45: What To Do If Your Husband Doesn’t Lead Spiritually – 8 Tips
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What do you do if your husband doesn’t lead spiritually? Get 8 quick tips that will help you inspire your husband to lead.
In this Episode: What To Do If Your Husband Doesn’t Lead Spiritually – 8 Tips
- Pray for God to show him how to lead.
- Let him lead in prayer.
- Praise him privately for the good things he accomplishes.
- Praise him publicly.
- Don’t compare him to others, not even in your mind.
- Encourage him to read Catholic websites and books on masculinity.
- Dress in a feminine manner.
- Encourage him to make a Consecration to St. Joseph.
Mentioned in this podcast
Article: “Comparing You = Comparing Me: Social Comparisons of the Expanded Self“
Book: Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father
Other Recommended Books
If your husband does not lead spiritually, he may find help in these books.
***Use coupon code BSA for 15% off TAN Books Titles
Transcript: What To Do If Your Husband Doesn’t Lead Spiritually – 8 Tips
Blessed Day, everyone.
Today’s topic is on what to do. If your husband doesn’t lead spiritually, if he’s shy or a little awkward or a little tentative about taking charge.
We’re going to do this real quick. I have eight steps for you today. The first one of course is to pray to God. Girl, get it on your knees and pray for a leader. Pray for God to show him how to lead. First Corinthians 16:13 says, “Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. BE strong. What does that mean? God wants our men to act like men. Therefore you can pray to God and ask him to develop the traits of leader in your man. St. Ignatius of Loyola also says, “God gives each one of us sufficient grace ever to know his holy will and to do it fully.” Pray that God will show your husband how to live according to his will and how to lead your family so that you can be in God’s will.
The second thing you can do is this: And now I’m talking to the ladies that tend to take charge. You know, the type, of personalities, the Cholerics like myself, that like to be in charge. You are going to have to take a little step back when it’s time to pray. Let him lead in prayer. Let him start the prayer. So if you’re going to pray together, let him make the Sign of the Cross. Let him lead in making the sign of the cross. If you’re going to pray a prayer that has a call and response, let him do the call and you or you and the children, the rest of the family, do the response. That way he will feel like he’s leading. If you have any prayers or devotions that you’d like to pray, offer them up as suggestions. Don’t just come to him and say, “Hey, you know, everyone is praying the Memorare.”
And I think we need to pray that. So let’s pray that. Nope, come to him and say, “Hey darling, I really would like to start praying the Memorare. Do you think that we could pray it at the end of our rosary” and let him make the decision? If he doesn’t want to do it, that’s fine. You can pray it on your own, can’t you? So don’t force it on him. Let him make the spiritual decisions. The third thing you can do is praise his efforts privately when you two are together at home, make sure to let him know when he’s done good. If he finishes a project that needed to be done, let him know how grateful you are. I was watching a a period drama, and I remember the husband had done something for his wife. And I remember her grabbing his hand and saying, I am so gratified!
And you should have seen the look on this husband’s face. He was beaming. So when we praise our husbands privately at home, when no one’s around and he knows you’re not just doing it for show, it really has an impact on his confidence, and in his role as husband and leader.” The fourth tip is to praise him publicly. Yes, not only at home, also publicly. Here’s an example. My husband is pretty quiet. He’s an introvert, but like most introverts, he has a lot of thoughts. So he’s really wonderful at doing skits. Every year we have a talent show. He does a really funny skit for the parish. So when I’m out with him in public and I hear someone say, “Oh yeah, your husband’s does skits, right?” What do I say? I say, “He does. He’s extremely clever and funny when he comes to these skits.
So I praise him in that way in front of him. In other words, I show other people that I am proud of his ability to do these skits. It’s extremely important that you bolster your husband’s confidence in different ways, because that also affects his spiritual leadership 5th tip: don’t compare your husband to others. Needless to say, don’t compare him to others out loud. Don’t say your brother helps his wife with the chores and you don’t help me. We’ve all done it at some point. I know I I’ve compared, but it’s not a good thing. It’s actually very, very destructive. In fact, it’s even destructive when you do the comparison in your head. You don’t even have to say it out loud. If you do it in your head, it affects the way that you perceive your husband. And in some ways it lessens the respect that you have for your husband, which in turn, affects his ability to lead.
