I have been praying for more insight and understanding about lost wives. The revelation came through a phone conversation from the husband, new to Standing for his wife.
NOTE: this may or may not pertain to your situation. This is for those husbands whose wives have unhealed childhood wounds that were never properly healed and formed strongholds of lies around them.
I first want to share that in our DNA, men need RESPECT. Without it, they get lost in their sense of value and worth. For a woman, they need LOVE because their security is tied into it. Without love, a woman can’t feel secure about anything, that includes her value and worth, being secure that she is needed and wanted.
So, back to our phone conversation:
This wife is a very loving, forgiving person who has always been quick to forgive and hold no record of wrongs. 1 Corinthians 13:5 So it took her husband totally by surprise when she brought up accounts of wrongs that happened 15 years ago. And her account of the wrong was, in his eyes, SO far from the truth that it amazed him how she came to the conclusions that she did.
As we dug deep into her past, we were blessed by God to get to the heart of the issue. His wife is a cup that was formed as a child with a crack in her foundation that could not retain love. No matter how much he tried to love her, others loved her, even God, she could not retain it. So she tries to earn love through her actions.
In her childhood, there was a father wound that formed- a belief about herself that she was unworthy of being loved. That has made her work extra hard to keep her cup full. Consistently feeling defeated as her cup always runs quickly out. Nothing she does is good enough to keep feeling good about herself. She would not blame the person for making her feel that way, she just would try harder, always fighting with the “it’s your fault,” accusations that came from the enemy.
As we prayed, God showed me a backpack full of bricks. Every time she came in contact with any form of rejection and forgave the person, she put a brick of “you are not worthy” into her backpack. These bricks were accounts of wrong that she let go of against the person, but not against herself. Every time someone hurt her, did something to her, she secretly accounted it against herself as she deserved it because she was not worthy. And a brick, a burden, a check against herself was placed onto her back into her backpack. She doesn’t see that it was a lie, a stronghold of wrong beliefs that did this to her.
THE WEIGHT MADE A CHANGE!
That backpack of bricks got too heavy for her to carry. It weighed her down so much that she totally snapped and became angry at the reminder that she was “not worthy.” She came to a place where she was not going to accept that lie any longer and fought back. You may have seen your wife start to suffer in a way that appeared as depression, or she may have been trying to ease the weight of her burden through some type of healing. You may have noticed a slight change in her as the weight of the pain was becoming so heavy that it was no longer something she could handle.
Seeking a way out, another lie formed. One that eased the guilt from her as it pointed out someone else to blame. The lie, “Her husband is the one that made her feel this way about herself and destroyed her.”
Not knowing how to do it anymore, she took that bag of bricks and decided to rebel against the pain and shame by sharing the blame or deflecting it totally onto her husband. Using it to bash anyone who ever made her feel so unworthy. Her husband is the one right now getting the full force of her anger and pain. Out of that bag is every account she had previously forgiven and let go. As she throws those bricks at him, he can see her version of the ‘truth’ and how she took it. Many of them are nothing close to how it really happened or how he intended it.
But that is exactly how unworthy and rejection roots operate. They shield the person from the real truth, they twist and contort the truth before it ever gets to the person so what they hear, see, feel, is not even close to reality. All because rejection and unworthiness roots operate from a deficit place. Where you can never satisfy them. They also operate from a place of theft, where it steals the truth of love, worthiness, value, and having a proper place in this world. No matter how much the person wants to feel accepted, the roots of rejection and unworthiness will never allow that to happen.
The fight against themselves becomes too much. They can’t handle the blame that they are not valuable, worthy, loveable. All their life they have “allowed someone else to tell them this, make them feel this.” And they are done. They are going to blame others as they should have been doing all along. They may even turn that anger towards God. They may have found someone now that worships the ground they walk on, and loves them and makes them feel all the things that you never made them feel. Or they say they are looking to find that person to be what you could never give them.
“It’s ALL your fault.” is the lie.
