Are Men Required to Meet the Emotional Needs of their Wives?

“The Bible tells us that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. The Bible doesn’t say that husbands must meet their wives’ emotional needs and love their wives with their love language. This is extra-biblical nonsense that is destroying marriages.” Lori Alexander, The Transformed Wife

Wives and Husbands

Husbands are called of God to “nourisheth and cherisheth” their wives and yet what does such entail?

Ephesians 5

22  Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 
24  Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 
25  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 
26  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
27  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 
28  So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 
29  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 

To say that the husband is responsible for the wife’s “emotional needs” would be to say that Christ is responsible for the “emotional needs” of His body. Well, He provides the blessed “fruit of the Spirit” in us as we abide, remain in Him (Galatians 5:22-23). The LORD expressly requires that we seek His face and as we do He floods our being with His blessed soundness, wholeness, His love, joy, peace, etc.

Dear beloved individual: You’ve either got a life with Christ or you don’t. No one can do this for you! You must seek His holy face for yourself. And, He holds you 100% personally accountable to do such! No one on the planet can seek God for me! He requires it of me, personally. Of this truth, the old folks used to say “There are no grandchildren in Christ’s kingdom.”

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” Ezekiel 18:20

When a man lays down his life for his wife, cherishing, protecting, and providing for her, she will be a blessed woman, whether she realizes that or not. Yet no other human being can fulfill, satiate another human being. That takes the LORD working in the hearts of men/women as they individually seek His holy face, right?

The demons who run holly weird have intentionally dished out unlimited delusions over the decades and those lies have come home to roost. This is touched on by a sister in Christ when she writes:

“Being in the world, but not of it, I often have to remind myself of that . . . that my husband is not there to meet my emotional needs like they do for their wives on TV – one reason I quit watching that carnal trash a long time ago. The struggle is real but I am not ignorant of the devil’s devices and I know how to use the weapons God gave me and as I am personally seeking His face, I always win the battle, glory to God! I was always an obedient wife (mostly, sort-of ) and tried hard to be as Godly as possible but since I’ve been reading the transformed wife’s posts on Facebook, things are waaaay better! I see that I haven’t been nearly as obedient, kind and honoring to my darling gift of a husband, hand picked for me by God himself, over 33 years ago. The Holy Spirit has fine-tuned our relationship!”

As I read your words…. it occurs that it seems that the way Satan has worked was to make it look like the husband is beholden to his wife, having a sap type posture where he’s falsely obligated to somehow make sure his wife is happy, all the time. Nonsense. No one is. There’s a time and season to everything! Read Ecclesiastes 3.

The cross Christ prescribed for all who will truly follow Him is always His only answer to us – in the divine economy which is a cross economy (Luke 9:23-24; John 3:30; Romans 6; 2 Corinthians 4:10-12; Galatians 2:20; 6:14; Colossians 3:3, etc.).

“Apart from Christ there is no life. He must increase, but I must decrease to know Christ and be known by Him, to abide, to walk each day with Jesus. This is the life we all need, this – not the things of this world! O God, break me until I am completely and fully yours.” Jon Crane

Read this and perhaps reflect upon all the mountains of teachings out there about men meeting the “emotional needs” of their wives. Totally false. Isn’t that something GOD alone can do?  This lie alone has destroyed countless homes. We better repent afresh and be conformed to the Word. The Word, the LORD never holds a mere man, a sinner, accountable to meet the “emotional needs” of any other person. To cherish one’s wife is one thing, and to do for her what she alone can do by seeking God, is yet another. EACH individual must repent and seek the LORD’s face for himself/herself. It’s only then that God’s perfect love will cast out all fear (1 John 4:18).

Each and every single individual is personally accountable to God to repent, believe on Christ, and thereafter abide in Christ, upholding Heaven’s KING as the very “first love,” the first priority of his life (John 14-15; 17:3; Revelation 2:4-5).

“The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” Deuteronomy 24:16 

“If we depended on human vessels to fulfill our emotional needs, we’d be in a heap of trouble. Our needs can only be met through Jesus our Husband, our Maker. ISAIAH 54.” Anita Villarreal

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” Revelation 2:4-5

Like a good man, an unmarried man – If you don’t prove, if you don’t truly desire him, if you can live without him – he’s not going to marry you. Jesus is the Great Bridegroom and His bride are those who truly want Him, who commune with Him, who can’t live without Him (Matthew 25:1-13; Ephesians 5:25-30; Revelation 19:7-10).

