How Do We Help Women Deal With Anxiety And Depression Without Drugging Them Into A Stupor?

Yeah, I've had comments deleted. Yeah, just it's insane, especially having to double-check that I'm in a Christian group where this is being discussed, having to make sure. Like, wait, what group am I in?

Am I on like my crunchy mom's group of just the melting pot of all the moms? Or is this like, oh, this is the Christian group that this is in, and they're deleting my comments, and they're warning me that I'm gonna be removed because I told someone they needed to seek the Lord's forgiveness for their behavior.

Christ Alone and the Reality of Sin

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our head. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Introducing the Topic of Anxiety, Depression, and Medication

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the Saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. I'm your host Tim Mullett, and I'm joined with my lovely wife Elizabeth Mullett as we answer the age-old question, How do we help women deal with anxiety and depression without drugging them into a stupor?

So Honey Biscuit, have you ever dealt with anxiety and depression before?

I have experienced them, unfortunately.

I think most people, you know, when you talk about anxiety and depression, if you talk about them as individuals who are not currently mastered by life-dominating anxiety and depression, they think that somehow you've never experienced these things.

Online Backlash Over Messy Houses and Rebuking Sin

So we did this Twitter poll that seemed to set the Twitter world on fire, we had 7 .2 million. Views on this stupid, innocuous Twitter post about ladies with messy houses, in other words. So I put this message out where I showed some pictures of some messy houses, and I said that essentially I go into houses like this every day for my job, and these women, they're probably all on antidepressants, and they use this label that they're depressed as a club to basically bash away all responsibility to clean their home.

And we had millions of views on this stupid thing, and we had ladies who just were screaming and hollering at us saying that they are leaving Christianity. How dare you? How dare we rebuke them? How dare we tell them that...

There's another man trying to speak to women's issues.

I mean, that's essentially how it went. So they're just screaming at us, how dare we tell them that they have to clean their home and all this stuff, and now I've become a... This is why I am practicing witchcraft, or I've become a druid or something like that now, because of these ridiculous patriarchal men who dare to suggest that we should clean our home.

But you have some experience like this with ladies online, on Facebook groups in general, to where you have ladies who are essentially screaming at you and calling you names and everything else because you're daring to suggest to them that they need to take personal responsibility and actually repent of sin in their life.

Anxiety, Depression, and the Call to Repentance

Yeah. Yeah, it's happened. It's happened to me. I'm a victim. Yeah. Just in Christian women groups, unfortunately, it happens all too often where a woman will come on asking for help, dealing with anxiety, depression, just can't get my life together.

How do you guys stay on top of all the things we have to do at home and taking care of the kids and your husband and all the things? And basically, they may even just outright confess in their posts that they are anxious, depressed, worried, overwhelmed, all these things.

What do I need to do? And immediately, the majority of the comments are, Have you had your levels checked? It's always this vague, have you had your levels checked? And all women know what that means.

It's like, have you gone and had your thyroid checked? Did you check and see if you have a vitamin D deficiency? Whatever. Have you had your hormones, all this stuff done? You need to run tests because you need to check there first.

Don't repent of your worry and your anxiety and your inability to get off the couch and wash some dishes and cook some food. Don't repent of it and actually put off and put on and do the God honoring thing.

You probably need a pill. You need some supplement or some vitamin or there's something wrong with you physically. Not to say that there aren't things that contribute to feeling poorly and that being a temptation to want to sit around and do nothing or to want to sit around and be sad and feel hopeless and despair at life and all the things that have to get done on top of you feeling crappy.

Of course, those are temptations, but it's not an excuse when God commands us to rejoice in all things. He commands us to work unto him, which means like be a hard worker, get up, do your job. And he doesn't say anything about, you know, rejoice in all things except when you're severely deficient in vitamin D or have a overactive thyroid or something.

But when I try to tell women, I try to comment and say like, you need to ask the Lord to forgive you for not rejoicing. And I try to do it in a loving way. Have you tried asking God to forgive you? Have you tried reading God's word on what he says you should be doing in this area?

And it's just, you've lost your mind. That's so mean.

That's so hateful. Well, it's funny because as I've read your comments on these things, I mean, you're obviously, when you say these things, you're a lot more nice and a lot more kind. And you, not that I'm, I don't think that I'm rude when I say these things, but I definitely don't, you know, on the front end of things.

You're just a guy and you're blunt.

And sometimes you talk to women as if you talk to guys, which guys can handle until women can't handle it. They can't handle the truthfulness without like a bouquet of roses to dash.

