You hurt deeply, precious sister.

Every human has a seemingly insatiable need to feel special. Women typically see a manifestation of this need in men and with disdain label it “male ego.” Men see it in women and often dismiss it as childish emotionalism. But each of us has it, and it is neither childish, nor egotistical. Instead, it is a manifestation of the most noble thing about being human.

What makes us humans so astounding is that we are divinely crafted with the amazing capacity to contain the Infinite and to relate to Perfection. And nothing less will satisfy. We were made to derive our sense of worth from the only Person in the universe big enough to do so – Almighty God himself. You have this basic need to feel special because in your Maker’s eyes you are special, and he longs to satisfy that craving by being to you everything you need.

Like me, you are anxious to get to the nitty-gritty of your complaints against your husband. I will get there as soon as I can, but to truly help you I must first strengthen the foundation upon which all thriving Christian marriages are built.

A friend of mine suffered great emotional deprivation, the memory of which haunted her adult years. It all stemmed from her earthly father wanting a boy, not a girl. The earthly father to whom God entrusted her was horribly mistaken. Her real Father – our Creator – wanted a girl, and that’s exactly what he made.

There are a thousand variations to this theme. Maybe the earthly parents God lent you to wanted an athlete or an academic, or something else you are not, but the wisest, most exalted, most important Person in the Universe – your Father in the fullest and ultimate sense – thinks very differently. To your Maker, you are no accident or disappointment. You are exactly what he chose to make.

It is true that we can bear the marks of Adam’s sin – such as genetic deformities – which will be swept away in the life to come. But if such challenges did not fit perfectly into the Almighty’s earthly plans for you, he would change you in an instant.

And not only is the Perfect One your Maker, he is your Savior, who suffered agonizing death for you. Talk about vested interests! Can you conceive how much the King of kings has invested in you? For you, he poured out not only his creative genius, but his last drop of blood. Since, in order to gain your friendship, God withheld not even what was dearest to his heart – the life of his infinitely precious only Son – Scripture insists that there is nothing in the entire universe he would withhold from you (Romans 8:32). It is no exaggeration to say you are of infinite importance to the loftiest and most important Person in the universe.

When we look to humans – the finite and imperfect – to satisfy our desperate need for the Infinite and Perfect, is it any wonder that we end up so emotionally starved that we almost suck the life out of our partner and are still left utterly frustrated and unfulfilled? God offers each of us a banquet of love so vast that we could feast on it for a million years and still have as many untasted delights ahead of us as when we began.

Our tragedy is that God seems to us so distant and unreal that, instead of feasting on the Infinite, we become hooked on trying to force out of human relationships satisfaction that no one less than God can give. The ecstasy of romantic love might, for a while, drug an awareness of our craving for divine love, but as a pet dog cannot fill our need for perfect love, neither can a marriage partner.

There isn’t space here to expound on this vast and vital subject. You might think I’ve already spent too much time on it here, but it is actually the foundation of marital happiness. It is so important that I have dealt with in links provided below. It is only when the bottomless pit within us is filled by the Infinite – when our ravenous emotional hunger begins to be satisfied by the Lover of our souls – that our incessant craving to feel special will calm enough for us to end our frantic, fruitless attempts to squeeze out of a human what only God can give.

Let’s get real: our yearning to feel special is not met by the miracle of salvation, although that is the essential starting point. We need supernatural insight into how special we are to God. And we need nothing less than ever-deepening, never-ending intimacy with the Infinite Lord. I desperately need more than I presently experience. Neither you nor I are living in the fullness of all that is available to us. There is always more in God than we currently have. I presume that if we instantly received all we crave, we would end up losers because we’d be less motivated to keep seeking more of God. There is far more that we need than we are even aware of. So we must keep looking to the Lord for more, resisting the temptation to act like the godless who put their hope in a mere human.

In biblical times, God’s people were constantly tempted to mix worshipping the true God with worshipping a god they could see and touch. The Lord repeatedly referred to idol worship as going after lovers. In our secular society we are even less sophisticated. Our preference for worshipping what we can see and touch, drives us to literally go after lovers, rather than the true God.

No matter how moral we are, when we look to humans, we are truly looking for love in all the wrong places. At least other cultures are smart enough to recognize that their needs are beyond what any human can offer. Not surprisingly, they typically end up less disillusioned with their marriage partners and have far lower divorce rates than our society. And if you think we don’t worship humans, think again. The most important commandment, emphasized Jesus, is to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. The one we are most in love with is the one we worship. We literally adore that person.

I have a chronic need for a deeper consciousness of God’s personal love for me, and I suspect even the most spiritual of us have this need for more, whether we realize it or not. For some vital help on this matter, see:

• The Ultimate Love Affair

• You are loved!

