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Have You Lost Yourself in Your Husband? (c)Ingrid Lawrenz, M.S.W. reprinted from Just Between Us magazine "Then Jesus said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?'" Luke 9:23-25. "Whoever loses his life for me will save it." This is a principle of great significance. It is found in all four gospels and in Matthew and Luke more than once. It is particularly challenging for women married to church leaders. It is psychologically very easy to lose perspective of yourself due to living with a person with a strong leadership personality type. You can lose yourself in your husband instead of in Christ. Do you identify with any of these signs? Losing yourself in your husband becomes an issue of putting him between you and God. It can be a form of idolatry. Imagine how different this list would be if you "lost yourself in Christ." You could become responsible for yourself. You could be free to become your husband's teammate and helpmate in ministry. You could become a caregiver and not his caretaker. You could discover who Christ made you to be. Your feelings, needs and desires could be processed through Him. Warning signs that you may have lost yourself in your husband: (Rate from 1-5 how strongly you identify with each statement; 5 being very strongly, 1 being slightly) __1. I am overly focused on him. __2. I am controlled by his up and down moods, or my mood is determined by his mood. __3. I am looking to him exclusively to meet my needs. __4. I am making him responsible for my happiness. __5. I am trying to have the gifts of the Spirit he wants me to have. __6. I depend on him to supply me with all my relationships. __7. I are assuming he will reward me for my hard work. __8. I am gaining my identity by my association with him. __9. I am dependent on him to decide my values and choices. __10. I am dependent on him for my self esteem. __11. I am crushed when others criticize him and may even defend him contrary to what is true. __12. I am expecting him to be my spiritual mediator. __13. I am expecting him to make me feel good. __14. I am expecting him to solve my problems. __15. I am more aware of his desires and feelings than my own. __16. I am angry at him for the stresses in our life, but may not be telling him. __17. I am spending more time than he is thinking of what he should say to his boss or mother or to someone else. __18. I am overly focused on all his faults and problems. __19. I am focused on changing him. __20. I am feeling responsible to fix his feelings, wants and needs. |
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