What Do I Do If My Worthless Husband Won't Lead? The Brute

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Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. Listen and enjoy this installment of Iron Sharpening Iron, as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions.

Here's Pastor Tim. On this episode of Iron Sharpening Iron, we will begin a series of follow-ups to the question, What do I do if my worthless husband won't lead? Now, one of the things about biblical counseling is that counseling in general is person-specific.

The Bible tells us that if you attempt to give an answer before you hear, it is folly and shame. One of the things that's very easy to do is to make a bunch of assumptions about the situation that you are trying to address because of superficial similarities between different types of situations, and so one of the things that that means is it's almost impossible to give counsel from a distance.

It's almost impossible when trying to answer a question like this, to be specific enough to address all the different types of situations that individuals might find themselves in. A woman might look at her husband, and she might think to herself, What do I do if my worthless husband won't lead?

And there are situations when she might think that when the guy functionally is a terrible leader, and there's situations where a woman might find herself in where she thinks that when the guy is a pretty good leader, and the problem is mostly on her end.

So the issue is that you can't really address in any simplistic sort of way what to do in every type of scenario that may where the woman comes away thinking the same sorts of things, and so one of the things that we wanted to do over the course of the next few follow-ups is to try to address the different types of situations where a woman might come to that kind of conclusion and give some practical counsel or advice from the scriptures that would help us to interact with those different types of situations.

But then again, the same thing applies that we just said. I mean, it's almost impossible to talk about any of the endless dynamics that might be at work in any particular situation. But one of the things that you can do is you can group a question like this under different categories and get more specific and maybe get a little bit closer to the mark.

Now, but then at the end of the day you still have to, you know, deal with the particulars on a person-by-person level as far as that's concerned. But then just leaving it where we left it, just sort of generic things to think about in the variety of situations might not be as helpful as getting a bit more specific in talking about different types of situations that a person might find themselves in.

Now, the first situation that we want to address is the situation of the woman who feels this, who is thinking this, what do I do? My worthless husband won't lead and she's married to the brute. Now, in former generations when we had more positive things to say about men, one of the things we might describe this man as, as being the strong and silent type.

And still I would say that if a woman was on the hunt for a husband and she comes across one of these strong silent types, she might refer to him as the strong silent type. But then after she gets married to him, then one of the things to realize is that people are tempted to resent the very things that attracted them to the other individual post-marriage.

And so whatever the things that were that attracted you to that individual, they may end up being significant sources of frustration later. But for our purposes, we're going to, we're going to interact with what a woman should, some general advice that a woman might apply to the kind of situation where she's married to the brute.

The Brute, the Strong Silent Type, and the Changing Expectations of Marriage

Now, in order to really understand what this category is, I think this is a category that is largely starting to be less common than it used to be. The brute is essentially what, what you might describe as the stereotypical man.

It's the, it's the man who works a blue-collar job, who comes home from work after a bunch of long and hard hours, doesn't really have a whole lot to say. Basically, maybe you get a few grunts out of him.

He gets up early, does his work, sits on the couch after he gets home and relaxes, goes to bed, starts the process over again. And your interaction with him may be centered around little to no verbal interaction.

But then he's a faithful guy across the board. He takes responsibility for the areas of, for the basics of being a husband, being a provider. He may be the kind of guy who takes you to the church, prays before meals, but he doesn't seem to have a whole lot to say.

And as far as that goes, a woman might look at that kind of man and say, hey, there's not really a whole lot of leadership here. I married someone who's a fine provider as far as that goes. But then I don't feel like I'm getting my relational needs met and I don't, you know, feel like he's providing much tangible direction for me and the family in general.

And I don't really know how to interact with him along those lines. If I try to interact with him, if I try to have discussions, if I try to ask him to be more of a spiritual leader, it might be that he gets frustrated and he gets mad with me and we have arguments and fights and everything else.

