Do you ever feel like your marriage gets to be a bit like that at times? Leigh and I went out on a date last weekend, and when we came home, she ended up sitting down and chatting with our babysitter for the better part of an hour. They were having a good time, as I sort of fluttered in and out, answering email, finding a book to read in bed, that sort of thing.
Of course, inside, I was screaming my guts out.
See, I was annoyed. In my mind, I had this picture of Leigh and I getting home, shooing our babysitter out the door, and ripping each other's clothes off as we barely made it to the bedroom. (Wives, every guy reading this knows exactly what I'm talking about, and thinks the same thing on most dates. Might want to take note of that...)
The problem is, I never actually said that. And even if we dial it back a bit, and go for G-rated, I didn't walk into my living room, yawn loudly, and suggest to our sitter that it was getting late. I didn't whisper anything helpful, sexual, or even instructional into my wife's ear. I didn't even sit next to our sitter and ask her what time it was. I just stewed, and got angry.
Then, when the sitter finally left, I moped around with an annoyed look on my face, until my wife finally asked that dreaded question: "Are you upset?"
We all know what comes next, right? I unloaded on my wife. Told her how inconsiderate she was, how this was a night about us, not her and the sitter, on and on. And she had a reply that just incensed me:
"Why didn't you just say that?"
Oh, I was mad. Because, when you cut away all the crud, she was exactly right. I was like George, pushing numbers into a touch-tone phone, expecting my wife to read my mind. And she was saying, "Why don't you just TELL me what you want?"
I haven't asked Leigh this, but I suspect that she would have welcomed an assertive, "Babe, let's get the sitter out the door. I want all our time tonight to be together." I even think a much more suggestive or even explicit statement about what I'd like us to spend that time doing would have been okay. Because, well, most women want their men to be men.
And I was acting like a teenage girl, whimpering and being passive aggressive.
I Corinthians 6:9 and 10 says this:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
We're quick to call a guy that has an overly thick lisp (let's be clear about that overly thick part, okay? I've got a lisp of my own), sashays instead of walks, and doesn't mind wearing pink stripes effeminate. Listen to too much Indigo Girls or Sarah McLachlan, and you're effeminate. See more chick flicks than you watch explosions, or keep up with Big Brother or The Bachelor? Yup, you guessed it: effeminate.
But what does "effeminate" actually mean? Here's what dictionary.com says:
Having traits, tastes, habits, etc., traditionally considered feminine, as softness or delicacy.
Now this won't go over too well in our society, but when I chose to not say what I was thinking, to blame my wife for not reading my passive-aggressive gestures, to yell at her because she wanted to talk to a fiend and I didn't want her to -- even though I gave her no reasonable way of knowing that -- then I was really acting effeminate. I was acting a wimpy, note-passing, PE-skipping hair-pulling little girl.
Now, let's not get crazy. Romans 8:1 tells us there's no condemnation in Christ, and Paul's talking to unregenerated lost folks in that particular passage from I Corinthians 9. So I'm not suggesting that by my actions, I'm condemning myself to hell.
But I am saying I was doing a lousy job of loving my wife the way Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25). Christ was a man's man, and didn't leave us wondering what he meant about, well, pretty much anything. This was a guy that rolled into the local Christian book store and started tossing books, Scripture-inlaid toothbrushes, and sanctified breath mints around. He let people know what he thought.
I am saying that I didn't love my wife in an understanding way (I Pet. 3:7), by making sure she knew what was on my mind when it concerned her. I didn't give her a chance to see and hear her husband desire her, and value her time, body, and love above all else for an entire evening.
I didn't show hospitality to our babysitter (Rom. 12:10-13); in my anger toward her (for doing nothing other than talking with my wife), I was rude, pacing in and out, showing myself to be a poor host and moody husband.
And just to be clear, this isn't something that applies only to men, even though a woman can't by nature be "effeminate." Husbands, wives, moms, dads, we need to suck it up and speak plainly. Let's get out of our heads, and actually talk to each other.
"Why don't you just TELL me you'd like to spend time with me?"
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