The Tired Husband

By David J. Stewart | September 2005 | Updated May 2012

Proverb 31:12, “She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life .”

I want to share with you the tragic account of a struggling marriage. Here's a poor guy who goes to work every day faithfully to support his family. His wife stays at home and is supposed to be a “homemaker” (I never liked the term “housewife” because she's not married to the house).

The man's wife has a problem—several problems. She doesn't clean the house. She lies all the time. She hides things from her husband. She slanders him on the phone while he's at work. She is unreliable and irresponsible.

The kids don't do their homework. The kids get bad grades in school. The man simply cannot be a mother and a father to the children. His wife is cold towards him and has no interest in how his day went at work. She has no desire to kiss him. He comes home tired each day from work, life's pressures weighing down on him. The kids go to school hungry, wearing dirty clothes.

In cold weather they have no coats. If the husband rebukes his wife, she leaves out the kitchen door and roams the neighborhood for hours until he has to go back to work. Understandably, sometimes the husband is frustrated and crabby. The man gets little sleep and is a nervous wreck, wondering what his wife will do next, or if she's coming home or not, or who she's going to drag into the marriage (and she often does). Well-meaning people often take sides and make matters worse.

His wife has no supervisor, so her husband has to reprimand her for not doing her duties at home. If the husband doesn't discipline her, then who's going to do it? She is not accountable to anyone else. He can't write her up. He can't fire her. He can't do anything more than try to encourage her by talking with her. If that doesn't work, he can get upset; but she'll walk out the door and not return for hours. Oftentimes she goes out into the backyard or alley, screaming personal thoughts against him at the top of her lungs for 30-minutes. Sometimes she goes in the front of the house, yelling at him and broadcasting their family's dirty laundry to the entire neighborhood.

His wife messes the home more than all the children combined. When the argument is over, they discuss the problems and she agrees to do better, but she never does. The husband doesn't know what to do. He prays and tries to spiritually lead his wife, teaching her about God as the Bible says. Her emotional frailty is a serious problem, causing her to have panic attacks, screaming and yelling in anger and rage for up to an hour. She then stares at the ground, numb to communication and unable to talk logically until her mind clears up. After 30-45 minutes she comes back into the house and sleeps for 8-10 hours.

His wife blows up in emotional fits of rage and anger if he calls her from work to check up on her, so he stops calling home for peace of mind. This woman is the exact opposite of the Proverbs 31 woman. Her husband does not safely trust in her. Neither he nor his children call her blessed. She sleeps late and her children go to school hungry and not having clean clothes to wear. Complaints are made by the school that the children smell. One daughter has a gall-bladder problem and wets the bed. For weeks at a time the little girl sleeps in the same urine-soaked sheets and the mother couldn't care less. The father is angry when he finds out. The wife leaves out the door is is gone for a week, saying at a hotel with his credit card that he's paying. He allows her to use the credit card because he loves her and knows that she needs a break. They're both very tired, having no relatives to help, no place to go for help—God is their only hope and help, which is all that keeps their marriage going.

She has a serious lack of character. The kids rooms are filthy, with garbage on the floor and things all over the place. None of the garbage pails have liners and the smell is horrible. The dishes stink, she hides them under the sink. She changes the babies diapers, and hides them in a dresser drawer. She has lost her mind. As much as her husband tries not to get upset with her, he is still human and does get upset from time to time. She is not working outside the home. It's obvious that she has had a mental breakdown, but her husband doesn't know how to deal with her.

In desperation, after a few years of troublesome marriage, the husband takes his wife to the doctor and she is diagnosed with "hormonal imbalance" due to pregnancy. However, as the children grow older her emotional/mental problems don't get any better. She goes to another doctor and is diagnosed with "clinic depression" and is prescribed a drug. The drug sedates her but doesn't prevent her from having panic attacks. So her doctor continues to increase her dosage until one day she falls on the floor helpless and her husband has to pick her up to carry her.

The psychiatrists are worthless, doing absolutely nothing to help the woman. Her husband is tired and at the end of his rope, he doesn't know where to turn for help. His wife runs out the door for hours at a time every time he mentions anything negative concerning her lack of responsibility. She goes out in the middle of winter, barefoot in the snow, her feet are numb when her panic attack finally breaks. She is driving her husband nuts. Her husband is missing work because of problems at home with his wife. He tries not to get angry at her, but he is human and can only take so much.

He says mean things which he shouldn't say. Her overwhelming fear triggers more panic attacks and she leaves for weeks at a time, he has no idea where she's at. He is always sorry for getting angry at her, but living with her is the most frustrating thing he has ever tried to do. He counsels with others... some advise him to file for divorce... others advise him to take her for more "professional" help. Her mind is unstable. He is tired. She is predictably unpredictable. The marriage is on the rocks.