Well, that's what I'm saying, though, because like when I, when I look at your comments, you put all the, you know, the bouquet of roses and like, hey, I see. Flowers and smiley faces.

And I promise I love you when I'm telling you the truth. You put all that stuff on there. You know, I love you.

I care about you. And, you know, this is what helped me. And, you know, I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to. I try to relate.

I try to say like, I've had the same struggles I know, because how dare, you know, don't dare talk to anyone you don't know. If you haven't been there.

You do all that. You put like, like paragraph after paragraph of concern and care and, you know, all that. But then you, like, you still, though, you end on the, you need to repent of this. And, and like, that's the thing that's really triggering.

And it's triggering either way. So, I mean, that's the thing that ladies really, they really can't handle, you know, whether or not it's coming, like, in a nice, like, pleasant package. Or if it's coming, like, in my way, just more of a direct matter of fact way.

But, I mean, that's the thing that really most people can't handle. But, I mean, most people, they, they really do assume that if you're talking about this subject, and you're daring to suggest that there's an answer to these things.

They instantaneously assume that it's just something that you've never dealt with. And it's something that you've never been through. And, I mean, I know that in my life, I mean, I, I mean, I was trained in anxiety from a very early age.

I mean, I grew up being an anxious person. I grew up being, like, characterized by life-dominating anxiety in a lot of ways. I mean, it's just, I mean, the air you breathe, you know, you need to get an A on the test.

If you don't get an A on the test, you're, you know, you're not going to do well in school. And if you don't do well at school, you're not going to be able to get a good job go to college or whatever and get a scholarship.

And if you don't get a scholarship and go to college, then you're not going to be able to get a good job. And if you don't get a good job, you're not going to be able to get married. Nobody is going to want to marry you.

Nobody's going to want to marry you and you're not going to be able to, you know, provide for a family and, you know, then you're going to be in debt. And, you know, all the stuff. And so, I mean, I knew that from an early age.

I mean and there was times, you know, in my life where I was severely depressed. I mean, like early years in college, I mean, I pursued sin with all that I could, and I saw that it didn't work, it didn't leave me fulfilled, it didn't offer what I thought it would, and I mean, I was so depressed at that point in my life that, you know, my mom was worried about me, like legitimately concerned about me, and I went to the doctor at that point, and it was one of those things where I go to the doctor, and I'm just persuaded there must be something wrong with me, because I just feel sick, like I feel terrible, I feel sick, and you know, the doctor runs all the tests, and is saying, hey, there's nothing wrong with you, and I just didn't believe him, I'm like, this can't be right, like because I feel so bad, because I'm, I must be sick, you know, the test ran up empty, and I mean, he just kind of looked at me and asked me, are you depressed, and I said yes, and he said, well, that's what it is, and he wanted to put me on antidepressant at that point, and I remember that just being a turning point in my life to where I thought, like, I can't keep doing this, you know, I can't just feel this bad, and that really drove me to read the Bible, and to pray, and to like seriously study the scripture, like thinking, well, God, God has answers to these things.

There has to be answers, yeah. Yeah, there has to be answers, and I'm going to find out what they are, because if there's nothing medically wrong with me, like I'm not going to turn to these drugs in order to fix life problems, like this is just a life problem here, but I mean, you have experience like that too, and I mean, I've had, I mean, that was a turning point for me where, for me, like I haven't been characterized by life-damaging anxiety and worry since then.

I mean, you know, when you have job situations come along, you're tempted to that, and we've had tough church situations come along where you've noticed that I've certainly been sad, and disoriented, and you know, not knowing how to handle certain things, but I mean, but these are things that you've dealt with too, and you've...

