A couple months ago, my husband Doug (aka Big Guy) called me on his way home from work, just as he always does.
He asked him how my day was, and I told him I’d written a post about our crabapple tree.
“Great!” he said. “Did you talk about how the blossoms blow all over my car and how annoying that is?”
I told him what I’d written about (recognizing growth in marriage), and he said I should write another post about the crabapple blossoms on his car. I suggested, “Well, maybe you could write that one.”
So he did, and here it is.
Chris recently wrote a blog about our crabapple tree. She wrote about watching it change from a dormant tree to a beautiful blossoming fruitful tree. She wrote about viewing it from a new perspective and compared it to nurturing a marriage. It was a beautiful and well written blog about marriage.
But I don’t view the tree the same way. I have to park my car under the tree. The tree drops pollen and blossoms and leaves and birds visit the tree to eat the fruit. I want to park in the garage just past the tree. Why I can’t is a different post (it has to do with our recent move and the boxes that have yet to come inside).
However, as I read Chris’s blog it occurred to me that I view the tree not as a beautiful tree but something that diminishes my nice car by dirtying it. The garage is the safe place. It protects my car from the elements, from the birds, from the pollen and leaves.
It also occurred to me that the tree was a different metaphor for my marriage than Chris viewed. it. To me the tree is the world outside of my marriage. It waits to pollute me. As my car sits outside the garage a storm approaches.. The car is rained upon and the falling leaves caused by the storm stick to it and the car is dirty. If the car is inside the garage, the storm rages around my car but it is safe and protected inside the garage. As a man, if I chose to indulge in the sexual sins of the world then I am in danger of the storms dirtying and damaging me. But inside my marriage, I am safe, protected. I am not in danger of the storms.
I know I am blessed. I have a Godly woman who has learned to enjoy our sexuality. She is my garage. It isn’t perfect. I am still tempted. It may be by a “news story” about the most recent celebrity to suffer a “wardrobe malfunction.” It may be a movie on one of the streaming channels that displays nudity or sex. I am not a prude, I do not shut myself off from the world, but I know that I have my marriage to protect me when I feel tempted to revel in what the world has to offer. It is the garage that protects my car from the crabapple tree.
The bible tells us,
Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1 Corinthians 7:5
I am my husband’s garage, helping to protect him against the temptations he will face.
When his car gets covered by crabapple blossoms or bird droppings, it is his responsibility to clean the car off and make sure the mess doesn’t stick–but keeping his car in the garage would provide a lot of protection from what the tree throws at him..
When the world throws temptations my husband’s direction, it is his job to keep himself clean–but our marriage provides a lot of protection for him so he has less to clean off.
Think about what kind of protection your marriage provides for your husband.
Does he see you as a safe place and a protection from the storms of the world? Or does your marriage feel more like he’s parking underneath the tree?
Enjoy these other posts about my wonderful Big Guy:
Image credit | Chris Taylor
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Outstanding, Doug! I love this perspective. Thanks for sharing it with us. Ladies, let’s all make sure our garages are in order, so we can be shelters in the storm. 🙂
Positive proof that we as husband and wife see things differently. I love it. The analogy of the tree was perfect.
Doug, I love the fact your praised God for giving you a Godly wife in Chris and also in the fact you acknowledged her blog in a positive manner. Kuddos brother!
May both the husband and wife who reads this wonderful post take it to heart and realize the strength that comes from the bonds I a Godly marriage.
God Bless,
Stu
I appreciate this perspective. However, surely wives are more to their husbands than vehicles by which to avoid temptation.
We absolutely are! A good marriage does a lot of things for us as individuals. For my husband, this is one of the many benefits he’s observed.
Big Guy says: “I know that I have my marriage to protect me when I feel tempted to revel in what the world has to offer.”
Chris says: “Does he see you as a safe place and a protection from the storms of the world?”
I long for my husband to feel tempted to revel in ME and only me. I want to mean so much to him that there are no storms from which he needs protection. Knowing that regardless of extended efforts on my part, this can never be, hurts deeply.
I thought I was over this, but this post churned things up. Thanks for listening. I appreciate your thoughtful responses.