The man just can't get his wife to fulfill her responsibilities. To make matters worse, his wife lies to him about many things. She has a problem with compulsive fear. She lies for fear of being wrong and being reprimanded. She hides his mail from him. The next time she leaves, he finds letters from collection agencies from bills that she hid from him. She talks to people on the phone behind his back, sometimes slandering him.

When the husband is loving towards her, she doesn't listen. When the husband gets angry, she listens a little more. When the husband blows up, she leaves without warning when his back is turned and runs to a shelter. She doesn't call him for weeks, while the poor guy goes to work day after day... coming home to an empty house. The poor husband just doesn't know what to do. The husband reluctantly drops out of church because the wife keeps dragging people into their marriage problems (some giving very bad advice). The husband is depressed and tired from years of living with his wife, he disassociates from people.

The wife is emotionally unstable and suffers from often panic attacks. The average person doesn't understand the wife's mental condition. Friends and family become a threat to the marriage because of the wife's mental state and their lack of understanding (and eagerness to give bad advice to a woman who is impressionable and vulnerable). The husband just doesn't know where to turn. He prays to God day after day, but nothing seems to help. The husband is afraid to have any close contact with people because of his wife's habit of running to the nearest person for help. She is a threat because of her mental state. What's a husband to do?

After ten years of marriage, things don't improve. Though the married couple are Christians and don't believe in going to psychiatrists, the husband is desperate to know what's wrong with his wife. She goes to several psychiatrists and is diagnosed with "regressive anger"... "clinic depression" (again)... and "posttraumatic stress." His wife is sent to anger management class, given several different drugs over a five year period and is also given a major medical health examination. The doctors say that she is healthy. She does not have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) according to three doctors. Her problem is mental/spiritual. None of the doctors or psychiatrists have helped her.

After the insurance paid its share, the husband still ended up paying out thousands of dollars in expenses for his wife to get help (help she didn't get). Her emotional fear, anxiety, and panic attacks continue. As a result of her emotional problems she lies habitually out of fear, she hides things from her husband out of fear, she fears going to Hell, she fears being committed to a mental institution, she fears being left behind at the Rapture, she fears life itself. Although she says God saved her many years ago, she continually fears going to Hell. She asks her husband if God is going to kill her for not being a better mother. She lives in a needless self-made world of fear. Her husband loves her and weathers through the stormy seas of life with her.

The husband takes her to more doctors and psychologists for a diagnosis. She's diagnosed with all sorts of problems ranging from clinical depression, post-traumatic stress, regressive anger from her childhood, to a chemical imbalance of the brain. Drugs, drugs and more drugs are prescribed and she becomes a zombie. The husband is trying to pick up the slack, caring for his children and working a full-time job; but he just can't do everything, for he is depressed as well. There are problems at work and he is the victim of a hostile work environment and malicious bosses. His marriage problems are affecting his mind and heart at work.

The husband is an organized type person, but his wife is disorganized and sloppy. The husband is frustrated because she refuses to communicate with him. She hides her feelings, letting them build up in secrecy until she has a breakdown and leaves (again). When the husband asks her if everything is truly ok, she always says “yes.” His wife swears on God's name that she'll never leave him again, and promises him that she will talk with him next time instead of leaving. He begs her to communicate with him and offers to do anything to make her happy. She agrees wholeheartedly, but has a history of breaking nearly all her promises. She lies again and leaves within days, and doesn't call for weeks. She admits being fearful and concedes that she is never going to change. Sometimes she takes the children, sometimes she does not.

The father is worried she's going to take his children away in her foolishness, and they'll end up in a heathen court system that caters to rebellious women. Many father's and husbands are living in fear these days because of the brutal onslaught by the rigged court system. The system wants divorces (which mean broken families). Once in the court system, the judge and lawyers take complete control. The couple has no say in the outcome. THERE WILL BE A DIVORCE. The judge and lawyers are required by law to follow rules set by the New World Order, which operates from New York city. Judges are evil to the core in today's system. It's all about money and state control over the children.

His wife told him she wanted to find a new psychiatrist. She didn't drive a car so she asked her husband to drive her to the appointments. For three months her husband drove her to the appointments, dropped her off, and then came back an hour later to get her. We'll, he should have went with her because it turned out that there was NO DOCTOR in the first place. The man's wife made it all up for fear that she was going to be committed to a mental institution. She aimlessly wandered around for an hour each time, waiting for her husband to come back to get her. Once the man's wife found herself on a public transportation bus and didn't know how she got there.

One day she gave her husband a drink. He guzzled the drink down and then noticed soap suds in the glass (with a horrible aftertaste taste in his mouth). She had failed to rinse the Ajax dishwashing detergent out of the glass. Would you be upset? On another occasion the poor guy had food poisoning from eating one of her salads. She was just a walking accident everywhere she went, and her poor husband suffered day and night because of it.