I was a little bit more stubborn to turn from them than you were, I think. I kind of grew up the same way, characterized by anxiety, and depression, discontentment with life circumstances, kind of grew up in a type of church where you're always afraid you're going to lose your salvation, everything is kind of workspace, and so for a kid, you're just anxious all the time, your stomach is in knots constantly, and then, you know, maybe home life and things like that contributed in some ways too, and that just carried over into the teen years, and then the young adult years, and then I'm claiming to be a Christian, but that's what I'm characterized by is just worry, fear, anxiety, depression, that kind of snowballing and leading into like guilt, and shame, and just kind of laziness, and slothfulness, and procrastination, and then it's just over, and over, and over again because I was never taking those thoughts captive, or just repenting of my actions in that area until I didn't have anybody really in my life trying to keep me accountable in those ways until I met you, and you, by God's grace, helped me, but I was so stubborn to see it for what it was, and to turn from it, I think, to turn from my sinful habits of anxiety and depression, and fear, and definitely weak in those areas, and just didn't think that there was any hope for real change for a long time early in our marriage, probably tempted you towards anxiety, I plead the fifth, yeah, but yeah, definitely have personal experience with that, and you have your own personal experience with it, and then experience trying to help someone deal with that in a biblical way, and you know, I was never tempted towards, I never got to a place of such despair or desperation that I thought medication was the way, like I do think that for anybody that turns to, for a Christian at least, and we're not talking about unbelievers, obviously there's no hope there, they don't have anything else to turn to, but for the Christian, for women especially, but anybody who I guess turns to antidepressants, there's an aspect of getting to a, like you just, you're never doing the work of turning from the sin, I guess, you're just letting yourself stay in despair and stay in a place of sinful worry, sinful lack of joy, choosing to not rejoice in your life, be content, be thankful, and it keeps going and going and going until you get to, you can get to a really dark place, and a really desperate place where you think, I just need to get out of this, I'm so, I just need to feel better, so you turn to doctors and you, like you did that one time, thinking there's got to be something wrong with me, it can't be that I'm not repenting, it can't be that I've got some sin in my life that I haven't turned from, can't possibly be that, so yes doctor, give me the pill, give me the pill that when I take it, I'm going to feel better tomorrow, this is going to be, these feelings are going to be gone, especially for women, that's, you know, appealing.

Spiritual Problems Require Spiritual Solutions

But as you're talking to women online, I mean, you frequently have gotten women very offended at you, I mean in these Facebook groups and in these, you know, mommy blog kind of groups and it seems like, you know, the ladies over and over and over again, they only think about these topics in terms of, you know, biological solutions as you're mentioning, like they need to get their hormones checked, they need to change their diet, they need to exercise, they need to go out and ground or whatever, but then what they, they all seem like very hostile to, like the idea that they need to repent and that these are spiritual problems that they need to treat with spiritual solutions, I mean, you've even had like people, like.

Your post removed and Yeah, I've had comments deleted, yeah, just, it's insane, especially having to double check that I'm in a Christian group where this is being discussed, having to make sure, like, wait, what group am I in?

Am I, am I on like my crunchy mom's group of just the melting pot of all the moms or is this like, oh, this is the Christian group that this is in and they're deleting my comments and they're warning me that I'm going to be removed because I told someone they needed to seek the Lord's forgiveness for their behavior, for their laziness, for their lack of joy, for their, all the things that they put in their post, how dare I tell them that they needed to repent of it, even trying to do it in a loving way, trying to like frame it in a way that's like, look, I'm not trying to be mean.

I'm not trying to act like I've got it all together. When I tell you, when I try to tell you what I believe to be the truth in God's word, there's hope, but you have to do the work. They don't, we don't want to do the work.

We want a quick fix of what a pill might give us, what we're promised in the medication instead of the work of repentance, actively turning from these things, putting off this sin and putting on obedience and the hard work of living a faithful life in these areas.

So, a lot of what happens, you know, so as I was making that post online, I had all, there was, you know, post after post after post saying this is why I hate Christianity and this is why I hate Christians and this is why I'm turning to witchcraft and, you know, all this kind of stuff.

This is why I left the church. I mean, you'd even have the funny ones. I was, I was considering going back to church and then I saw this and I don't want anything to do with you hypocrites. So, they had that kind of reaction, which is just, I mean, it's basically, I don't want accountability in my life whatsoever and I don't want to be told what to do.

I mean, it's, you know, Jesus says that like the men love the darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And, you know, why do you hate me? It's because I testify to you that your works are evil.

So, I mean, that's obviously going to be part of the reaction is that people, they just don't want to hear that they're the problem. And, you know, as you're saying, they're looking for these, you know, simple fixes to all that.

But then a lot of people also, they had this response that like, if you say that people should repent of their anxiety and if you say that they should, they should repent of their depression and their worry and their sloth, like their idleness, like these ladies need to, you know, get it together, clean their home and everything else.

Like if you say that they need to repent of these things, then what they'll immediately say is like that you're asking them to pray away the anxiety. And a lot of it is that they just don't understand really how like depression, anxiety actually work.

The Downward Spiral of Depression and Hiding From God

And so, like when you think about it, like the way depression works is that God's made us in such a way that when we make an irresponsible choice, we're going to feel guilt and shame and condemnation that comes from that irresponsible choice.

