and she’s willing to shout, accuse or cut down at a moment’s notice. She’s an angry wife, and she’s not alone. Plenty of marriages are falling apart, largely because of a husband’s sin, a wife’s ongoing anger over the sin, and the couple’s inability to deal with the fallout.

What to do?

In fairness, let’s first admit that some men and women are simply angry people. Their propensity towards raging was there before the marriage existed, and for reasons known or unknown, they’ll be angry no matter what unless they decide to deal with it. In cases like that, whatever a husband did is probably not the real issue. She’d be mad at him for any number of other things, or nothing in particular.

But in too many cases, a wife who’s discovered her husband’s adulterous behavior remains angry for months or even years, not because she’s unwilling to forgive, but because there are important things she feels her husband has never done, or said. Here’s how she often describes it:

“He’s never DONE anything to correct the problem.”

The man who gets caught using porn or having an adulterous relationship may throw a holy fit to show how sorry he is – tears, chest thumping, groveling and roses to boot – but may also be unwilling to do something concrete to insure the problem won’t be repeated. Two decades ago a well known minister modeled this omission perfectly. He’d been caught a prostitute, so the following Sunday he went before the cameras of his live television program and declared, tears streaming, his sorrow and anguish. It was pretty emotional stuff, but when his denomination then asked him to take some time for counsel and restoration, he refused. In short, he was demonstrative about his sorrow, but negligent went it came to redemptive action. Any woman married to such a man is likely to remain distrustful; unresolved; angry.

“He’s never SAID anything about the pain he’s caused me.”

My wife loves her china, so she understandably doesn’t want me anywhere near it. I mean well, but no matter how gentle I try to be I tend to chip or break the fragile dishes when I try washing them. Once I dropped and broke a piece she dearly loved, then apologized briefly and stupidly, something along the line of, “Oops, there goes the little flowery number!”

Bad move; even worse words. Because I hadn’t just broken an object. I’d deprived her of something she loved which couldn’t be replaced. She was angry long after I apologized, until I realized I hadn’t apologized for what really mattered. It was only when I told her how sorry I was for what I caused her to lose that I finally got back into her good graces. (And back into my own room instead of the couch.)

The moral? “Sorry about that” is what you say when you accidently stepped on someone’s foot. More needs to be said when you’ve broken someone’s heart.

So if you have an angry wife, don’t be too quick to assume she’s just unforgiving, bitter and mean. Ask her plainly, Is there something I still haven’t said or done that you’re waiting for? You just might get a much needed education from her answer.