• The Most Tortured Conscience Can Find Peace See also links at the end of that page

• God’s Will for You: More wonderful than you could imagine!

• God as Mother and the Dadda You Always Wanted

• Lord, make him regret what he did to me! A Healing Experience

• To God You Are Special

• When God Seems Far Away

The words “to know him is to love him,” apply to God like no one else. Our dilemma is that personal hang-ups and misconceptions drive even devout Christians to keep a little distance between us and God, thus hindering us from knowing God so intimately that we are head over heels in love with him. The average Christian couple are so starved of God’s love that they are nearly like two hungry cannibals constantly tempted to eat each other to satisfy the gnawing emptiness within them. In fact, both partners think God gave them the other to eat. Little wonder there is conflict!

How could dedicated Christians end up starved of God’s love? It sounds impossible, but it happens all the time. We often miss the joys of intimacy with God because although we try to force ourselves to reach out to God, deep down is a fear or doubt about God that makes us want to shrink from him. We might suspect that God is selfish, or fear he is not good and kind, or doubt that he is trustworthy. We wonder whether God might let us down, or hurt us. You might think he favors others over yourself, or feel that he frowns on you. You might think he wants your happiness less than you want it.

Such concerns usually have little to do with God but are carry-overs from us being poorly treated by people. We unconsciously make the irrational assumption that the Almighty must be rather like other people. Even if we rationally make the distinction, the scars of past hurts often remain, like a rape survivor having difficulty relating to her husband, whose love and gentleness she knows is so very different to the rapist. Another huge problem is us resenting God for not preventing our past hurts.

There are answers to all our concerns, and until we begin to find those answers, we are not emotionally ready to tackle the rest of this webpage. For help with this, see:

• Why does God Allow Suffering?

• If Anyone has Reason to Hate God, it’s Sue

• Life’s Mysteries Explained

• Turning Hate into Healing

• What about those who have never heard the Gospel? If this issue makes you fear that God might be unfair, read this web series.

You will find the following hurtful, rather than helpful, while emotional hunger pains still tear at your insides, screaming out for satisfaction that God alone can give. To read what follows while your heart is still broken would be like trying to learn to ski with a broken leg. The healing we need can only be found by plunging into the bottomless, healing pools of divine love. It is more blessed to give than to receive, but we have little chance of entering into the blessing of giving love until we discover how loved of God we are. Until then, we have little capacity to give selfless love. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

We were created not to be leeches, but lovers. We are divinely ordained to be like God, who gives and gives and gives. But we can only fulfill our destiny after tapping in to an infinite source of love. So keep looking to your relationship with the Lord for the emotional fulfillment your need, resisting our natural tendency of expecting our partner to be God for us. I suggest you begin by bookmarking this page and reading all of the above links.

One final word before plunging in: when we continually turn the other cheek, we are sorely tempted to think we have lost our dignity. We feel like dirt. In reality, we are acting like divine royalty; like the King of kings who for your sake became a suffering servant. Let that sink in: when we deliberately lower ourselves, we are acting like the exalted Lord; we are beginning to fill the shoes of the mighty Son of God, our Leader and Example, who yielded to torturous humiliation, knowing he was headed for eternal glory. When we do good to those who wrongfully treat us, we are proving ourselves to be true sons and daughters of Almighty God. Acting like a slave, insisted Jesus, is the path to greatness (Mark 10:43-44). We can only do that by drawing upon the vast resources of a rich, fulfilling relationship with the Lord of lords.

Let’s remind ourselves of Betty’s e-mail:
My husband is extremely self-centered. If he wants something, he gets it. He has managed to go on a vacation every year, without me or the children. He, I know, is like most men, but I am so tired of trying to feel special.

My reply:

You know in every fiber of your being just how important it is to feel special in the eyes of one’s partner. And you know, not just in theory but by bitter experience, how much marital pain self-centeredness causes. So, in the light of all your understanding, why is it that your efforts to make someone feel special center upon yourself? How special do you make Rick feel? My guess is that, like many of us, your inner pain has been so horrific that you have been unable to consider such a question.

Suppose a bomb exploded in your house. In an instant your arm is blown off. Rick has lost his leg. You are both bleeding to death. As you reel in agony you would hardly be able even to think of Rick’s wounds, most less attend to them. I believe this is where you and Rick have been emotionally. I pray that by prayerfully reading the above links you are now beginning to find in God the healing that is essential for you to brave the rest of this webpage. This is no quick fix, however. We need daily intimacy with the Lord.

