Want Him To Step Up As A Spiritual Leader? Don't Do These Things

I remember well the days when I was desperate for Jesse to step up as a spiritual leader.

I was puzzled, because it was something we had talked about when we were dating.

We both wanted it. And yet, when we arrived home from our honeymoon, it felt like anything but.

My kids would disrespect me and I'd look at him, expecting him to say, "don't talk to my wife that way!"

I'd look to him before meals, hoping for a prayer, but just see that he was already eating.

I'd drop hints that I'd really like to read scripture together, but that just seemed to make him withdraw into his phone and video games.

It turns out you can't lead a man to spiritual leadership. Just doesn't work that way.

Part of me knew that it didn't make sense to lead him into it, and trying to felt like a painful dissonance in my gut. 

These days, I couldn't think of Jesse's leadership more highly. I thank God that I feel the resonance, the harmony, almost like a buzzing of love, in the way that we move together through the world. It just feels so right. Like God's intended order. I feel covered and protected.

I've become something rare and privileged: a well-led woman.

So what changed? Me.

First I'll tell you what I stopped doing.

I stopped giving him helpful suggestions.

As I stopped weighing in on his work decisions, giving my opinions when politics came up, and helping him pack lunch, but instead consistently expressed confidence in him, he started to grow as a leader.

I stopped doing anything for him he could do for himself.

When I stopped buying him new clothes and making his doctors appointments, he started taking himself more seriously. An unexpected benefit was that he was suddenly far more attracted to me.

Here's what I started doing:

I started listening to him without interrupting.

I'm really smart and I have a lot of education. I have an opinion about everything. Often I could write a book about my thoughts on a topic.

None of that was helping me in my marriage before I found the skills. Quite the opposite. In fact one day when I shared my views on a topic he brought up he said, "you're pretty hard to talk to, you know that?"

Turns out that he doesn't really like having his thoughts interrupted. It makes him feel like I don't respect what he's saying.

I think he probably knew that secretly I thought I was smarter than him.

While a lively back and forth in conversation helped me feel close to the women in my life, he needed a different rhythm of conversation. He needed to feel heard for a long time. I learned that I could simply say "I hear you," without needing to weigh in on everything. It was actually a big relief and brought us so much closer!

I started letting him make family decisions wherever I could.

After years of managing things both at home and work, it took intention for me to step back. But that's exactly what I did, keeping quieter and doing less. When he was home, I started looking to him to field parenting situations. When we got excited about buying a house, I let him drive the whole process, even when his pace was different than mine and fears arose about the deal falling through. I often said the words "whatever you think" and "I trust you" to express my confidence in him.

I started speaking life into his leadership.

I became very aware of the power of agreement in my thought and speech life.

That means I focused on the areas that he was leading, instead of where he wasn't.

At first, that looked like saying, "I love how you make sure we get to church every Sunday."

But it has grown and grown. He leads prayers at meals, and the latest win is that he has initiated hosting a small group in our home. I focus on the wins. It's a game of inches, and I speak life into every inch forward.

Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].

Philippians 4:8 AMP

Want more details about how this turned around? Check out my podcast episode "What To Do If He's Not A Spiritual Leader" (On Apple, on Spotify).