Make Your Husband More Responsible for the Needs of His Family

I once had a chat with a lady who has been married for twenty-five years. She raised all her children with her hard earned resources. The Lord blessed her with a very good job and even though she is the wife, she doubles as the breadwinner of the family. And if you are wondering if her husband is alive and well, the answer is a very big YES.

This situation has so eaten this woman up to the point that she has actually lost all the love she has for her husband but she is still in the marriage because she does not believe in divorce and she is a good Christian. She has discussed the issue with her husband on several occasions but it hasn’t yielded any result. So she is making effort to maintain peace in the marriage at the expense of her personal happiness and still maintain the role of the breadwinner of the family.

Personally, I believe this marriage will heal, and the situation of this marriage will improve and the husband will be the man God has designed and assigned him to be again in every area in which he is meant to be head over his family. But there are many cases like it, and I have shared stories like this before on this blog more than once. So how do we get our husbands to be the breadwinner of the family as the Lord ordained it to be (1 Timothy 5:8).

It very natural that a person gets laid back when he/she finds an easy alternative to a difficult task or he/she finds help on a huge task that he/she should have done. Take for example a wife who has a maid, she will not bother about house chores like toilet cleaning and sweeping when she knows she has someone who can take care of that task for her. Some wives even get relaxed on other tasks such as cooking and personal care of the children.

I do not mean to talk-down on wives, I am a wife also and so I understand the pressure we go through and in truth, we need all the help we can get. But as an illustration, I want us to understand that this is how it applies to the husbands too. Once your husband knows that you are financially capable of taking care of the needs of the family he relaxes on his responsibility with the conclusion that at least his wife can take care of things. It starts as a gradual help in picking up bills when the husband is financially down until it becomes the norm in the home. And because we wives are built such that we cannot see things go wrong in the home and not care, we are quick to carry on responsibilities that are not ours thereby leaving our husbands to relax on their duties.

I am an advocate of a wife helping her husband in every way she can and she is needed to. In Genesis 2:18-31, we read that God made the woman turned wife as a suitable helper to her husband. The reason God thought it up to make a woman was to be a helper to her man. But she is made to be a helper and not the primary burden bearer. A wife should assist in helping her husband financially but not taking the responsibility off him. You need to pray for God's guidance to know when helping your husband financially is turning into primarily providing for your home and becoming the breadwinner of the family. 

This is not a general analysis of things because there are husbands who do not take undue advantage of their wives no matter the circumstances they find themselves in, even when their wives are earning more than them. To such men, I applaud you very much and I pray the Lord bless your seed sown into the lives of your family, I pray that it will multiply for you greatly in Jesus name.

Now that we have a little understanding of the problem some wives face in their homes, how can they handle this situation without having to give up their marriage or hurt their marriage in any way? This will be what I want God to help us handle through this post. By human standard, this is tough, but not with God and that is why my first word to wives facing this situation is to run to God in prayer. Falling into hate for your husband will not help, it will only hurt your marriage and the solution we seek is such that your marriage is not hurt in any way. So you need plenty of prayers and leading from the Holy Spirit to pull through. By yourself, you won’t be able to achieve much, but with God, things will change.

When you pray, tell God to open His heaven of abundance on your husband’s finances that he will have more than enough to fulfill his responsibility as the breadwinner of the family. You also need to pray that the Lord will give your husband a willing heart and the urgency to want to take up his responsibility as the primary provider for his family. Its one thing for the husband to have the resources to provide for his family, it’s another thing for him to see the need and have the will to provide for his family.

The second line of action is submission. You would wonder how can one submit to an irresponsible husband who the Bible says is worse than an unbeliever, but in truth, submission has a lot to do with it. 1 Peter 3:1-2 says, even if you are married to an unbelieving husband, it is through the purity and reference of your life that he will be won over to God. So when you have prayed hard, you need to support that prayer with your act of submission. In doing this, you are obeying God’s instruction for your life as a wife, and causing Him to do for you what you have prayed for. Prayer to God and obedience to His word is like sowing a seed on a very good soil and watering it and with God watching over your seed you are guaranteed of satisfactory harvest.

Another thing that submission does is that it helps to raise the self-esteem of your husband. It boosts his ego, which invariably causes him to want to reciprocate and love you more and want to do more for you and your children. Because your husband appreciates your submission to him, you become a priority to him and his resources. If and when he has a little to spend, he will want to spend that little on you. 

And the last thing is that the wife needs to very gradually withdraw from the breadwinner role. As a wife in this situation, you can’t pull out suddenly and totally. You need to start by turning away from the little needs of the family and with prayers and submission, you will help your husband take up his role and responsibility in providing for his family.

There is no marriage without issues even if you prayed and sought the face of God before making a choice of a life partner there will still be challenges that will make you pray fervently to God. But from all that we are hearing and experiencing in marriage, it’s important that we seek the face of God over and over again before making a choice of a life partner. Love is not a reason strong enough for any marriage to stand the test of time, even though love is very essential for marriage to grow. Never marry for love alone, marry because you have God’s consent on your decision.

Also, I pray that men will understand that providing for the needs of their home is essential for their personal growth. When a man provides for him home he sows seeds in his own life that is bound to germinate and produce fruits for him in multiples of what he has sown. The Bible says he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly. God does not waste His resources, if you are not spending God’s resources in your life the way and manner He approves of, He withdraws His resources from you and gives it to one who will use it more in a manner that pleases Him. So understand that there is no wisdom in withholding funds from your family when you have to give. What you are doing in ignorance is that you are shortchanging yourself. In no time what you are withholding from them will be taken from you. So please husbands, be wise.

I pray that we have learned a great deal from this. I pray we are able to solve more problems as we continue to trust God with our marriages. 

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The Fountain of Life Church, 

Ilupeju

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