Cheryl Schatz

Alex,
Welcome to my blog!

You said:

It is not that the husband makes all the decisions for the wife and the wife just has to follow suit. The husband is called to lead the wife, but that doesn’t mean he decides everything.

When a husband and wife disagree about everything, then the comp way is for the husband to make the final decisions. That is the way that it was in my marriage. You can’t say that my experience is not complementarianism. It was. It just was an example of where there is vast differences between what one partner believes is the right way and what the other partner believes is right. Therefore my husband made the decisions in the past because our disagreement gave him the “right” to “lead” by overriding my will. By the way, he did not take authority over me to make the decisions about the really big things. Those things were decided on by mutual consent. It was all the “little” things where his will and his decisions overrode mine that took away my personality. I do not believe that God gave husbands the “right” to override their wife’s will by unilaterally having the final say in these “little” disagreements.

I agree that not all comp men will follow the comp way. In fact the way that you described for mutuality is the way that egalitarians live out their marriages. The only difference is that the husband never overrides his wife’s will. We believe that the Bible does not give him permission to do that. It does give him permission to sacrifice for her and so it would be a godly thing for him to give up his will (sacrifice) for her rather than override her will. But mutuality is the ideal and my husband and I work towards that now.

The husband is only called to be the leader in the marriage. This does not mean he lords himself over his wife or that he makes all the decisions or that he is necessary in her continues growth.

I haven’t yet seen any scripture that says that the husband is “called” to be “the” leader in the marriage. Since man and woman were both made to be rulers of the earth, both should follow the Lord Jesus in maturity to be “leaders” of what is good. We don’t lead the other person, but we do “lead” in doing what is good.

As for what it means to be the leader in the relationship: The husband is called to grow and cultivate his wife.

The husband cannot “grow” the wife since this is the duty of the Lord, but sometimes what a husband does can be a catalyst for her growth. For example it is his sin that can push her to grow patience and longsuffering. But he himself is not “growing” patience in her. It is the Lord who lives inside her that will cause that growth.

The wife’s calling is first and foremost to support her husband, but his calling necessitates that he support her as well. He is called (as her leader) to encourage her to grow in her giftings and desires. These two ideas do not have to be in conflict.

I am sorry, but I do not agree again. I believe that the wife’s first calling is to serve God. Her husband does not come first. Just as there is only one Master for Christians, so there is only one Leader. I do agree that we can support and encourage one another, but I don’t agree that this support and encouragement is called something different when it comes from the wife than when it comes from the husband. When women look to their husbands as their leader, they can easily be led into idolatry and turning away from their true leader.

I honestly believe you have an wrongful view of what complimentaryism is, and as such you may in time come to hold more of its truth than you believe.

Ccomplementarianism is the “right” and the “duty” of the man to b e responsible before God to “lead” a woman and “grow” her because God has placed upon him the responsibility over her and for her as one who will give an account before God for her. The pressure of this unbiblical doctrine has caused many husbands to sincerely believe that their own decisions are endowed by God as authority that is both given and must be accounted for before God so that if his decisions are not followed, he is to blame. Not only does this bring an unhealthy level of responsibility over things that are out of his ability to control (although many men try really hard to control their wives in an attempt to fulfill this “responsibility”) but it also produces a tendency to selfishness because his own ideas are given precedence because of a command of God to “lead”. But once again, it is important to note that God never commands the husband to “lead” his wife, nor does He command the husband to override his wife’s will. Waiting on the Lord a little bit longer is far better than overriding of an adult person’s God-given will. Wait on the Lord and He will direct your way. When a man takes his “right” to override his wife’s will to make the final decision, he has left out “waiting” on the Lord for the Lord’s timing. Few decisions must be made without taking the time to wait for the Lord to bring them both to the peace of a mutual decision.

Alex, I do appreciate you posting here. You are one who seems not to have had a husband hurt by a heavy load of responsibility that should not fall on his shoulders. Many of us have experienced much more than you have. I have seen a lot in my 38 years of marriage, and I would not go back to that heavy responsibility on my husband’s back when the joy of mutual waiting on the Lord for a softening of our heart or of our spouses heart that brings great fruit. It is true togetherness in love with full mutual responsibility and the joy knowing that God works through us together and not one over the other.

Blessings to you as a sister in Christ!