And so you can imagine like depression, like a spiral, like a downward spiral into depression. So, you know, you make irresponsible choice number one, and you're going to feel guilt and shame and condemnation from that choice.

And then what happens is like that when you try to deal with that guilt, shame and condemnation that you feel, that's going to typically lead you to like irresponsible choice number two, right? Right.

So you do irresponsible choice number two, and then you're going to get all the guilt and shame and condemnation from that. And then, you know, in response to that, you're going to, you know, because you feel all this shame, you feel all this guilt, you feel all this, then it's responsible choice number three.

And pretty soon, I mean, you're like, you know, irresponsible choice number 20 down the rabbit hole of depression. I mean, you wake up and you say, hey, like there's dishes all over my sink, like all my sink, all over my counters, everything's a mess.

You know, there's clothes laying around the house all over the place. You know, I'm sitting around all day long doing nothing because I'm weighed down by this guilt and shame. I'm not, you know, I'm doing the bare minimum at home.

I'm just kind of laying around all day long. I'm snapping at my kids, snapping at my husband, you know, everything else. And like you get to the very end of that kind of spiral and, you know, then it's just like, hey, you know, if you're praying anything at that point, it's just God, can you make my feelings go better?

Right? Right. And then you've got the issue of.

Sometimes people not praying at all, just trying to hide from the Lord because they feel so guilt-ridden over the disobedience and then they keep hiding and then it gets worse and worse because not going to him about it, confessing it and turning from it, it just stays.

And then it builds upon that. You keep making that choice every day to not turn from it. So I'm just going to, I see, I see the pile of dishes. I see them, whatever. I'm just going to like ignore that.

I'm going to go lay in my bed. They're depressed that they let it get this way. They're unhappy in their life for whatever reason, whether God's got them in a season of trial or whatever it is, and they're not choosing joy in that.

So they let everything go and then they ignore it and they go hide under the blankets instead of just repenting and turning to the Lord and saying, please forgive me for giving into that. Please forgive me for giving into that lack of joy, the anxiety, whatever it is, laziness to not do the things that you call me to do as a wife and mother.

And then just feeling hopelessness, like I'll never change and they never, and they just, they don't get out of it.

Work, Responsibility, and the Lie of Quick Fixes

Well, I mean, a lot of it is what you're saying, like in terms of the, it's just that simple Adam and Eve in the garden. Yeah. Like they sin and then they hide themselves from the Lord. And instead of coming to him and accepting his forgiveness and starting to make responsible.

Choices, what they're doing is they let the shame and guilt take over thinking that they, thinking that they can actually really hide from him as if he doesn't see and know.

But then he does. I mean, he, obviously he's looking, he sees, he knows what you're, you know, he knows what you're doing. And so, you know, what happens often is like you have people, they're at this end, they're at the end of this spiral, right?

At the very end and they're not coming to God with it. They're not making responsible choices. They're like 20 bad choices in. And then, then at that point, they're just saying, hey Lord, take the bad feelings away if they say anything, right?

I just, I want to feel better. Like, and, and I'll, you know, and you, you could probably speak to that too. I mean, ladies in, in the midst of depression and despair, I mean, like it all just turns into, I feel bad and I want the bad feelings to go away.

Yeah. And I'm desperate to latch onto anything. You've let it go too far. And now you're to this point where just make it stop. Right. So yes, please, please give me the medication. If that will just make this, I'll stop.

And I get it. It, it, when you're in it, it feels hopeless when you've gotten to that point. I've been there when you just have, you've made the choices over and over again. You've let yourself get to this place, this pit, and it feels really, really hard to get out of it, but it's not, it's just make the choice, go to the Lord.

He's faithful and just.

Forgive us. And sometimes like, yeah, we just keep running. Yeah. You keep running. And then, you know, and so then when you think about like, what, what's happening there, you know, they, if, if they're praying for anything, it's Lord, take it away.

But then they're, you know, all the, the mom, the moms together are latching onto all the materialistic kind of solutions. It's like, Hey, take this vitamin, you know, get your hormones checked, go outside.

You know, a lot of people right now are going to diet and exercise, which,.

Physical Factors, Stumbling Blocks, and the Limits of Biology

I mean, obviously, you know. Of course, by all means, you know, examine your life and see if there's things that are stumbling blocks for you, whether it's poor health because you've made, you've made poor decisions on what you fuel your body with, or so maybe you are lacking in things that really do help you feel better.

