•HUSBANDS go through hell in marriages due to loss of jobs.

By Margaret Mangani  –
RECENTLY the Times of Zambia ran a letter in the sister paper the Sunday Times under the ‘Tell me Josephine’ column of an author who complained of having gone through hell in his marriage due to loss of a job.
The author narrated that the wife became a stranger showing another side of her character that he had never seen before.
Among the challenges the author complained of were that the wife was denying him his conjugal rights and that she had distanced herself from him.
The author believes that all these challenges that he was meant to face occurred at the hands of the spouse during the time when he had lost his job.
Simply put, confusion had arisen between the couple because the man had lost a job and was no longer a bread-winner in the house, so the wife in her own wisdom decided to punish him by withdrawing certain rights which the man was entitled to, not to state that the respect that was due to him as head of the household was no longer there.
This happened regardless of the vows the couple had made before God and several other witnesses when they exchanged their vows “For better for worse until death do them part.”
One can only imagine what pain the man was going through at the hands of the spouse to the extent of forcing himself to share his anguish in the public domain.
Men naturally have an ego and it is not easy for them to forgive their partners whenever they err, so he had to seek help from a counsellor.
No matter the circumstances men do not like to be treated otherwise.
But when the unfortunate happens it is difficult to remind them of their responsibilities which they are expected to undertake as heads of a home, especially when they are hampered due to certain unforeseeable circumstances such as loss of a job or sickness.
Of course men are usually expected to be bread-winners and when the unfortunate happens they do not expect to be punished like a child.
Fortunately later on the man in the letter stated that he got a new appointment with an international NGO which he did not want to reveal to his wife and has apparently been habouring anger with her negative behaviour.
The affected man only concluded that the wife only showed him love during the time when he was able to provide for the family and not when the chips were down.
Which is very unfortunate if true.
Obviously the wife started looking down upon him during his dark moments due to her own reasons which have not been availed here.
Now that he has received a letter for a new appointment he was prompted to seek counsel from the columnist, Josephine, as to which way to go.
Such are common daily occurrences in the society that we live in nowadays which, if not properly handled, may lead to a breakdown of many relationships.
But here is the plain biblical command: “Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the body of which Christ is the savior (Ephesians 5;22-24).
There is much misunderstanding in our world about the roles of the husband and wife within a marriage.
Even when the biblical roles are properly understood, many choose to reject them in favour of a supposed emancipation of women; with the result that the family unit is torn apart.
To counter the world’s misinformation concerning a wife’s submission to her husband, we should carefully note the following in Ephesians 5:22-24:
(1) A wife is to submit to one man (her husband), not to every man.
The rule to submit does not extend to a woman’s place in society at large.
(2) A wife is to willingly submit to her husband in personal obedience to the Lord Jesus.
She submits to her husband because she loves Jesus.
(3) The example of a wife’s submission is that of the church to Christ.
(4) There is nothing said of the wife’s abilities, talents, or worth; the fact that she submits to her own husband does not imply that she is inferior or less worthy in any way.
Also notice that there are no qualifications to the command to submit, except “in everything.” So, the husband does not have to pass an aptitude test or an intelligence test before his wife submits.
It may be a fact that she is better qualified than him to lead in many ways, but she chooses to follow the Lord’s instruction by submitting to her husband’s leadership.
In so doing, a Godly wife can even win her unbelieving husband to the Lord “without words” simply by her holy behaviour (1 Peter 3:1).
But as we continue to discuss this matter here is another school of thought to the whole issue at hand from one of our contributors:
(1)There are many reasons why women or men can lose interest in having sex with their partners whom they have lived with for years.
These could include, among other things, depression, worries of the future or unknown, change of life and behaviour of the partner; Sometimes it could create or enforce pressure in somebody so that the partner starts to think other wise or work; other reason could be that while the man was working he was mistreating the wife or had extra-marital affairs and now that the man is not working that is when he often wants sex with the wife.
In this case one could be reacting otherwise;
(2) From the story, one could conclude that the man has passed judgment on his wife’s thinking.
This could be true or prejudicial.
That is to say that, the man thinks that his wife has become a stranger and showing another side of the character because he is unemployed. In this case the man should not lament so much, there could be other reasons rather than what he thinks.
(3) If a man thinks the wife has changed because he is not working, this could be an opportunity for him to prove his suspicions wrong by showing the letter of his new appointment to the wife so that he sees how the wife would take it.
If really the wife was not interested in him any longer the man could have heard of any extra-marital affairs by now.
On the other hand refusing to show his wife the appointment letter could simply mean both are at fault.
(4) Yes, it is common on the other side for women to change attitude and behaviour towards their husbands when they lose jobs and remain unemployed for a long time and are unable to support their families. Some women have even gone into extra-marital affairs with other men that can give them a coin to sustain their families.
(5) The other reason could be stemming from how the couple got married. Did they marry because of love or money/assets? Did they marry in a good manner i.e. church, traditional with qualities of marriage? Where did they meet? …..In church, bar, lodges or wrong places and later became couples. Surely you cannot remove a pig from the diet mud site and put it on the carpet and expect it to remain there when you are not there.
(6)There are also men who cannot support a family or develop sustainable sources of income when they lose jobs; and these leave their wives to feed them, pay rentals or support children’s education.
Surely, a woman will become tired and behave strangely. Besides there other couples who come together because of money/assets. Mostly the couple pretends to be in love whilst there is money, but when money/assets are not there they start to change goal posts and find faults and excuses in one another.
(7) The Bible says ‘a woman should be a helper to a man’ NOT a caretaker. It also says ‘men love your wives and women be submissive to your husbands’. It also says ‘a man shall till the land NOT a woman’. A woman should labour to bear a child NOT a man. The Bible says love one another in times or bad times. In this story it looks like even a man does not want the wife to know about the new appointment.
Surely the man has been able to share about the new appointment with others except his wife.
Maybe the wife has also been told too that her husband has received a new opportunity and cannot share it with her. What if the appointment dropped, is he going to tell the wife that in fact he was given a good job appointment but it has been dropped and accuse others?
We leave the matter in the hands of our readers to judge for themselves.
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