But that has largely become unprofitable. But I do wish he were a little bit better a leader. Yes, I'm thankful that he's a provider and all that, but it might be nice if he were you know more of more of a good conversation partner, interacted with the kids a bit more and did more than just kind of, you know, go to work, come home and take up space on the couch kind of guy.

Male and Female Differences, Work Exhaustion, and the Limits of a Provider

Now with a scenario like this, one of the things to realize is that there are recreational differences between men and women that are often pretty profound. So one of the things the psychologists will tell us is that, you know, women have you know about three times the number of words that men have on a regular basis and men will use up their word count while they're at work and then when they come home, they're out of words and essentially one of the ways that males and females, if they're going to interact with each other in a helpful way, is you have to understand that people are different and and I think that as far as that goes, that is a fair observation that might fit a variety of situations.

Now when I was just getting out of seminary, I worked a manual labor job, and I would say that I try my best to make a lot more of an effort at verbally engaging my wife and I think most men who would be characterized as the brute do.

But when I first got out of seminary, I worked a job that involved delivering appliances and so my schedule meant that I got up anywhere from 3 .30 to 4 .00 in the morning and I worked sometimes till 6 .00 or 7 .00 at night, basically doing hard manual labor all day long, trying to figure out a way to provide for my wife, put food on the table.

And so in that kind of situation, I would come home basically mentally exhausted. One of the things I did while I worked at that kind of job was I tried to listen to as many sermons or the Bible as much as I could while I was at work.

I came home, I'm pretty much physically worn out, mentally worn out. I'm laying, you know, basically laying down next to my wife. She's trying to engage me in conversation, and I'm feeling my body shut down and didn't really have much to say.

And so you know, there's a type of, I would say that there's a type of guy who's in a scenario like that, working hard, hard, long hours, that may just, like there are physical realities that may be somewhat beyond his control.

And you know, it may be that a wife in that kind of situation might need to do a lot of praying for her husband and praying for him to be able to find some way to get into a different type of job that will allow him to be much more proactive in terms of pursuing her and pursuing their family.

And so there might be a kind of guy who is that who is in that kind of situation, but because of some sort of hard providence, he wishes he could be more communicative. But you might need to be significantly more understanding than you're tempted to be about the nature of the kind of job that he actually has, knowing that, you know, you are working a different type of job.

And you know, many women who are homemakers, they spend all their, all day long interacting with kids. And, and, you know, I can remember plenty of situations where relatives of mine would be spending all day long interacting with kids and just crave adult conversation.

And so you put those two kinds of people in that kind of scenario where the woman is absolutely craving interaction and communication with an adult and a man's basically just worn himself out to the point where there's nothing left to give.

And that might be a frustrating situation for everyone. And it may be something that, you know, you need to be praying and seeking an answer to that may have, may say little to nothing about the nature of the guy's actual leadership in general.

Resentment, Feminism, and the Loss of Need for Men

But there are those types of men, obviously, who, you know, they work more reasonable hours. Their job may be a little bit more physically demanding. But then any reasonable person looking at the relationship can look at that and say, hey, you know, I think you can do a lot better than what you do.

And then if any, any attempt that a wife might have to, to ask her husband to be more of a leader, to take more spiritual interest in home, is met with hostility and frustration and anger and everything else.

That's clearly a problem and, and there needs to be some sort of answer. Now, one of the things that you might do with a scenario like this is, is you might imagine a different type of, you might try to imagine the scenario that we're describing, and I think that everyone has a category for that kind of situation actually working in a way that might be a bit surprising.

And so when you think about books or movies or, or certain kind of relationships you might have, everyone can imagine the chatty girl who marries the mute man, the big mute man who, you know, who's in a bit of a different setting or something like that.

They're, you know, you might imagine that they're, there's, you know, they're a frontier couple or something like that. And the brute guy, you know, absolutely adores this chatty girl. He just doesn't have a whole lot of words to say.

But then you can imagine the kind of scenario where a guy like that, you know, he absolutely adores this little chatterbox of a woman. And then, you know, he's the kind of guy who, you know, grunts, has, you know, he communicates with her with a few grunts and everything else.