It’s my guess that for years you valiantly attempted to meet Rick’s needs to feel special, but the most loving of us have only a finite store of love. We can persevere only for so long before our reserves of love begin to run dry. If you have truly been born again, you have tapped into divine love. But we all have blockages in our channel to God’s love, preventing all but a trickle of the Infinite love available to us to eke through to us. Even as I write, I am seeking the Lord to open my eyes to the things in my own life that are greatly restricting the flow. Without supernatural love we cannot possibly act like Christ.

You were born to be like God, and born again for this purpose. Christ came not only to make this possible but to show us what it means to be like God. Though he knew that what was about to happen was so horrific that he had been sweating blood over it, Jesus still focused on the needs of others, even healing the ear of one of those arresting him. Right was on his side, yet he submitted to injustice. Later, despite having the power to strike his captors dead in an instant, he obeyed the soldiers and carried the cross he would die on. As heartless soldiers were hammering cruel nails through his flesh, our Savior pushed through searing pain to pray compassionately for his torturers, seeking their forgiveness. As his life continued to ebb away, he ministered to the spiritual needs of a thief. Newly risen from the grave, he gave priority to comforting the disciples who had denied and deserted him in his time of need.

That’s how God loves. He has loved us not because we deserve it, nor in response to our love, nor because it is painless, but solely because he has committed himself to loving us. For us to begin to love as God loves us involves loving not because someone loves us or treats us as we should be treated, but simply because we have committed ourselves to love. If Rick were the worst man on earth, or the very best, it would not change your thrilling challenge of rising to your destiny and loving as God has loved you.

No doubt, both Rick and you could list like a martyr so many loving things you have done for each other. I commend you, Betty, and I add Scripture’s encouragement to continue and “not become weary in doing good” (Galatians 6:9). I know this is painfully difficult, but it is not merely investing in a marriage. The pain you suffer in continuing to love, is actually spiritual growing pains, the benefits of which will resound to your glory for all eternity.

In addition to divine love and persistence, however, we need divine wisdom. Are your attempts really what make Rick feel special or merely what you have wrongly guessed have that effect on him? Especially because men and women are so different, there is usually a vast gulf between a person’s guesses and his/her partner’s reality.

Even if you have often guessed correctly, how, in Rick’s mind, do all your positive efforts stack up against the negative vibes he picks up from you? We humans are so sensitive that one negative seems to knock out ten positives.

The rest of your e-mail confirms that you are very upset with Rick’s behavior. This is most understandable. Let’s, however, consider Rick’s reaction. I don’t know how openly you have expressed to him your displeasure, but I doubt you could keep your annoyance so locked within you that he does not sense your bitterness. Almost certainly, he secretly reels in pain because of your low view of him. Does he think you want to go on vacation because you love him so much that you long to be with him every chance you get? I doubt it.

The fact that you are upset with Rick, almost certainly makes him feel a failure as a husband, no matter how much he tries to conceal it. Normal people long to flee situations in which they feel failures. Instead of inspiring him to delight you, your attitude – no matter how “justified” relative to his treatment of you – intensifies his desire to find relationships and situations which make him feel better about himself. His need to feel special in someone’s eyes is as strong as yours, but when he is with you he feels silent – or maybe not so silent – hostility. No wonder when he thinks about a vacation – a time when he wants to feel good – he automatically thinks in terms of being removed from this depressive situation.

Am I right in assuming that you feeling special in Rick’s eyes would involve him spending considerable time with you? And yet your resentment will make spending time with you the very thing he dreads.







The Bible addresses the marital dilemma where one partner has become a Christian and the other remains non-Christian. They are literally a spiritual world apart. The greatest need for change clearly lies with the non-Christian, and yet, astoundingly, even in this situation the Good Book specifically says Christians should not try to change their non-Christian partners. Instead, it says Christians should try even harder to become more Christlike – and thus become even better marriage partners (1 Peter 3:1-4).

Pouring all our effort into changing ourselves, God promises, is the effective way to change one’s partner. This annoys us. “It’s my partner who most needs to change!” we protest. Maybe. But not only will a self-righteous attitude destroy a marriage, if we stubbornly refuse to find ways to change, we will even lose the solace of God seeing us as the innocent party as our marriage disintegrates around us. Despite the provocation, Scripture urges us to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Changing ourselves is our responsibility. To try to change our partner is to abdicate our responsibility.

You are hurting deeply, and there is no way I wish to downplay the extent of your pain. I remind you that if I were communicating with Rick, I’d take your side and do all I could to encourage him to change. But I’m not communicating with him, so I can’t help him find ways to improve. I am communicating solely with you, and since no earthly person has reached the point where improvement is impossible, I can only suggest ways in which you could further improve, and help you feel less hurt by giving you a deeper insight into what might be driving Rick to act like he does. If this does not interest you, I sadly confess to having nothing else to offer. You might as well end this webpage here.

