When George and I went through this we both made a lot of selfish mistakes. He didn’t always do the right thing. He didn’t always make me feel good. And he definitely didn’t always make me feel like I could trust him. But he was trying. That’s more than I can say of most couples we talk to. Husband’s are often so consumed with their own “rights” that they don’t even care about their wife’s bleeding heart. They make a mess in her heart, deepen her wounds, and then expect her to clean it all up overnight, without his help.
It doesn’t work like that. It takes time to mend these wounds. Time and a lot of understanding. Just like his porn addiction isn’t solely about his wife, a woman’s insecurities and trust issues are not solely about her husband and his past lying/betrayal. It’s deeper than that. She has a desire to please her husband, which is good, but it becomes distorted. This world feeds us lies. We need to be this kind of wife, that kind of wife, something. We need to be more beautiful, have sex more, clean the house better, stop yelling at the kids so much. And these insecurities run deep. We begin to feel like we are completely lacking in our womanhood. We don’t feel good enough.
This not good enough complex drives us mad. We want to be better. We go on diets, fasts from magazines, etc. We are always trying to be good enough, better. And while the spiritual life is a progression toward holiness, it’s not about this constant striving to fill our gaping wounds. But this need to fill these wounds, to be good enough, will drive us crazy. And it will create issues within a marriage that has suffered from porn with a husband who is now trying to pursue holiness. Which is why I want to clarify something here.
You can have a husband who is willing to change or a husband who is constantly lying and throwing this in your face. Either way, your personal insecurity should get out of your heart and stay out. The relationship insecurity will remain and go away as the marriage progresses toward purity and self-sacrifice, but right now … get the personal insecurity out of your heart. Here’s what I mean:
Personal Insecurity is wounded pride. It’s a longing for something to fill a need that only God can fill. The need to be good enough, the need to be beautiful, clean, smart, funny, a good mom, etc. These are personal insecurities. We have an array of them that began in our childhood and worked their way up and another set that happen later in life when people tell us we’re not good enough. This insecurity is pride. This is why flattery and compliments can often be detrimental to the spiritual health of a person. We are to seek holiness. Seeking holiness means seeking The Holy One. The more we seek Him, the more we realize exactly how inadequate we are. He is all we need. We can’t function properly without His grace. Therefore, this not good enough complex is really just the devil’s game to keep us running in circles chasing our tails. It really is a good ploy … get them to chase after something they cannot attain and meanwhile make them thing being good enough is the goal.
Being good enough isn’t the goal. Being completely captivated with God’s goodness is the goal. Through our love for Him we will be better lovers. Through our captivation with His holiness we will know that we are weak and in need of Him. The more we try to convince ourselves that we can ever be good enough to anyone on this earth, is the moment we lost sight of our ultimate goal. To store up treasures in heaven, were moths and rust do not destroy. Embracing our weaknesses and reaching for Jesus is when humility will reside in our hearts. Now, that being said, there is another insecurity that you can’t just “get over.”
Relationship Insecurity is a wounded relationship. Someone has taken a picture of you and your husband and torn it in two. His lies, his issues with lust, they tore the picture a little, then you finished it off out of your pain. You couldn’t bare to look at it anymore. You can’t trust him. You are always worried. You’re anxious. You don’t know what he’s looking at when he goes to the grocery store. You check the scene when you walk in to a restaurant and assess the women there. Your comfort around your husband is based off of other people. This is personal insecurity seeping in to relationship insecurity, those things need to go. Anxiety and worry is not something God desires for you. He wants you to rest in Him, not your husband.
However, and this is a big however, forgiveness doesn’t mean trust magically reappears. And broken trust is the root of relationship insecurity. The sad thing about this is that relationship insecurities play off of personal insecurities, and it ends up becoming a big huge mess. Your husband’s goal should not to be to make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. His goal shouldn’t be to praise you and make you feel better about yourself. His goal should be to sacrifice his life for you and love you as though you are his very body. His goal should be to love God more, and in turn, love you more. He should desire your holiness, not your personal security in feeling good enough.
Sadly, this is not always the case. Sometimes the husband is after his own interests. He creates false needs based off of his perversions. He blames her and resents her for not healing overnight. He goes on and on about how he has changed, but he really hasn’t given his life to God. She suffers and the relationship suffers. But here’s the ticket. You, dear wife, don’t have to allow the broken trust and relationship insecurities to make you feel horrible about yourself. Your relationship will be rebuilt when your husband chooses to help you break down walls of distrust and put his arms around your heart to protect you. Until then, you will have relationship insecurities. You will not always know what he’s doing. You won’t trust him. You won’t be secure in your relationship, knowing that he’s going to come home to you and only you. You can’t create something that’s not there.
But it’s really important for you to differentiate between personal and relationship insecurities. Really, it comes down to this. Personal insecurity dies when you stop desiring something outside of God’s will. Relationship insecurities die when both people are repentant and desire to work to restore the torn picture.
Don’t let the torn picture keep you from believing that you are precious to God. You are not meant to be good enough in this world, so stop striving. Rest in your weaknesses and strengths, knowing that God gave you both for a reason. Pursue holiness by pursuing God and letting the world and your self-centered desires fall from your grip. There is so much beauty and freedom in God’s design for your life. Seek Him. He is the only one who can fill you. And don’t be so hard on yourself for not trusting someone who is still beating you into the dirt. Your desire to trust him again and your willingness to hold no record of wrongs is what’s needed. Trust will come when he’s ready.