And, but then in his free time, he whittles a little wood carving statue of her to give to her, to which she absolutely loves and adores. And, you know, and she just basically spends her time talking to him.

He spends his time listening and grunting, and everyone looks at that. And, and everyone would think, you know, that's a really cute kind of scenario. It's kind of endearing in a certain way. Now, you know, there's, there's plenty of people who look at that and say, hey, well, that's unrealistic.

And that's, you know, that's only the kind of thing that can happen for a short term. But then everyone's eventually going to be frustrated by it. But I think one of the reasons why you might look at a scenario like that and you say, hey, why does it work when it does work?

Well, one of the reasons why it might work because it does work is in that kind of scenario, you know, he's the guy who rescued her from the Indians who were attacking. And, you know, she's in a situation where she is a weaker vessel.

She does need a man to protect her. And he's her loyal and devoted protector and provider. And when you're, when you, when you imagine yourself in sort of the anachronistic scenario where those things were actually needed, it could be that a woman in that kind of situation isn't necessarily looking for a husband to be her opposite sex bestie who is going to talk her ear off and engage in girl talk with her and be in touch with this, you know, feminine side and all that.

And, and basically be, you know, meet the entirety of her relational needs as a fellow woman would. It may be that she's looking to other women to do that sort of thing. And, and the profound realities of the type of world and situation she's living in is she needs a man to really be a protector and she really needs a man to be a provider.

And, and this man happens to excel at doing both of those things. And so she absolutely loves him and she absolutely adores him. And there isn't all the conflict that comes with all the expectations of him being fundamentally different than he might in his natural state of affairs be.

And so one of the things, I bring that up just to say that in this kind of scenario, one of the things that's happened in the kind of world that we live in right now is we live in the kind of world that basically has liberated women from any need for the brute, if that makes sense.

Women, the Workforce, and Domestic Resentment

So meaning, you know, if you think about how life is in, you know, most suburban middle-class areas of America, one of the things to realize is that a woman really doesn't need a man to be a protector very much.

Like in terms of her physical safety, we have mechanisms that are going to take care of that. And so she doesn't look at him for that. And then feminism has come along and basically said to a woman that feminism is basically constantly trying to tell women that, you know, you're a strong and you're a powerful African-American woman.

You don't need a man and everything else. And like the idea of needing a man in general is somehow degrading to you and somehow makes you less. And so, so women are trained basically to not look to men, to, to help them in any way.

Like women are engaging in some sort of willful delusion to where they look in the mirror and they tell themselves that they're strong and they're powerful. And, you know, and they, they're capable and they're independent and all these things.

And so they, they, they basically aren't looking to a man to help fix any perceived inadequacies because, you know, one of the things that movies and books and everything else are training us is that functionally, a woman has no inadequacies.

A woman is perfect in every way, capable in every way. She's the kind of person who can do a man's job just as good or better than him. And she can do a woman's job just as good or better than him. And then the man basically can't do anything right.

And so part of what's happening in that kind of scenario is like, we're living in a time where women really don't look to men as if anything that a man can do is functionally valuable. So she doesn't need him for protection, but then she also does it because, because of the result of the women's rights movement.

Now women have entered into the workforce and now the expectation is that the woman's going to find her fulfillment in work. And so she doesn't functionally need him to be a provider any either. So, and if he does, if he is a provider for her in the way that the Bible would command him to be, one of the things to realize is that feminism trains women to despise the domestic responsibilities at home.

And so basically she looks at him and she looks at him being able to leave the home and to work and to provide as she's tempted to look at that as a source of resentment for her. And so functionally, when you think about that kind of arrangement, you put all those things together.

And if you can imagine the kind of scenario, just like put yourself back in time to where, you know, the chatty girl meets, like just absolutely adores the, you know, the mute brute man who is her protector and her provider and, you know, shows genuine thoughtfulness and his caveman kind of ways.