The truth is, the broken place in their foundation is to blame, and the fact that it never was healed with the help of God. And no matter who they find, where they go, how much they try to rebuild their life and have a do-over, that broken foundation is not going to allow them to get out of the new relationship that their souls are crying out for.
I watched something very similar happen to my husband when he was in the storm. He had a very broken childhood involving rejection and abandonment with his mom. I was very unhappy that God was not willing to use ME to be the one that helped my husband heal, but used other women to teach my husband the lessons so that open wound would heal with His help.
Why can’t God use YOU to help heal your wife?
This whole entire time, your wife has been trying to get you to heal, fix, and help her broken foundation. Through her efforts to earn her worth, your love, and approval, she has tried to heal her own soul. She has tried to find her worth and value, the two things that keep getting leaked out through the break, through people, and not through the proper place. GOD. ONLY God can be the one that heals, restores, repairs the damage done, and seals up the cracks in her foundation. IF you do that, it will only enforce that she doesn’t need God.
God created us to need Him, be dependent upon Him because our eternal resting place depends on this. He didn’t create us to be able to fix ourselves, even though humans have great counterfeit ways, but never close to the REAL thing. HIM!
So what about that new relationship she is in where she tells you she finally found what she was looking for and he is giving her everything you never could? Is that really what God did? Stopped YOU from being the one to fix, heal, restore your wife, only to let another man, one that is not her spouse, not her headship, not her Savior Jesus Christ, do? Did God really allow a man to take His place and do His work? Of course not. What she is telling you is not the truth, even if she really does feel happy and loved because her cup of worth and value got filled. It’s not going to stay that way. History will repeat itself and she will find herself in the same exact place as before where she feels unloved, rejected, unaccepted, and unworthy. Will she finally yield to the truth? Will she finally turn to God for help and open her eyes that she can’t get from a man what her soul desperately is crying out in thirst for?
Through HIM, she is loved, worthy, accepted, and valued. Through HIM her cup will never run dry and she will never thirst. As a husband, your desire to help and rescue your wife will be something you are going to have to learn how to entrust God with. Especially if you feel that another man is doing what you should be doing. Trust Him, God is not going to allow that man to replace Him. He will use that man to open up her eyes and make her aware.
I also want to touch on your own healing. That bag of bricks swung at you has left some scars that you need to have healed. While some of those things are true, that you did hurt your wife in some ways, and it’s woken you up to some things, you can’t keep letting those bricks hit the target and do damage to you. Understanding the bricks, why they are being hurled at you over and over is the best way to combat this along with forgiving, compassion and pouring out God’s agape love toward your broken wife. Let yourself off the hook. You did not break or destroy your wife and the enemy is trying to erect in you a stronghold of lies of belief just like he did with her. Let the truth set you free and guard your heart.
Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger
This message is exactly what I needed to hear today as I continue to stand for my marriage in the midst of divorce proceedings. This has really assisted me in letting go of condemnation, guilt, and self-recrimination as it relates to my marital issue. Thank you for your obedience in writing this.
Thank you for your message. My wife is currently here in this message. She has not surrendered to Him the past hurts in her life. I surrender her to Him daily. I want to help fix but I understand that I cannot and only He can heal. Please pray for my family. 21 years married but still separated lifing in the same home trying to keep our family together to heal with God.
Thank you Sheila. This devotional is spot on. As an abandoned husband almost all of what you have written is true in my life. I would like to share more with you but not on this public forum. What’s an email address that I can privately share with you?
marriagerevealedministries@gmail.com
Sheila, your post has such wisdom to it, I am sure God directed your words.
Thank you. I would LOVE wives with such father wounds everywhere to read this. It could help then and their marriages heal.
Hello Shiela,
I am standing for my husband. I feel this post is so similar to him except his issue was not feeling respected…no matter what I did or said he could never feel my respect. I rewrote your post changing her to him and LOVE for RESPECT to help me wrap my mind around what he’s dealing with. If you’d like me to send you a copy I’d be happy to do that.