In 2015, there was a study done in Personality and Social psychology bulletin. And this is what they found. I’m quoting from the study. “Our studies provide the first evidence that people do compare their partner to others with significant consequences. For the relationship. People who are low in “self partner” overlap have difficulty maintaining positive partner perceptions, following threatening comparisons of their partner to others. This may be a key source of stress and conflict in people’s relationships.” Let me translate that, “People who don’t see themselves as a unit with their husband,/wife… Remember God said we become one flesh. So number one, if you don’t see yourself as a unit, you are more likely to make these comparisons in your head. But if you see yourself as one, you’re not likely to do that. Why? Why would you want to put down yourself? Well, sometimes we get these thoughts and feelings that it’s hard for us to stop them from coming in, but here’s something you can do.
if you have a thought where you’re actually comparing your husband to someone else in a negative light. I spoke earlier about comparing, let’s say someone’s brother to your husband, by saying, “He always helps with the chores.” You don’t help me with the chores. Now you might not say that out loud, but you might say it in your head. Well here’s what you can do. Because you are one flesh, you can say,, “Yeah, he doesn’t help move the chores on a daily basis. But I know it’s because he’s extremely busy. However, when he does clean, even if it’s once a month, he does such a thorough job that it’s worth it. I never get a chance to clean that thoroughly. I tend to clean superficially. I love when my husband cleans see the difference.” So now you switch that comparison in your mind, you reframe it so that you are not putting your husband in a negative light. So to sum it up, you can totally devastate your husband’s ability to lead by making these comparisons out loud. But also if you make them in your head, you can also adversely affect the relationship.
Hi there, this is Cynthia Burley. Please subscribe to Life’s My Thing with Cynthia Burley on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and Google. If you listen to this on iTunes and you love this podcast, we would be so ecstatic. If you would leave us a five star review. Leaving us five star reviews, help us to reach more people. Thank you so much. And God bless the next tip is to encourage your husband to look at Catholic websites or read Catholic books that encourage masculine and leadership. Of course, you don’t want to come to him and say, “Oh honey, I think you need help with leading. So why don’t you read this book?” That’s not going to go down very well. Right? <laugh> You want to tell him for example, “Hey, I found this website. It’s so good. I’d love tee tips on here. Look, take a look at it. One website I can recommend is the Catholic gentleman.
I find this stuff to be top notch. They really help to bolster masculinity. They have a lot of Catholic Saint quotes. It’s all Catholic based. And I think it’s wonderful. So if you have a husband who you need to encourage to lead, definitely tell him about this wonderful website that you found.
Another way you can help your husband and his leadership, is by being extremely feminine. Let me tell you something, masculine men like feminine women. So if you are feminine, you will inspire masculinity. If you’re constantly wearing skirts and dresses. Guess What? It emphasizes a contrast because men wear pants, women wear skirts and dresses. Yes. Women wear pants too these days, but generally men don’t wear skirts and dresses. Don’t tell me about kilts. I’m not talking about kilts, but generally men don’t wear skirts and dresses. That means that skirts and dresses are proper to women. So when you wear that, you inspire a man to see you as a beautiful feminine woman, which just gets his juices, his masculinity juices flowing, and he wants to be masculine and he wants to lead. So be feminine so that your man could be more masculine and more of a leader.
The last thing I’ll recommend is to encourage your husband, to make a consecration to St. Joseph,. Who else is a better leader, a better prototype of a masculine man the foster father of Christ himself. There is a book called “Consecration to St. . Joseph, The Wonders of our spiritual father. It’s written by father, Donald Calloway. I highly, highly recommend it. Hope all these tips were helpful. Guys, feel free to ask me any questions and of course, comment wherever you find this, whether it’s on YouTube, whether it’s on Facebook, please comment.
Thank you so much and have a blessed day.