And everyone can look at a scenario like that and we can smile at that and we can enjoy that and we can appreciate that. But then the reality is we're living in the kind of situation today that trains us to despise that in almost every way imaginable.

When the Real Problem Is Resentment, Not Leadership

And so one of the things that I would say is that it might be that these expectations towards the brute who is not leading at all, it might be that some of those, that resentment and that frustration about, you know, him going to work and doing his job and coming home and, you know, just sitting around and everything else.

It might be that a lot of that doesn't really have to do with a lack of leadership on his part. It might have to do with some other sources of resentment that are there for other reasons. So it may be that that's the presenting issue, he's not a good leader.

But then the real issue might be that there's some sort of deep resentment that's being pushed on people to view these types of normal relationships that I would say that there's plenty of types of relationships that function like that throughout the history of the world that weren't seen as so inherently problematic and absolute examples of absolute failure and abdication and everything else.

And so part of the reason why that's the case is because, you know, people just realize that men and women are different and you can't find everything that you're looking for in terms of your relational needs in one other person.

And maybe, you know, if you're just looking to one person to do all that, it might be that you're going to end up disappointed and discouraged and frustrated and everything else. So that all being the case, though, I would say when you think about a scenario like the one I'm describing, there are plenty of men who aren't working 70 hours a week, hard, tough physical job, who functionally fit the bill.

I mean, they're a good provider. And that's about it. They're a good provider, they go to work, they come home, and pretty much they're disengaged, they have nothing to say. Maybe the best they do is take the family to church, pray before meals, kind of thing.

Other than that, it's pretty much there's not a whole lot there. They don't really have a whole lot to say. And that is, like, it is what it is. And I would say that that wouldn't be in that kind of scenario, that wouldn't be an example of the kind of man that the Bible wants to produce.

Like there are, there's more to being a husband, there's more to being a leader than just, you know, being a provider and being a protector to some degree, and then just coming home and taking up space and checking out.

And I would say that there's plenty of men who have done that sort of thing only to lose their families and frustrate their wives and for good reason. And so now let's, let's not pretend like that's not a real situation that many people find themselves in.

How a Wife Should Speak to an Unresponsive Husband

And then many people are wondering what to do. Now, if you're the type of woman who's in that sort of situation, I do think it's reasonable to go to your husband in that kind of situation. And I do think it's reasonable instead to in that type of situation, the advice we gave in the last episode, I do think applies.

And so one of the things that you might want to do in that kind of situation is just go to your husband and instead of everything being a, like the temptation to be to speak out of frustration and annoyance and irritation and everything else.

It's like, you know, you're like, why can't you be a better leader? And you're failing everyone and everything else. Like, like you, like if you do that, and then he turns angry at you, then I would say that that would be the kind of thing that the Bible talks about, stir up anger, like, and there are rules to authority relationships.

And I like there's a type of man who basically says, leave me alone, don't talk to me, don't ever criticize me, that would be wrong. But there is a way to do that in authority relationships that might be more helpful.

And there's a way that can be pretty destructive. And so instead of speaking out of frustration, it might be that if you could change your posture in that kind of scenario to basically, hey, we, you know, what's your plan for us today?

What do you think we should do today? Um, you know, and then, you know, be going to him and engaging him with actual concerns. So this is what's going on with the kids right now at home. You know, like, here's, here's some of the things that are happening.

We're constantly having, you know, the, the kids are constantly bickering and fighting with each other, and I don't know what to do about it. Do you have any suggestions about how to handle it? Do you have any suggestions about what to do when they're constantly, you know, fighting with each other that constantly at each other's throats, they don't seem to be listening to anything I'm saying.

What can you, what do you think I can do to help, um, in this situation? And I think any, like those types of questions are, don't, are, are the types of questions that don't immediately put a person on the defensive.

Those are the types of questions that you're looking to him to be a leader. And instead of just like getting all offended by the, by the fact that he's not taking the initiative to ask, you could just say, hey, well, I, God commands me to follow him no matter what he's doing.