My husband truly treats other women a lot better than he treats me. It hurts. As I type this I am fighting back my tears.

There have been countless times in our marriage where he will go and help another lady move, work, etc. But he doesn’t do that at home. I really feel betrayed in my marriage. I honestly feel that my husband has managed to put everyone else ahead of his family.

I understand your pain. Understanding men might help you take normal male behavior less personally. There are several factors behind this common male trait, briefly outlined in Why Married Men Help Other Women. Above all, however, what typically motivates men to act like your husband is that if they do the odd job for other women they are treated as heroes, whereas their own wives make them feel villains. If they do something for their wives, it is usually out of guilt, which is a poor, stifling motivator relative to the buzz a person gets out of being appreciated. Even when they do things for their wives they might even be told, “About time!” or given more chores to do. Like you, he longs to feel special and other women succeed where you fail. Their task, of course, is much easier. They find it easy to appreciate the little your husband does because they know they have no right to take him for granted.

Sarah called Abraham her master. The New Testament urges wives to follow Sarah’s lead, implying that exalting one’s husband – making him feel special – is the path not just to a good marriage but to spiritual honor (1 Peter 3:1-6). A man e-mailed me, bubbling with excitement about how his wife fully submitted to his desires. Not only did her actions make him feel special, it made him yearn to please her and to honor her. He was so over the moon about how she treated him that he couldn’t stop singing her praises, repeatedly telling not just her, but everyone else about how very special she was. In fact, I had to urge him to tone it down in the presence of other husbands lest they get jealous!

The surest way for you to feel you are special in your husband’s eyes is to stop seeking that feeling. Instead, focus on making your husband feel special. All the effort that you pour into making your husband feel good about himself will boomerang back to you – probably in this life, but certainly in the next.

If I speak of counseling he speaks of divorce.

How discouraging for you. It’s not quite as black as it seems, however. May I explain what is probably going on inside Rick’s head? Counseling is not a masculine way of coping with problems. Men find it very demeaning. Some feel their whole masculinity is threatened by it. (See Understanding Men) So although counseling can be very helpful, his reluctance is understandable. Moreover, he most likely feels that you want counseling not because you are open to change but because you want to shame and pressure him into doing what you want. I suspect he doesn’t think you are seeking help in becoming a better wife; he thinks you are seeking someone else to gang up on him in your battle to get your own way. No wonder he feels offended.

I am tired of hurting. He says he loves me, but I don’t feel loved.

Very many men who love their wives are too verbally inhibited to tell their wives they love them. Their wives would be over the moon to hear those words. You are right that believing you are loved is important, but let’s see this from another angle. How loved does he feel? Have you even bothered to seriously find out? You no doubt think he should feel loved – and he probably thinks you should feel loved – but how successful have you really been? There is a vast difference between making a person feel loved and merely assuming the person feels loved.

When my husband is away on business or pleasure, my life is SOOO much easier. I tend to get more done and enjoy my life more. There doesn’t seem to be any stress or battles.

And you are not the only one who feels this way. Are you sure you can’t understand why he prefers to go on vacation without you?

That’s no reason for giving up. It is reason for a change in tactics, however. Continue as you are and you will continue dangerously drifting apart. Doing nothing but wait for one’s partner to change is like waiting for the wind to blow money into your face.

He doesn’t tell me anymore when he will be coming home, because he says I get mad when he doesn’t make that time frame. But it hurts when you hold off feeding your family for two hours because he hasn’t managed to come home.

That must be painfully frustrating. It seems your reaction has unintentionally contributed to the problem. Your husband wants peace, not conflict. You are making him reluctant to come home.

No doubt there were times when he tried so very hard to be on time, frantically rushing home as fast as he could and all he got for his mad rush was a tongue lashing. Instead of Rick feeling that you are glad to see him and thankful for the way he stressed himself to get home quicker, he gets a blast. It seems that over time this so crushed him that he has now lost all hope of consistently pleasing you. When all hope is gone, we see no point in continuing to try.

I suggest reversing your tactics. Instead of criticizing your husband when he does something you dislike, wait until he does something you like and show genuine appreciation. Both of you are in a rut so deep that to take an excitingly different direction and not slide back into old ways will take considerable time and effort, but you can do it.

I have taken a job to help get us out of debt. However, he is telling people that he has received this great sum of money from his grandmother who has just passed away. Granted she did leave him some money, but we don’t know the amount.

