Ep 30 - Loving Your Wife When You Feel Disconnected: Part 2 How Do I Love Her When I Dont Feel Close

Equipped to Lead Podcast: What do we do when we know we're supposed to love our wife, but we don't feel close to her? Not close like we used to, not warm like we had hoped, not eager to talk, serve, pursue, or lean in. Maybe nothing dramatic happened. Nobody packed a bag, nobody said the marriage was over. We just feel tired. We feel distant. We feel like we're doing life beside each other more than with each other. And if we're honest, part of us starts thinking. I'll love her better when I feel close again. But biblical love doesn't sit in the truck with the engine off waiting for the perfect mood. It obeys Christ. That doesn't mean feelings don't matter, they do. A cold marriage should grieve us. A wounded heart shouldn't be ignored. But feelings make a poor master. Some days they're tired, some days they're offended, some days they're numb, and some days they're about as dependable as a bargain bin tape measure. You pull it out twice and get two different numbers. So today we're asking a hard question. How do we love our wife when we don't feel close? Not how do we fake it or not how do we pretend everything's fine? How do we obey Jesus while asking him to restore what has grown weak? Welcome to the Equip to Lead Podcast. I'm Corey Couture, and this podcast exists to help men lead with strength, serve with humility, and love like Christ. Today, we're continuing our three-part series, Loving Your Wife When You Feel Disconnected. In part one, we named the drift. We didn't start by blaming our wife or defending ourselves or pretending distance is harmless. We asked the Lord to show us where our own heart may have grown cold. Now we're moving from diagnosis to obedience. Once the Lord shows us the drift, the next question is simple, but it isn't easy. How do we love when the feelings are weak? We're going to let Scripture define love for us, not our culture, not movies, not our past wounds, not whatever mood showed up this morning, but scripture. Our main passage is Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25, where Paul writes, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. That command is clear. It isn't easy, but it's clear. And when feelings are weak, clear commands are a mercy. Just like in our last episode, Paul doesn't say husbands, love your wives when the marriage feels easy. He doesn't say love her when she responds the way you had hoped. He doesn't say love her when the house is quiet, the bills are paid, the kids are calm, and we've all been well rested. He says, husbands, love your wives. Then he raises the standard all the way up to Christ. That means our love isn't mainly sustained by chemistry, it's shaped by the cross, empowered by the spirit, and aimed at our wife's good. And Ephesians 5 doesn't land out of nowhere right before Paul talks to husbands and wives. He tells believers to be filled with the Spirit. So a cold marriage isn't fixed by masculine swagger. It isn't fixed by personality. It isn't fixed by communication tricks alone. We need the Spirit of God. The Word of God, repentance, humility, truth, and grace. Now let's deal with the objection most men have, even if we don't say it out loud. If I do loving things when I don't feel loving, isn't that fake? That sounds reasonable at first. We don't want to be hypocrites. We don't want to act like everything's fine if it isn't fine. We don't want to perform affection like we're putting on a show. And that's fair. Fake love isn't the goal. But there's a big difference between fake love and obedient love. Fake love pretends, fake love says the right words while refusing to deal with the heart. Fake love performs in public and neglects in private. Fake love manipulates and it serves only to get something back. Where obedient love is different. Obedient love says, Lord, my feelings are weak right now, but your word is clear. Help me love my wife in a way that honors you. That's not fake. That's faithfulness. We already understand this in other parts of our life. We go to work when we don't feel like going. We get up with the kids when we don't feel like getting up. We apologize when we don't feel like swallowing our pride. We pray when our heart feels dry. We forgive when our flesh would rather keep score. That isn't fake. That's obedience. A man who only does what he feels like doing isn't free. He's being led around by whatever mood showed up that morning. And some mornings our mood has the spiritual maturity of a wet cat. So no, loving our wife when we don't feel close isn't automatically fake. It may be one of the clearest places where real covenant love begins to show itself. Biblical love isn't proven only when feelings are easy. Biblical love is proven when obedience costs us something. When Paul says husbands, love your wives, he isn't telling us to tolerate our wives, to manage our wives or to provide money while withholding our hearts or lead with cold authority. He says love and the model is Christ. That means the standard for husbands isn't the guys at work. It isn't the sitcom dad you see on TV. It isn't the bitter coworker who always has marriage advice that nobody asks for. It isn't the online ⁓ masculine guy yelling into a microphone from a rented Lamborghini. The standard is Christ. And that should humble every one of us. Christ's love isn't selfish, it isn't lazy, it's not passive, it isn't easily offended, it doesn't wait for perfect conditions. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So biblical husband love is sacrificial, it moves towards, it gives, it protects, it nourishes, it cherishes. It takes responsibility for the good of another. Some men hear biblical leadership and immediately think authority. But Ephesians 5 presses on us first with sacrifice. A husband's first command isn't control, it's love. And the shape of that love is the cross. So if our idea of leadership gives us permission to be harsh, selfish, distant, demanding, cold, or proud, then we didn't get that idea from Jesus. We got it from somewhere. But not from him. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is King. Jesus has all authority. And yet he stoops. He serves. Guys, that's not weakness. That's strength under the control of holiness. That's power used for love. That's what a husband is called to reflect. Love includes affection, but love is bigger than affection. Love includes emotion, but love is bigger than emotion. Love includes romance, but love is bigger than romance. Biblical love isn't less than feeling, it's more than feeling. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a picture of that. Love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't seek its own benefit, it isn't provoked, it doesn't keep an account of wrongs suffered. That passage gets read at weddings all the time, and that's fine. But Paul originally wrote it to a messy church full of pride, division, Immaturity and conflict. In other words, love isn't just for pretty moments with flowers and candles. Love is for hard moments with sinners. That includes marriage, especially marriage. Love is patient when we're frustrated. Love is kind when we're tired. Love doesn't seek its own benefit when we want our own way. Love isn't provoked when our pride gets poked. Love doesn't keep an account of wrongs when our flesh wants to build a spreadsheet of every failure since. 2014. And some of us have that spreadsheet. We know what she said. We know when she said it. We know the weather that day. We know what shirt we were wearing. We've got the receipts. Then every time conflict comes up, we pull out those receipts like we're presenting evidence in a court. But scripture says love doesn't keep an account of wrongs suffered. That doesn't mean we ignore serious sin. It doesn't mean wounds don't matter. It doesn't mean patterns never need to be addressed, but it does mean biblical love isn't scorekeeping. A marriage can't be healthy if both people are running accounts payable in their hearts. I did this and she didn't do that. I apologized last time. So now it's her turn. I helped with the kids, so she owes me affection. I worked all day, so I shouldn't have to serve at home. Guys, that's not covenant love. That's contract negotiation. Marriage isn't a business deal where we give the minimum required to keep the arrangement running. Marriage is covenant. Covenant love says, I'm committed to you for your good before God, even when my feelings aren't loud. Now, this has to be anchored in the gospel because otherwise it turns into marriage self improvement with Bible verses sprinkled on top, and that won't hold a man for long. First John 4 says love isn't mainly that we loved God. But that He loved us and sent His Son as the sacrifice for our sins. Then John says, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That means our love for our wife isn't meant to be powered by ego. It isn't look how spiritual I am. It isn't I'm the better spouse. It's not, I'll be kind so she finally sees how great I am. No, we love because we've been loved by God. We show mercy because we've received mercy, and we show patience because Christ has been patient with us. We give ourselves because Jesus gave himself for his people. That doesn't mean a husband becomes the savior of the marriage. Only Christ saves, and only Christ changes hearts at the deepest level. But a husband who belongs to Christ should be learning the family resemblance. Jesus didn't love with a calculator in his hand. He didn't love only when it was convenient. He didn't love because his people had earned it. He loved with holy, sacrificial, faithful love. So when our feelings are weak, we don't stare at those feelings and wait for them to become boss again. We look to Christ. We ask him for grace. Then we take the next obedient step. So what does that look like at home? Not in a perfect marriage conference setting, but after work, when the sink is full, the kids are loud, stress is in the air and all. Our own hearts are not feeling as warm as we wish it did. It starts with steadiness. A wife shouldn't have to guess which version her husband is coming through the door. The warm version, the annoyed version, the silent version, the spiritual version at church, and the checked out version when he gets home. ⁓ covenant love isn't moody leadership. It's steady faithfulness. That may look like greeting her with kindness when we walk in, even if the day was long. It may look like putting the bag down and taking a breath and choosing presents over before we unload our frustrations. It may look like refusing to make our wife pay for a hard day that she did not create. Love also carries weight without acting like a hero. We look around the home and ask, what's heavy right now? Maybe it's dinner, maybe it's bedtime, maybe it's a decision that's been sitting there for weeks, maybe it's a repair or an errand or a conversation with one of the kids. Or just the mental load of remembering everything. Then we do something useful without making her supervise the whole operation. There's a difference between helping and adding one more person for her to manage. We don't need a parade every time we notice that the trash is full. We just take it out. We tie the bag and put a new one in. The kingdom will survive without a press release for us doing that. Love speaks honor when irritation wants the microphone. Some of us don't realize how often our tone has gravel in it. We call it being direct or being tired. We call it telling it like it is. But if our words regularly make our wives shrink back, we need to stop baptizing harshness with excuses. Ephesians 4 says our words should build up according to the need of the moment. That means we should ask what does this moment require? Maybe it requires correction, maybe it requires patience. Maybe it requires a soft answer. A lot of homes would change if husbands obeyed that one. Love chooses curiosity over assumptions. When we're disconnected, we start filling in the blanks. We assume motives, we assume tone, we assume she doesn't care. We assume we already know what she's going to say. And that's lazy love. Curiosity asks instead of accuses. It says, help me understand what you meant. How did that land on you? What have I been missing? Those questions don't make a man weak. They make him teachable. And a teachable husband is a whole lot easier to live with than a man who thinks he's always the smartest person in the room. Love protects the covenant from comparison. Comparison poisons affection. We compare our wife to somebody else's highlight reel. We compare our marriage to what we thought marriage would feel like. We compare this season to an easier season years ago. Then resentment starts growing in the cracks. Love doesn't stare over the fence and