If a husband doesn’t want protection from the storms, he isn’t going to bother to seek out the wonderful and available garage sitting right there in front of him with its door wide open.
The difficulty isn’t so much about whether we are more to our husbands than just a garage. It’s about having a husband who prefer pollution to protection.
The storms are always there. The idea of protection can be very appealing, and a man can even know that it’s what he should want. And perhaps most of the time, he can be driving home and even thinking about how nice it will be to pull into his garage and keep himself all clean. But then he pulls into his driveway, and all he can see is the beautiful blossoms blowing in front of him. They distract him beyond his ability to follow through with his good intentions. The garage is right there, inviting him in–but the blossoms obscure his vision. The garage’s protection can mean the world to him–but the blossoms are blowing and beautiful and interfere with his vision. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the garage or his desire to park in it. He has chosen to let the blossoms of the world be a distraction to him.
There will always be storms and pollution–but your husband has not yet made a choice to avoid them. He is the one who needs to make extended efforts, not you.
I am sorry this post stirred up some difficulty for you. Your husband doesn’t want protection from the storms, and the thought of that makes me hurt for you. Perhaps your prayers right now should be more for his soul than for your marriage. Pray for him to want to seek God and to live in accordance with God’s will for him. Once he desires the protection that God has given him through your marriage, he will seek out what you have given him all along.
This was a good analogy Doug, and a interesting perspective from you both. Thanks for sharing this.
I pray that maybe someday my garage will be unlocked.
That is my prayer for you as well.
Not sure I expressed my thoughts clearly before as there seem to be some misassumptions in the response. I’ll try again:
“The garage is right there, inviting him in–but the blossoms obscure his vision.” I wish the opposite to be true, that husbands are so captivated by their garages (wives) they are oblivious to the blossoms (temptations).
“It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the garage or his desire to park in it.” I wish the quality of their garages and their desire to park in them made husbands oblivious to the blossoms.
“a man can even know that it’s what he should want” I wish husbands didn’t have to struggle this way to want their wives.
My comments aren’t related to my husband choosing pollution over protection. They are about me wanting what I cannot have. Today I struggle to accept the things I cannot change.
Ah, okay. Accepting what cannot be changed is hard.
Why can’t men change? I feel the same ways as IntimacySeeker. It’s hard to be with my husband and not think about his “temptations.” Honestly, I feel like that part of our marriage has been sabotaged b/c of it. Maybe you were talking about “the world won’t change” but it always seems like more a matter of the man won’t change. can’t change. doesn’t believe he can. doesn’t want to. “boys will be boys” type logic. I have a VERY hard time reconciling that. To follow this analogy, I’d rather not invite that dirty rotten car in my clean garage b/c I can’t stand it. How am I supposed to be so “inviting” when I”m so offended and hurt and vulnerable?? And when God himself doesn’t want that in your life. But it just so happens that the dirty car owns the garage door opener. I do love him more than life itself, but I hate hate the world. And unfortunately all the cars out there nowadays always seem too dirty. They’re plastered in tar and sap and every other noxious thing they’re just rusted out. I feel sorry for the women yet to be born and have to deal with this world and the sorry men who are so easily fooled by sour apples. My advice would be to chop down all those crap apple trees. Then we’d be getting somewhere.
If you chop down one crabapple tree, another will grow in its place out of the fruit left behind. The enemy is full of fertilizer, after all, and knows just where to plant the most beautiful of temptations in order to invite the biggest trouble.
Temptation is all around us and always will be. A man should choose to put on the full armor of God to help him walk away from the temptation. He should brush the pollution off his car rather than bring it into his marriage. The world won’t change because the enemy is ever-present–but a man should always choose to keep his car clean. A good garage is one of the things that can help him do that.
We live in an area where cars get covered by road salt during the winter. Driving anywhere is a sad reminder of just how awful it can get. When I see a clean car in the winter, I know that someone has made the effort to spend some money and take time to clear the salt away and keep from getting corroded. And the drivers of the other cars see that and begin thinking that maybe they, too, could go to the car wash and get clean. One clean car can inspire the others to get clean as well. Likewise, perhaps one man who stays clean can become an inspiration to others to change and avoid becoming corroded.
Good response, Chris. I wish this would be the norm. I pray God would put it on men’s hearts to do this!!