The husband's wife doesn't want to kiss him, saying she doesn't like "mushy kisses." The poor man is frustrated with his wife's lack of desire for sensuality or sex. She tells her psychiatrist that she has no feelings for her husband. She openly admits to her husband that she has been cold-hearted for the past several years. Yet, she continues to be as cold as ice. He gets angry at her sometimes when he sees a pretty woman, feeling like he's been cheated in life. His wife won't spend five minutes in front of a mirror to pretty herself up for him. She just doesn't care.

He gives her a credit card and encourages her to buy whatever she needs to pretty herself up. She doesn't do it. He asks her to buy a book on "How to be Sensual." She won't order it. After several fights, she orders it, but then she won't read it. After several more fights, she finally reads it but won't try any of it. It's a constant uphill battle for the poor husband, fighting tooth-and-nail all the way to get his wife to be a wife. Then she leaves him when he gets angry with her. After 18 1/2 years of marriage she meets a religious feminist who influences her to divorce. That's always the answer of feminists... divorce, divorce, divorce!

Whereas the couple went down into the abyss of life's problems together, a helping hand from a meddling serpent pulls the wife out to move onto greener pastures. The husband is left on a sinking ship and drowns in his burdens and afflictions. The wife goes her merry way with her new friends, saying she doesn't love her husband anymore. It wasn't love, because loveth never faileth. There's no such thing as “I used to love you.” Either you loved then and still do now, and you don't now and never did to begin with! For anyone who's ever been abandoned by a loved one, divorce is the most painful experience in the world. There is nothing any more cruel than to forsake and abandon someone who trusted you with their life, love and future. Woe unto those who file for divorce!

The husband is devastated and refuses to sign the divorce agreement. The lawyer threatens that the judge is a lesbian and feminist who will likely take his children away if he doesn't sign. The lawyer threatens there will be lengthy and costly litigation, and ultimately the wife will get her divorce anyway, because one way or another the judge will give it to her. His wife gets a free lawyer for making allegations of abuse, but it costs him over $50,000 in legal expenses for an expensive lawyer.

The man breaks down in tears. His wife boasts that she's had no tears, no remorse and no regrets. Several months after she filed for divorce, the husband tells his wife that he still loves her and has been praying for her. She says she only called to see how the children are doing. She's as cold as ice and he means nothing to her anymore (and likely never truly did). The man doesn't even know who his wife has become. She's a total stranger to him. The woman that he thought he knew for over over 23-years (married for 18 1/2 of those years) is a total mystery now to him. And perhaps, he thinks, she never truly knew him either. The wife is filled with hatred, allegations, bitterness and a rebellious spirit. She lashes out again him. The man is so tired.

Why can't they just work things out? He offers her a separation instead, but she refuses. He requires the lawyers to put it in writing and they do. The divorce agreement specifies that the wife refused to reconcile with her husband. The man says he cares. The wife says she doesn't. As times passes, a year later she feels the same. The marriage is over. The poor man is devastated and remains single for several years to come, numb and shocked at what has happened. How can he just go find another woman to replace the wife of his youth? How can he find a replacement for the mother of his children? I've shared this story for all you tired men and women out there. Don't quit! Don't leave! Don't divorce!

The man is in disbelief that his wife has become so uncaring and heartless. She is bold with harsh words, accusative and degrading. Her husband doesn't recognize her anymore. Albeit, the husband realizes that his once emotionally fragile wife was always susceptible and vulnerable, highly impressionable by every influence that came her way. That's why women belong at home. I've seen marriage after marriage fall apart because the wife meets someone (whether another man or a female friend) at work. The man's wife was mentally and spiritually weak, just waiting for a serpent to come along and poison her mind. As long as the wife is being coached by feminist meddlers, under the influence of evil marriage wreckers, she won't think for herself and never come to her senses.

She's happy to blame her husband for everything and go her merry way. She's puffed up with conceit, arrogance, pride and self-righteousness. The wife doesn't think about leaving until someone else comes along and puts the idea into her mind. The man's wife didn't care about taking care of her children when she was married, nor loving her husband; so it's not surprising that she didn't care about her wedding vows either. She just doesn't care about anything nor anyone except herself (or to be seen of others).

So she divorce him, dragging him through a heathen court system, costing him everything near and dear to him. She blames him for everything, saying that it's his fault that she couldn't cook, clean and be a wife. She blames him that she needed to go see a psychiatrist. It's all his fault in her mind. She convinces everyone that her husband is the Antichrist. She calls him a bad father and an evil man, but she sees no fault in herself. The husband cries out to God... tired, broken and in despair.