then complain that the yard God gave us needs work. Love tends to covenant in front of us. And love makes repentance normal, not dramatic, not vague, not I'm sorry if you somehow misunderstood my obvious brilliance. Just plain repentance. I was wrong, I spoke harshly, I made that about me. I haven't been tender with you. Will you forgive me? A husband who repents quickly creates a different kind of home, not a perfect home, a safer home, a humble home, a home where grace isn't just a word we sing about on Sunday. Now let's clarify something. Loving our wife when we don't feel close doesn't mean pretending nothing's wrong. Biblical love tells the truth. There may be issues that need to be addressed, there may be hurts that need to be discussed, there may be patterns that need counsel. There may be wounds that need time. So no, we can Love doesn't mean silence, but love does mean we speak truth with humility and not punishment. Loving our wife also doesn't mean becoming passive. Some men think tenderness means weakness. Wrong. Jesus was tender and strong. He was gentle and courageous. He was compassionate and truthful. Biblical love isn't spineless. It isn't cowardly. It isn't afraid to lead. But it leads for her good, not for our ego. And loving our wife doesn't mean we're responsible for everything that she does. We can't repent for her, we can't obey for her, we can't force connection, and we can't make her respond exactly how we want. But we're responsible before God for our obedience, and that's enough to keep us busy. Don't use what we can't control as an excuse to neglect what God has clearly commanded. So this week, I want you to choose one clear act of covenant love and do it quietly. Don't pick the most dramatic thing you can imagine. Pick something real and useful and specific enough that you'll know whether you actually did it. Maybe we take responsibility for a task our wife normally does. Maybe we write a short note that names something we appreciate about her. Maybe we come home and give her our first attention instead of our leftover attention. Maybe we stop a harsh tone before it leaves our mouth. And maybe we apologize for one specific thing without explaining it to death. Maybe we plan a simple time together and actually protect it. Then do it without keeping a private scorecard. Don't serve and then stand there mentally tapping your watch, waiting to see whether she reacts the way that you would hope. That turns love into a transaction. Covenant love doesn't work that way. We love because Christ loved us. We obey because He is Lord, and we serve because strength is meant to be spent for the good of another. God may use that faithful act to soften something. He may use it to open a door. He may use it as one brick in rebuilding trust. But the first goal is obedience to Christ, to trust him with the fruit. Before your head hits the pillow tonight, decide what that one act will be. Write it down if you need to. Then pray each morning. Lord, make me love obedient before it's emotional. Teach me to love my wife the way Christ loved the church. That prayer is simple, but don't pray it unless you're ready for God to work on you, because He probably will, and that's a good thing. Guys, here's the hope. Christ doesn't command us to love our wives and then leave us alone to figure it out. He gives grace, he gives the Holy Spirit, He gives His Word, and He gives conviction, he gives repentance, he gives strength when we're weak, and he gives forgiveness when we fail. Some of us hear an episode like this and immediately think of all the ways that we've blown it. We remember the harsh words, the cold seasons, the selfish choices, the hidden sin, the passivity, and the years where we provided but we didn't pursue our wives. Now don't run from that conviction. Take it to Christ and confess it. Receive his grace and Then get up and walk in obedience. The Gospel doesn't say you failed, so hide. The Gospel says Christ died for sinners, come into the light. The Gospel doesn't say try harder so God will love you. The Gospel says God has loved you in Christ. Now walk as a new man. That's our hope. We can love because He first loved us. We can forgive because we have been forgiven. We can serve because Christ has served us. And we can repent because grace is real. We can keep going because God strengthens his people. So if you don't feel close to your wife right now, you don't need to let that be the end of the story. You bring your heart to Christ, you open your hands, you ask him to teach you how to love. Then you take one faithful step, not because your feelings are perfect, and not because marriage is easy, and not because you're an expert husband. But because Jesus is Lord and His way is good. Now on our next episode, we're going to get very practical. We're going to talk about how to reconnect with our wife biblically, how to have that conversation, how to listen, how to move toward her, and how to rebuild trust and take those first humble steps when it feels awkward. But before we get there, we need to settle this. Love doesn't wait around for perfect feelings. Love obeys Christ. And love moves towards someone. Love sacrifices, love serves, love tells the truth, love refuses bitterness, and love puts away the secret exits. Love keeps showing up, not perfectly, but faithfully. A husband's first command isn't control, it's love. And the shape of that love is the cross. Thanks for joining us today on the Equip to Lead podcast. If this episode has helped you, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss the rest of this of this series. If the podcast has encouraged you, we just ask that you would leave us a five-star review. That really helps us get these episodes in front of more men who need truth, encouragement, and God's word. Until next time, be strong and lead well. Let's pray. Father, we come to you as men who need your grace. We confess that we often let our feelings lead us, but your word calls us to love our wives. As Christ loved the church. Forgive us for our selfishness, our passivity, our bitterness, our harshness, our pride and lust, and our scorekeeping, Lord. Help us serve without keeping score, speak with gentleness, repent quickly, and move toward our wives instead of hiding. Thank you that Christ loved us first and gave Himself for sinners like us. Let us let His love shape the way we love in our homes. In Jesus' name, amen.