And so you're putting these stumbling blocks in your life. Maybe you're, maybe you're overweight. And so that's contributing to feeling it feeling really difficult to get up and do your jobs because you have let yourself go.

You're not taking care of yourself. Been there, done that. So yeah, you're putting stumbling blocks in your life. So definitely like examine those things and say, okay, I need to obey no matter what, but are there things in my life that, that I'm allowing to be there?

Am I not taking care of myself? Am I not clothing myself in strength, you know, to do the tasks that God has called me to do? Am I looking to the world to tell me what my home should look like? So I'm getting depressed because my house doesn't look like the picture perfect little Pinterest house.

So why bother? Why, why clean it? Why do dishes? Why do anything? My meals don't look like these meals. My, my, uh, decor doesn't look as good as these people. My, my, this, my, that isn't good enough.

So I'm not even going to bother. So you're just not being thankful. So get these stumbling blocks out of your life for sure. And things, things will feel easier if you're removing some of these obstacles, but that still, even if you choose not to do that, you still don't have an excuse to sit there and sin in these ways, giving into these fears and anxiety and depression and discontentment.

And ungratefulness. There's still no excuse. But then people seem to be genuinely hostile to treating these things as spiritual solutions. Yeah. Like meaning, I mean, you could, you could, you could tell them all day long, um, Hey, go take a vitamin, tell them all day long, go, you know, go get on that antidepressants because sometimes it's hard.

You know, you can tell them all day long, get your hormones checked and go to the doctor and see if it's a thyroid thing and whatever else. But what they really don't want to hear is that this is, uh, like, this is a you problem, like that you need to be rejoicing in the Lord and that you need to be taking your thoughts captive.

Um, and it seems like ladies are particularly hostile to that in general. I mean, that's, I mean, that's been your experience when you've.

Talked to them online. Definitely. Definitely. It's been my experience. And even in watching you with, um, with your online interactions too. I mean, like this Twitter post, for instance, it's just maddening to watch, to watch the reaction to it all.

And it's just, it's proof to like that. And maybe, maybe there are plenty of husbands who are trying to hold their wives accountable and they're just, um, kind of hitting a brick wall where you can't get through and the wife is just not going to hear it.

But a lot of times men, maybe they tried in the beginning and it didn't go well and they gave up. Maybe they're too passive and they've never tried at all, but men really need to take responsibility in that area too, of holding their wives accountable and calling them to repentance.

She's your sister in Christ. Um, you know, she's your wife, but she's your sister in Christ. And we're commanded to see your brother sinning to, um, to point it out. And that's the loving thing to do to point it out and to call them to repentance and to care enough to do that.

That is not loving at all to just watch somebody, um, live in sin in any way and just watch it like, well, they won't listen to me. So I'm just not going to bother saying anything. And that doesn't, that doesn't do anything good for your marriage.

Doesn't do anything good for that friendship, that relationship with each other either. If you're not going to do your job as a Christian brother of hers and call her to repentance and keep her accountable, um, in your walk together in your marriage.

So husbands need to step up too and be faithful in that. If your wife has been giving into these sins for a long time, it may seem, um, impossible. It may seem like, oh, this is going to, she's just not having it.

I'm trying to do it. She's not having it like, you know, but you don't need to be like that either. You need to not give up as a husband and give into the despair of she's never going to change. I'm not going to bother.

This is crazy. It's just like not happening. Call her to repentance, be faithful. And God will bless that. Even if she doesn't change, you're still going to reap the blessings of just obeying the.

Lord in that area. Yeah. And I think that, you know, as you think about depression as a spiral that we're talking about, like just it's a series of these choices. And so, I mean, you can imagine your 20 irresponsible choices in, and like, these are, you know, I mean, these are obviously issues that both of you and I, we have personal experience with in a wide variety of ways.

And I can imagine if you're just like at the very end of this spiral and you're down in the middle of, you know, I'm experiencing all the guilt and shame and condemnation that comes from being 20 bad decisions in.

So, you know, what people often do is, you know, as we said, they start out by saying, hey, Lord, take it away. He doesn't take it away. They try all these other solutions and, you know, that doesn't work.

You know, a lot of them, they just accept this is who I am, right? This is who I am. Like, this is who I'm just going to be. They take their drugs and they turn into a psychotropic drug addict forever.

But then, you know, what's deceptive about it is, it's like, well, all right, I'm going to try to clean my dishes, right? So, I'm going to go, I'm going to take one step and it's like, yeah, I cleaned my dishes.

I still feel terrible, you know? That didn't work.

