Are you a wife with a bad attitude? Not sure? Continue reading as I tell you why a bad attitude is so deceptive.
This is a game-changer for every wife. Once you understand how you are deceived by a bad attitude and correct where you are wrong, your marriage will be headed upward!
The power of why
The very first thing most young children do after their mother or father explains something to them is to respond with, “Why?” We can so often get tired of explaining why to everything as parents. But it is so needed for the developing minds of our little ones.
As adults and Christian wives, we can find ourselves reaching a point in our salvation when we stop asking our Heavenly Father the question, “Why?”
Jesus said so himself in Luke 18:16 that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these little children. Take a moment to think about it.
When is the last time you asked God, “Why?”
Not…
“Why does my husband need to be this way?” or “Why can I never win the lottery?”
When is the last time you asked Him something just so you could understand better?
As adults, we can think it is rude to ask one of our elders a question that starts with why as if we are questioning their authority. Maybe we think asking “Why?” makes us look ridiculous and juvenile. But on the contrary, God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8).
James 1:5 goes onto say that if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask from God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
When we become more like simple children (who are promised the kingdom), and ask the question, “Why?” we will be better for it.
Let us do that very thing today, Wife!
Why is a Bad Attitude so deceptive?
As a wife who has had my fair share of poor attitudes, I can attest to this truth of deceptive bad attitudes. There wasn’t a day that went by that I din’t have a bad attitude. It was exhausting. But to make matters worse I HAD NO REAL IDEA what I was doing or what was going on.
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, deception is the act of causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid.
Maybe you think I am off my rocker talking about a bad attitude that can lie to you. It can’t get much crazier than that can it? But it is true, and I am going to dissect it into pieces for you to understand.
How is a bad attitude deceptive?
When you think that your bad attitude is purely a response to something your husband did or did not do, you are deceived by your bad attitude!
Let’s look at scripture to show us what I am talking about. Specifically the bad attitude of grumbling and complaining. Too many of us wives with marriages hanging on by a thread know this one on a very intimate level.
Moses also said, “You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD.” —Exodus 16:8 (emphasis added)
What a Bad Attitude Refuses to tell you
You are not grumbling against your husband, but against the Lord
Wow, let’s slow things down!
Maybe you were a bit hesitant in getting your feet wet with this attitude is deceptive thing, but now I just pushed you in and you’re soaking wet with this truth.
Sorry, but not sorry!
I care about you too much to not tell you God’s truth.
I am NOT saying that every single solitary decision/action/response from your husband is as it should be and that he isn’t wrong in more than one way. That message needs to come from a man and I won’t go there within a ten-foot pole. I AM speaking to all wives who generally struggle in the area of attitudes (I will be writing about Attitudes of our Modern Culture soon to show how infiltrated our culture is in this area of bad attitudes. So stay tuned for that!)
“Is my attitude that important?” You might be thinking to yourself.
My Dear, it is a VERY BIG deal!
Keep your eyes peeled for a future post titled Reasons a Bad Wife-Attitude is Against God (and not your husband). A post that I believe is crucial for understanding the impact of bad attitudes on your soul.
Who does a bad attitude deceive?
it deceives your husband
Our husbands’ immediate response, saved or unsaved, is most often to abandon ship when you or I have a bad attitude.
The Bible says in Proverbs 21:9 that it is better to live on a corner of a roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Getting away from you when you have a bad attitude is better (according to God) for your husband and he knows this too well.
My husband said one time to me while in the throes of fighting with him one time, “I am a very happy person when I’m by myself.”
The part he didn’t have to say is the part that I knew too well which is that when I am quarreling with him with a bad attitude, he doesn’t want to be around me.
Ouch!
Do I really need to wonder why I felt alone for so much of my marriage?
Our bad attitude deceives our husbands when they simply dismiss us and our rotten attitude for nothing more than acting-like-a-bitch, and wanting to get away to get some peace.
Don’t be mistaken even if your husband is. YOUR BAD ATTITUDE ISN’T JUST ANNOYING. IT WILL SHUT HIS SPIRIT DOWN. That is why the Bible specifies that it is better for him to live alone than to be with you in moments like those.
it has you deceived!
“How can I be deceived…” you might think to yourself. “when I am the one with the behavior we are talking about? Believe me, I know what I’m doing!”
I disagree!
We ARE completely UNAWARE of what our bad attitude is really doing to our men and to ourselves as a byproduct.
Those moments when I have acted the bitch (ie complainer, grumbler), I have done more damage than I ever really knew with the words spewing from my mouth. A bad attitude is so damaging that it can ruin a marriage to the point of no return. That is why it is so important to know what constitutes a bad attitude so that we can avoid them at all costs! And don’t think for a moment that bad attitudes translate through words only. I learned this through my five-year-old son (now 6) and he was so right!
Our culture claims throughout society (echoing inside the church itself), that submitting in any way to a man is weakness. That if we do so, we lose control. Wife, when you and I have a nasty attitude, we are in complete control of our own lives and pushing our husband away along with God’s blessing!