This issue is so raw. It IS a good reminder that life is not all about me but about helping others and being a shelter and a barrier yourself. I know my job is to protect and lift up. ( But… I still feel like chopping down the crab apples. LOL.) I don’t want em in my driveway!!!
As an ironic example, I hate the private browsing capability of Apple comps. This is something I didn’t see coming when we switched OS. (It’s been aptly named by mac users as “porn mode.”) From what I’ve read there is no way to disable it. Now I’m extremely frightened. Does anyone have advice?
I would suggest that you do a search through X3Watch or Covenant Eyes (both of these are affiliate links) to see what they can do for you. I frequently see that they are updating their capabilities. A man should make changes in his heart without requiring internet filtering and accountability. However, if he is trying to develop new habits in order to get some space to work on his heart, these kinds of programs can make a world of difference. Also, many men find it helpful to have a male accountability partner. A wife is too close and he may not share things with her out of a desire not to hurt her. Other men, however, understand in a different way and can be tough in just the right way. If there is a men’s group at church, it would be a good place for your husband to start. The bottom line, though, is that he has to want to make a change. Accountability and filters and garages will do nothing for a man who wants to stay in his sin–and in that case, all you can do is pray, keep loving your husband, and develop some boundaries of your own to help maintain a healthy sense of self.
Thank you. 🙂
Love his perspective!!! Very refreshing to hear this coming from a man.
Very, very interesting! God has led me to two articles this week, and I am afraid I’ve been making a big mistake. (One was this post, one was a comment left by a man on another blog, along the same lines as this post.) My husband and I, like most couples, have been working on communicating and strengthening our marriage. I have a lot of self-esteem issues, and still deal with a lot of the struggles mentioned above. I am a higher-drive wife, and this has caused a lot of pain, but we are working through this. Too long of a story for here.
Anyhow, I have noticed that if we are out walking and a woman with far too little clothing comes into view, or if we are in church during worship and a nicely built woman whose clothes are far too tight decides to stand in front of us, my husband will take my hand, or pull me closer, or even whisper I love you. Until now, this made me so, so angry! I would even pull away from him or pull my hand away and sulk. The poor man! See, I was certain he would see these women and think to himself, “wow, she’s hot. I could have done so much better. Why did I let myself get stuck with this average woman? I wish she’d disappear. I wish I could go after that way better woman in front of me. I wish I were single. Oh no! I’m married! Better remind myself that I’m stuck with this girl next to me and have to deal with it. Better suck it up and hold her hand. Oh well.”
Sounds crazy now that I’m typing it out. It NEVER occurred to me that he might be trying to get into his garage. HIS garage, that he thinks is perfectly lovely. I have issues with him loving me so much, because I have issues. But I now realize I should get over myself, let him into the garage, and be thankful he wants to be there! I am so sorry for how I’ve been behaving, and am so thankful I read this today.
I think the subject of temptation is very difficult for wives to understand and even more difficult for husbands to explain. Arousal (physical response to stimuli) happens automatically and men are left with the decision of what to do next.
Some wives long to be the only woman by whom their husband is aroused, and sadly, this is an unreasonable expectation in today’s world. It can be difficult to feel confident and emotionally engaged during sex when we are wondering who might be in our husband’s imagination at the time, or wondering if the sight of another woman is what got him going. We can know we are loved, yet feel used at the same time.
I struggled with this for well over a year. Now I am able to let my husband own this (most of the time–I still struggle now and then). Another thing that helped, and I don’t know how to put this without giving the wrong impression, is that I stopped letting sex be such a big deal. My life is more than my marriage and my marriage is more than sex.
We have sex regularly because it makes my husband feel loved, draws us closer, and strengthens our marriage. If it shelters my husband from the storms of temptation for awhile, then that’s a loving thing I can do for him.
Moreover, it is Christ-like sacrificial love. We love our husbands the way God commands even though they cannot love us the way we long to be loved. Sorry if that sounds as if I’m playing the martyr card, but I really think this is our calling. We have to climb down off the throne, take off the Cinderella gown and get real.
We definitely need to take off the Cinderella gown. The expectations created in us by princess stories and movies are not doing marriage any favors.