That is the trap. That is definitely like women get so lost in that, that it doesn't, um, that's another part of it. Like, women don't want to accept the calling that God has placed on their lives as a wife and a mother.

They want more. It's the old, you know, just feminism mindset of like, this, is this really all there is? Is this it? And that can be, they could, we could choose to get really depressed at like, is that all?

And it's like, such a foolish way of thinking. Like, what do you mean? Is that all? This is a lot. This is, this is a blessing. And this is a, this is more than plenty. This is enough taking care of kids.

And a home and a husband. You get a raise. You get the privilege of raising the next generation,.

Right? Yeah. You're responsible for that. This is a big deal. And we've just been sold these lies that it is not enough, that you need more than that. Like being stuck at home, you're stuck. You're, that's, that's what your life is.

You are just stuck. You poor thing, poor us. We're stuck here. We're less than, we're stuck. This is our lot in life to do these lowly little tasks that nobody else wants to do. And so we sink into this, just believe the lies, get depressed, train wreck, cycle over and over and over and over again.

And yeah, like you said, like, well, I prayed, you know, maybe I did pray and ask the Lord to forgive me for, you know, my lack of joy and my lack of. But then I'm back at it. I'm back at it. But I woke up this morning, I did the dishes last night or I did, I, okay.

I fixed some stuff. I did whatever I repented. I put off, I put on, and I woke up today and I still feel blah. So apparently I need something more. I need something else. This isn't, yes. Okay. I'm going to pray.

I'm on top of all that. It's not enough. God's word is not sufficient for me. I need that plus this pill. It's like the whole Jesus plus thing. Like the other religions who are like, oh yeah, sure. You know, I worship these gods, but in Jesus is cool too.

I'll add him to the thing. It really is like a Jesus and like Jesus plus my medication, Jesus plus whatever. It's like, no, that's not Jesus is enough. And you need to really believe that. We just get so lost in the lies,.

Discontentment, ungratefulness. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of people, if they could realize that, you know, if it took you 10 years to get into, you know, this mess, it may take you, you know, 10 years to get out of it.

And a lot of people are looking for just some kind of quick instant, you know, take it all away, make the bad feelings all go away, but they don't want all the work that's going to come, you know, from making lifestyle changes, from, as you're saying, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, of, you know, putting off the bad behavior, putting on the good behavior, addressing like the idols in their heart that are leading to this discontentment, you know, and all the envy and all the comparisons and everything else.

I mean, obviously it's a lot of work and it's not going to happen overnight. But as we're looking at the post, you know, you had the, this is why I hate Christianity. I'm going to become a, you know, a witch at this point.

You had all those kind of, you know, you, I mean, they're basically the John the Baptist rebuking Herod for having his, you know, brother's wife and, you know, he's then getting John the Baptist head on a platter because he doesn't want to be confronted at that point.

So, I mean, you do have that, like, don't touch my sin, you know, don't tell me I'm a sinner. Don't tell me I'm a sinner, whatever you do, or I'll scream at you and don't tell me I need to change because I don't want to, and whatever you do, I'm not the fault, I'm not to blame.

So, you have all those kind of responses, but then, you know, you also have the responses where the ladies are kind of looking at you and they're saying, you know, there's two parts to this, like, you know, where's the man?

Why isn't the man doing the dishes? Right? So, why isn't, like, men make messes too, so why should I have to clean this up? So, even if the husband's working all day long at his job, like, he needs to apparently come home and do all your jobs.

So, yeah. So, like, part of it's that, and then part of it is why is this my job? And then the other part is, like, if this person is hurting and in pain, shouldn't you help them by doing their job for you?

So, what would you say to that?

When Husbands Should Help and When Enabling Begins

Mary Lucia. Well, you tried that early on in our marriage, and, you know, in this whole discussion, we're not, you know, we're not talking about seasons of life where the wife legitimately cannot pull her weight in these areas.

And so, hopefully, she has a loving, compassionate husband who is going to step up and carry the load, like, bear one another's burdens. And so, if you're in a legitimate season of life where you cannot, like, you have had back surgery, you are, yeah, maybe you are having a really legitimately horrible pregnancy.

There are women that are bedridden. I mean, we have friends at church that have gone through things like this. You're bedridden, you're in these situations where you literally can't do your tasks to the fullest the way that you're used to.

Maybe you can do like these, like a bare minimum. And so, yeah, he is going to love, hopefully lovingly come in and help and pick up the slack while you're in this trial. That's not what we're talking about.