I am tired of working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. My job is based out of my home. So I have to keep up all ends. Cooking, cleaning, children, activities, etc plus work 14 hour days. He doesn’t take my job seriously. The job is simple, but it still takes time, so we can work our way to being debt free.

I pray, I think, I cry - - - I am tired!!!

How exhausting and depressing for you.

Has Rick somehow mistakenly gained the impression that you are working primarily for your own benefit? Would he prefer less money in the household if that meant a happier and less complaining wife? Maybe he even sees you working as an insult to his earning capacity.

Talk it over with him – not in a complaining way, nor as an implied threat, but gently ask if he would prefer you to give up your job, since it is so draining for you and putting stress on the marriage. If he really wants you to work, this discussion – if free from manipulation and whining – should help him be more appreciative. It would also thrill him to think that his wishes mean so much to you. Or the discussion might reveal that you have been enduring all this stress, thinking you were doing it for Rick when you were really only doing it for yourself or out of a mistaken idea as to what he wanted.

A part of me, just for one selfish moment, wanted to think I was the most important person on earth to another person. Somehow I think that will never happen.

You have fallen into a vicious circle in which you think Rick doesn’t regard you as special, so you don’t treat him as special, so he doesn’t regard you as special . . . around and round the spiral goes, like a whirlpool hurling you closer and closer to disaster.

Reversing one’s attitude, however, will reverse the cycle. Slowly the negative spin will halt and gradually pick up momentum in the opposite direction. You treating Rick as special will touch him deeply when he realizes you are genuine and not trying to manipulate him. A longing will slowly form within him to be with you more and treat you with greater tenderness and consideration. His response will make you warm to him. He will react to the new feelings awakening within you and so treat you even better. You’ll keep inspiring each other to deeper and deeper love and with each cycle you’ll be more drawn to each other. As you persist, things will get better and better instead of worse and worse.

Sadly, things usually have to get pretty desperate before we even see the need to change ourselves. By then, both partners have been hurt so much and for so long that the patience of both will have been stretched and frayed to dangerous levels. Even the one trying to change could have such a buildup of hurt within him/her that he/she might not have the patience to keep trying unless there is soon a noticeable change within the partner. However, a quick fix is most unlikely.

Even if we have the necessary resolve not to slip back into old ways, our hurting partner will be highly skeptical and will normally take a long while to be convinced that our change is genuine and will last. The time taken to convince our partner is especially likely to be prolonged if we simply try to change without any explanation to our partner. Unless you are in the habit of making empty promises, the best way to start is to verbalize your deep regret and express your determination to change, then solidly back it up with action, even when your partner refuses to change.

We are scared to love unconditionally because we fear our kindness will be exploited. Nevertheless, although in rare occasions what you heap upon your partner might not be returned to you by your partner, the all-seeing Lord will ensure that by some means or another, in this life or the next, you will most certainly reap what you have sown.

Again this woman wisely writes:

Ask that God show you that it is right and not weak to keep giving without any positive response from your partner. It often makes a woman feel cheap and as if she has low self-esteem. This feeling often remains, even though selflessness actually makes one highly honored in God’s eyes. Get your mind off what you’re missing, end self-pity, and get on with life.

An hour listening to God each day can be the greatest changer of all. If you haven’t been spending that kind of time, at first it will seem terribly long and dreary. But after a while it becomes something you look forward to and then something you miss if you skip even a day. This will strengthen you, and you need extra strength in order to make a significant change in your life. Long-term habits are hard to break.

For a better marriage, we need to become more Christlike, and the only way to achieve that is to let Christ have more control of our lives. Christ himself did nothing in his own strength, but relied completely upon his Father. “By myself I can do nothing,” he declared (John 5:30). Marriage was divinely instituted and it can only reach its divine potential by fully involving God in the task of making you the husband or wife he wants you to be.

There is no way around it: it hurts to act Christlike. Christ’s behavior led to scorn, abuse, the agony of crucifixion and then eternal honor. The easy way leads to disaster (Matthew 7:13). I could feel great sympathy for a person I am counseling but I must be wary of acting like Peter, who let his deep feelings for Christ lure him into being used of Satan to tempt Jesus not to pay the price (Matthew 16:21-23). Christ’s promise is not that it will be easy but that it will be so worth the cost that if you pay it, you will rejoice for all eternity over having made the right decision.

To turn marital hell into heaven, turn the other cheek; bless those who curse you; rejoice when you are ill-treated; be quick to see your own faults – the plank in your own eye, not the speck in your partner’s – forgive when you are offended. In short, to make marriage heaven, act like someone worthy of heaven. And regardless of how the earthly benefits pan out, your highest reward will be eternal.