Your personal relationship with the LORD is paramount above all else – above all other relationships. It’s only when He is pouring into us – as we personally seek His face – that His love will dwell in and emanate through us to others, in the relationships He’s given us! Think about the shape of the cross – it is first upward (vertical) and only then is it outward (horizontal). Now watch these words of our LORD and the order of priority of placement of the two commands upon which the whole law rests:

Beware of the Psychobabble

There’s no guarantee at all that just because one person obeys God that the other will also. There’s no guarantee that if I treat you well, that you will absolutely return goodness my way. Else why would verses appear like this following verse in God’s Word?

“He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.”  Proverbs 17:15

Those who repay good for evil and those who repay evil for good bring a curse upon themselves.

“Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.” Proverbs 17:13

The LORD has given every individual free will, the choice, the ability to exercise themself in good or evil (Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15).

This is a general Bible truth, principle. A number of years ago there was a heretical book circulating that was teaching men that if there were ANY problems in their marriage, it was ALL (100%) the man’s fault. Not. This cannot be determined either for the husband or the wife in any marriage. 100% nonsense. That book taught that if the man cherished and loved and laid down his life for his wife, that 100% of the times the woman would be perfectly content, have her emotional needs met, etc. Not. That would mean that because Jesus perfectly served every man and woman, every sinner, by coming to die for them, buying them back, that it’s guaranteed that every sinner will absolutely respond perfectly with an affirmative worship and obedience to God. Delusional. Jesus told us that most are going to hell by their own choice (Matthew 7:13-14).

God requires each individual to know and worship Him and be blessed with His love, a sound heart, a sound mind, etc., as a result. The man, husband, does not take the place of the Almighty. In fact, Jesus teaches us that if we love ANYONE, and that would include our wife or husband, more than we love Him, we are not worthy of Him.

“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:37

We should always remember that God is the perfect Father, has never done anyone wrong without reason, and yet many, His own people have throughout history forsaken and done Him wrong. The perfect wife, the perfect performance of a wife doesn’t guarantee one ounce of obedience or right doing from her husband and vice versa.

MESSAGE RECEIVED:

“I have long believed that God gave men power–strength. But He gave women something more powerful–that I think many don’t realize–influence. (We can use it on these husbands too–to our benefit as well. Oh I am so bad!) So the demonic, knowing that, went after the women. And now the women are suffering the consequences. But among those at fault I would call out our church pastors. I tell you when I was a young Christian, those pastors would preach until you’d feel the flames of Hell. I will admit, we didn’t have big seeker friendly mega churches then. I mean, who wants to hear about the flames of Hell!?” Arlean

REPLY:

Yes God has such a beautiful “everybody wins” plan….that “influence” if you will, comes not with manipulation and self-serving agenda like Jezebel and Delilah, but rather that described in 1 Peter 3 of a “chaste conversation coupled with fear… the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price…”

Wives and Husbands

1 Peter 3
1  Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2  While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
3  Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4  But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
5  For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
6  Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
7  Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

Sister Arlean writes:

“I became aware of the order of the home as a relatively young Christian. My husband was not saved at the time. Raised Southern Baptist but not born again. I told him the scripture and said “from now on whatever you say we will do.” He was wiser than I. He said, “Don’t be silly, we’re partners, we’ll decide things together.” And we did. In our years of marriage I never moved ahead if he disagreed, but he likewise never moved ahead if I disagreed. This is, to me, a prime example of submitting to one another. I saw one man whose marriage failed, I believe because he rode roughshod over his wife with that doctrine. This is why I say none of us can demand it. I can’t demand that my husband love me as Christ loved the church, nor can he demand submission. It has to be given. And people need to understand the reasons for it. It’s also why a person needs to be careful of who they marry. Marry someone without good sense, especially about money, and you’ve just about destroyed yourself!

The Divinely Ordained Order

The husband’s priorities are 1. God, 2. his wife, 3, children, 4. others.

The woman’s priorities are 1. God, 2. her husband, 3, children, 4. others.

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