Thanks for your faithfulness in continuing to write and share the wisdom the Lord has blessed you with. It is greatly appreciated!
Jamie
Hi Sheila,
Thank you for this post. I’ve been struggling with this for a while now and yes my husband has been the one receiving the bricks that are in my backpack. The more I read on your post the more wisdom and knowledge God is giving me. Thank you again.
Sheila, thank you for this message.
Thank you for ministering to others.
My wife definitely has a father wound. (He abandoned her, she never knew him. Her mom made her feel that she could never be good enough.)
She is in limerence for another man, and she has just divorced me so she can go be with him. I found your YouTube videos a few days ago, and you have confirmed for me what I knew to be true… She’s trying to fill a void and heal a wound with the attentions of another man, but only God can meet her needs.
Now, I can clearly see the progression of events, which I had been blinded to as they were happening. She walked away from God, instead of turning to Him, when she had a struggle of faith. She met the other man, and limerence for him began to develop. Then she looked at the bricks in her backpack, her unmet needs, expectations, hurts and struggles that she often didn’t tell me about, and used them as rationale to enter into an affair.
She filed for divorce, and is making arrangements to move in with the other man. And yet, I’m standing. I’m going to continue to stand for her and for our marriage. I
Godly men I whom trusted a mentors and advisors, including our pastor and even my own father, don’t understand why I am standing. Years ago, I watched in amazement at her transformation into a child of God, I was a witness to her receiving salvation from the LORD. Our pastor was witness to it, too, and was instrumental in God leading her to faith. My dad had spoken to me about the change he saw in her. Yet now, the pastor says that she can lose her salvation, and my dad has said he doesn’t know that she was ever saved.
I believe that a person cannot lose salvation, which comes from the LORD and is not based on works, and because of what Jesus clearly said:
“And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.”
John 10:28-29 NKJV
As you made clear in one of the videos on the YouTube channel, even King David, a man after God’s own heart, committed adultery (and murder), and yet God forgave she redeemed him.
I believe that God can and will bring her back into His presence. I believe that the LORD can and will heal her wounds, and that our Father in Heaven will fill that void in her heart. And I believe that, if it also His will, our marriage will be restored someday.
Thank you again, Sheila, for your faithfulness in this ministry. And I thank the LORD for the great work of restoration that He has done in you, in your husband, and in your marriage. It is a testimony of His faithfulness, that He is mighty to heal!
This is so spot on. My wife has so many childhood wounds that I was able to love her through during the first 10 years of our marriage.
Then life’s trials and tribulations started hitting us fast and furious for a few years and the trauma we both experienced in our childhood reared its ugly head and we both were triggered. It became a vicious cycle as I wounded her with my neediness and clinnginess while falling into a victim/self-pity mindset (something she experienced from her mom as a child) and her rejection, affair and failure to no longer respect or love me triggered me.
So she disconnected physically, emotionally and spiritually during the final 8 years of our 27 1/2 year marriage and finally just gave up on us, filed for divorce and it was finalized on Jan. 25.
Broke my heart because I had been praying and standing for reconciliation these past few years and now I don’t know if I really want to even try anymore. I struggle if she is even worth my time, affection, love and effort as I battle the anger and bitterness of her giving up on our marriage during the rough times.
My heart and prayers go out to you. I know how difficult this is. I remember also struggling because how things were going, I was very much being led in my feelings and loss of love and respect for someone that I once absolutely loved and adored. God was always after me to remember the man I met and fell in love with. The man I knew him to be and not the person I was seeing in front of me because that man had a temporary hard heart and one day that would change and I would get my husband back, better than before because God would be important to him. Hold fast to who you know her to be, and expect a wife that has been touched, healed by God. It’s a must that each day you guard your heart from bitterness through forgiving what you can’t possibly understand. She needs your prayers, your love and your fight in the spiritual for her lost, broken soul. The best part about this, if you can keep going, the amazing relationship you will gain from this with the Lord. BUT that bitterness must go! Or it will stop the benefit of standing.