Deception always gives birth to more deception
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ” The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent told her. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. —Genesis 3:1-6
It is clear that the serpent meant to deceive Eve and indeed he did, but if we don’t look closely we can miss what else happened.
Scripture states here that when the woman SAW that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes...
When she saw what she chose to see, instead of what she knew to be true which was what God had told her husband, relayed to her in some fashion, her attitude changed towards the commandment that God gave. She decided and concluded that God was holding out on her and she was going to take this fruit that would make her like God.
this was absolutely an attitude change & it was a very bad one!
My case in point: The serpent came to deceive Eve, which birthed a bad attitude that deceived her yet again when she saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye and “would make her like God.”
Examples
The best way for me to illustrate this strange phenomenon is to show you with incidences from my own life. Maybe you will see similarities from your own AND can see your error.
Ex #1 I came home so many Saturday nights with a van full of groceries and my husband didn’t immediately greet me at the door to help unload them.
A bad attitude was ready to not only refuse his help but nag him for always having to ask first. I mean, hello, it should go without being said that I need help, right!?
But as I look closer on this side of The Quarreling Wife, I can see that my bad attitude was birthed long before I opened the door.
It was birthed at the deception of the thought that my husband ought to always be ready to serve me at any given moment throughout the day.
This selfish attitude that says, “me, me, me,” isn’t really towards my husband. It is a sin and is committed towards God himself.
Deception always gives birth to more deception & sin to more sin!
Ex #2 I went behind my husband’s back to call his mom to tell her we’d be a little late for his sister’s baby shower because we were stopping to get flowers (even after my husband told me that we were not stopping)…oh you better believe I had a bad attitude when it started a huge fight on the way there.
Why couldn’t he just be more sensitive and kind? After all, I was the one who was throwing the baby shower and I ought to have gotten the flowers earlier! Didn’t he care at all what I might look like showing up without flowers? (like that’s the biggest sin ever…)
I now know that my deception was birthed at the thought that my husband ought to let me make the decisions that pertain to me without any say in the matter. This bad attitude produced even more deception when I tried to manipulate my husband by saying that he was insensitive and unkind. Then to top off with the cherry on the cake, I threw in a good dose of pride when I questioned what we might look like showing up without flowers. Make no mistake. These foul attitudes are not committed against my husband but against God who has established the government of my husband over me.
Deception always gives birth to more deception & sin to more sin!
Ex #3 I asked my husband if I could purchase something to which he said no. I went ahead to procure a way of purchasing it myself.
This was a bad, self-governing attitude that said, “I don’t need to listen to you. You are not an acting authority in my life!”
Even after the fight broke out between us and he told me that it wasn’t about the money but about his decision that I thought was lesser then mine. I continued rebelliously, doing what I wanted and not understanding why he didn’t just butt-out and let me run my life!
Ohhh, Wife, hear me now. This is dangerous ground and you are in danger if you find yourself saying the same thing!
Deception always gives birth to more deception & sin to more sin!
Rebelling against the kingdom of God and His ordained government and leading in our lives is like building our foundation on the sand. Our marriage and foundation will not weather through any storm.
Where This Deception will lead you
And where will this deception of a bad attitude lead you, Dear Wife? Not to true happiness, I can testify.
TRUE is the keyword I want to emphasize here.
Too often our bad attitude gives us a double portion of deception when we get what we want from our husbands. We squeeze false happiness out of their submission to our preferences and so deceive ourselves into thinking it’s true.
Nagging for him to hang a picture on the wall…to which, he hangs the picture on the wall (OUT OF DUTY INSTEAD OF OUT OF LOVE).
Whining for him to stop playing his game…to which, he stops playing the game (THEN DISENGAGES TO GO AND TAKE A NAP).
Complaining that he doesn’t spend enough time with me…to which, he spends time with me (IN A SULLEN, CLEARLY UNHAPPY, FORCED SORT OF WAY).
Conditioning Behavior with a Bad Attitude
Christian wives, myself included, have learned through conditioned behavior that a bad attitude gives them the desired outcome. But I am here to reveal to you that the deception of a bad attitude will lead you straight into the wilderness. Check out this chapter from The Quarreling Wife called The Wilderness Found in Complaining describing this lonely place!
In conclusion
As you can see, a bad attitude isn’t simply a bad attitude that we know will get us what we want from our husbands. It is far more than that!
A bad attitude is also an ugly sin called manipulation and it will take your husband by the hand and lead him far far away from you. As desperate Christian wives, we long to be included in our husband’s lives and to feel loved and cared for but shoot ourselves in the foot when we think a bad attitude will give us that desire fulfilled.
I remember so vividly my husband saying to me a little over a year ago, “If you want me to spend time with you, maybe you should be nice.”
At the time I thought this was a cop-out for him not wanting to do whatever it was I wanted from him, but it wasn’t that at all. The truth was he would eventually do whatever I wanted for me (because he loves me), but HE DID NOT want to be around me with a snarky and ugly bad attitude.
My prayer is that you will see what devastation a bad attitude can do to your marriage. Begin today with a bright and beautiful attitude that will usher in peace in your home!