Sid: My guest Craig Hill is going to light a fire on your marriage and where you have almost given up, don’t give up; the God factor, the supernatural factor is ready to happen in your marriage. Now Craig you’ve been hammering at the husband’s for a while, I want to understand from a wife’s perspective of what she might be doing to savage a marriage.
Craig: Sid, what I found was that many women don’t understand what does the Bible mean when the Apostle Paul says you’re to respect your husband. She says, “Well, I respect him, you know I think he’s a nice guy and all that, but here’s what I’ve discovered respect really means, what every husband wants. He wants to be accepted, he wants to be admired, he wants to be appreciated and I boil it down to a real simple thing; rather than being criticized for what he isn’t doing to meet her needs, he want to hear a message that says to him you’re a good husband. What I find that many wives do to their husbands without realizing it, they are continuing sending their husband a message bad, bad husband you didn’t do this right, you didn’t do that right. How come you pray for everybody else, you never pray for our family? How come you’re always there for everybody else, you’re never there for us. How come you did this wrong, you did that wrong, when are you going to rise up and be the spiritual head of our house and lead this family in prayer and all that kind of thing coming from a wife to husband feel I must be a miserable failure in her sight. The other thing that I found was that wives don’t realize how sensitive the heart of husband is because he looks strong and yet on the inside she can deeply wound him through criticism and through judgment and through conveying to him that everything he does, or many things that he does are wrong. You know I’m thinking that one of the biggest difficulties that wives have is to believe that their husband many, many times wound them without realizing it. The thing that I’ve found is that is a deception for most wives.
Sid: They think that it’s intentional.
Craig: They do, that is exactly what they think, they think that he did that on purpose and when she confronts him and says “You hurt me, you did that, you took the kids to the State Fair, we were talking about, on purpose on the weekend when I was out of town just to hurt me. Well no, that’s not true; He didn’t even realize that, he wasn’t trying to do that. Here’s the biggest thing that wives don’t realize; their husbands are not intentionally trying to hurt them. And when a husband says, I don’t know I did anything wrong, I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Most wives don’t believe them. Let me give you this example Sid, it would be like this, suppose a wife was coming out of the grocery store with her hands full of groceries, full of bags of groceries and as she stepped out of the store a man walking down the sidewalk runs right into her, knocks those groceries out of her hands and the groceries are flying everywhere, and she angrily picking up those groceries and she looks up at him and says, “What’s wrong with you, why don’t watch where you’re going, are you blind or something?” And the man says, oh, I’m so sorry, yes as a matter of fact, I am blind, normally I go out with my seeing eye dog who helps me but unfortunately he was run over by a car yesterday and this is the first day to try to make it on my own and I guess I’m not doing too well, I’m so sorry. And the woman stands up and had an immediate paradyne shift and change of heart and she says to him, “Oh had no idea I’m so sorry, where are you trying to go, may I help you?” Now what changed the situation didn’t change, it was exactly the same; what changed was her understand of motive. She understood that this man literally was blind and did not intentionally knock the groceries out of her hand, as opposed to this man is self consumed, unconcerned about anything else and just ran into me because he’s careless. So that’s a totally different paradyne what I want most wives to know is this, you have married a blind man, please help the blind man don’t judge him, don’t condemn him. I’ve found that more that 90% of the time when your husband offends you, wounds you, makes you feel that he doesn’t love you, doesn’t care about you it’s not intentional, it’s that he’s blind. He honestly didn’t see it, he didn’t know it and when you confront him with it, expecting him to take responsibility and say, “Oh, you’re right and I’m so sorry please forgive me; the reason he doesn’t is he honestly can’t see it.” And if you can get that in your heart as a wife, so that your motive and intent becomes, let me help him, rather than let me judge him, condemn him, and feel like he doesn’t care about me. The reason he hurt you is not because he doesn’t care about you, the reason he hurt you is because he didn’t see it, he didn’t know it. And if you can allow that paradyne shift to take place in your heart as a wife so that you begin to understand his heart. He really does love me; he really does care about me; if you can do that as a wife that is a simple natural step that you can take that will begin to supernaturally change your marriage. What I mean by that is what you can do today, is when your husband comes home, or when you see him ask him that question; “Have I made you feel like you don’t do anything right in my sight; have I made you feel judged and criticized, and then just listen to his heart? If he says yes, ask him to forgive you and tell him you love him, you admire him. Another thing that I’ve found Sid, one other thing is that husbands work very, very hard. They put up with a lot at work sometimes a mean boss, sometimes mean customers, sometimes many pressures and difficulties at work. The reason they do that is because they love their family; because they love their wife, they love their children and there’s one word that convey word that conveys great value to a husband that many husband’s never hear from their wife. And that word is simply this, thank you. Thank you for all the pressure there, thank you for all you put up with at work, I know you do that because you love me, you love our family, I so admire you, thank you for working so hard for us, appreciate you, I admire you, you’re my husband, you’re a gift from God. And you know if you will do that tonight for your husband it will begin to change something instantaneously in your relationship. He will begin to open his heart back up again, that is the one thing that husbands are waiting to hear is that simple word from a wife, thank you, I appreciate you. That is what we perceive as respect, that’s what Paul is talking about in Ephesians Chapter 5 and I find that most wives are not seeing that or totally oblivious to that and they think that if I just tell them all the things that he did wrong that he’ll change. And what does is convey a relational message to the husband that you’re a failure in my sight that deeply wounds him and he will close up and withdraw. So that’s a critical thing. On the other side, I wound my wife many times without realizing it and if I will stop and ask her how I’ve made her feel, and once I understand that and apologize even though I don’t think I was wrong I may not have been wrong on a topical issue but if I was wrong in the way I communicated to her in making her feel valueless and if I repent and take responsibility for that and ask her to forgive me, again it will supernaturally release the Holy Spirit to begin to heal the spirit of that marriage.
Sid: I can tell you when I read that in your book it just hit me so hard it’s so right and I just never looked at it that way, I looked at black, you know I’m a prophetic type person, everything is black and white and there is no room for that second level that unseen level.
Craig: Exactly and many times, I can be right on the topic level, I don’t think the man that took the kids to the State Fair, he wasn’t wrong, he was right to take his kids to the State Fair but what he was wrong in was not understanding what happened to his wife in being willing to deal with her feelings and convey value and love to her. And that’s what Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5:32 & 33 is that he is to love her and she is to respect him and again if we don’t know what that means then we are very busy doing exactly the opposite and not realizing that we are doing it and doing damage to the spirit of our marriage, wounding each other and wondering why we aren’t having a very pleasant experience.