And so I'm going to do everything I know how to actually follow him. And like, it's not the worst thing just to ask him what to do in, in situations like that. Now, I mean, if he's just absolutely hostile to it, hey, can we talk about this later?

You know, I spent a long day at work and everything else, you know, that might be the kind of thing where you say, yes, I'm more than happy to talk about it somewhere else. When do you think would be a good time to talk about it?

You know, and if that doesn't get you anywhere and functionally, you're just get all this resistance and you get all this frustration, you get all this anger at even the thought, and they don't even want to engage.

I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world to say, hey, we, you know, if Bible tells me to follow you, and I'm trying to follow you, but you have to let me follow you. And I don't know how to follow you if you don't tell me what your desires are for our home.

And so I don't, I, you know, I'm at a loss. I don't know how to do it. Anytime I tried to tell you to get your actual leadership in this home, you basically, you know, tell me to go away and tell me not now, whatever else I, how can I, how can I be a follower if you won't let me?

And, and I think that that's a perfectly reasonable thing to have to say. And if none of that proves productive, none of that proves helpful, then the only, I mean, the only recourse you have at that point is to try to get him to go to counseling.

He probably won't want to do that. And, you know, if he's, you know, if he's the, he may or may not, if he's the kind of guy who wouldn't want to do that. And at some point, you're going to find yourself in, you know, 1 Peter 3, win him over without a word territory.

And at that point, what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to follow his example in certain ways. And so you're going to be trying to discern what are his priorities, what are his values, what are the things that he wants, what are the things that are important to him?

And I'm not, I can't seem to have a productive conversation, no matter how hard I try about it, but I'm going to try to, I'm going to, I'm going to essentially try to look to the areas that are important to him.

And I'm going to try to follow in those areas that are important to him. If there are things that he, he, he seems to get passionate about or excited about, or things that are important to him, or things that he mentions about the home in passing, or things that he mentions about kids or whatever else, like at that point, what you're doing is you're, you're trying to follow an unwilling person.

And I would say that it may not be entirely impossible to do that. There's a lot of different ways that people communicate. And, and if you just look at their actions, look at things that are important to them, look at their values, try to pay attention as much as you can, I would say that you might be able to, there might be a lot of ways in which you can actually follow a person who's resistant to being the kind of leader that the Bible describes.

But the last thing that you want to say in that kind of situation is just the original advice. It may be that God has put you in this kind of situation, and there are plenty of lessons that he wants you to learn from that.

He wants you to learn to love someone who's difficult. He wants you to learn to love someone who is deeply flawed. You know, the gospel applies to all of us in that sort of way, that we ought to be the kind of people who are not just filled with frustration towards the failings of other people.

We ought to be the kind of people who are more actively dealing with our own issues, and hate the sin in our own heart more than we hate the sins of others. And I mean, if you're in that kind of situation, you pray for your husband, you ask the Lord repeatedly to soften their heart, to help them to be the kind of person they want to be.

But whatever you do, you need to realize that you are able to be faithful no matter what your husband does. And if the Bible tells you to follow your husband and submit to your husband, you can do that no matter how good of a leader he is.

You just might have to be more creative. And so if what you want is to be faithful, if what you want is to honor the Lord, if that's what you want, and not just some sort of ideal perfect marriage, there's nothing to stop you from following a man, even who is hostile to the idea of being the kind of biblical leader that God wants them to be.

Sometimes it's hard to be creative, but there's nothing to stop you. And you know what? If it literally is the kind of scenario where there's literally no direction that's being given whatsoever at all, like, and very little to none, I mean, at that point, it's then one of the things to realize is that, I guess, you know what, like, it's pretty easy to follow him then, because he's not asking a whole lot.

And so, I mean, what that means is that, you know, God is gonna, what that means is you have more freedom in that kind of scenario, typically, and you might want to use it to his glory and for your good.

This has been another installment of Iron Sharpening Iron. As always, if you would like to have your question included in one of these midweek episodes, email us at biblebashedpodcast at gmail .com. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Gab.

Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.