I've been reading (feeding my behaviors, too) a little book from the 1970s, Do Yourself a Favor: Love your wife, and thought you'd like to also read a snippet of what I'm taking to heart. The author, H. Page Williams, is basically saying it is good for us men to take an aggressive role in our homes — but in the manner God ordained for us. (It's similar to the point Shalom Arush is making in the first part of The [Men's] Garden of Peace.) Mr. Williams says if we don't fulfil our God-given role—if we allow selfish reactions, pride and touchiness and blame avoidance to cause us to shirk that for the one fraction of a day where it was missing and absolutely was needed from us at that moment — then she can become despondent about her marriage and frustrated and confused. It's not about the 98% of our day together when we've been kind, loving, thoughtful and affectionate and great with the children; the problem is the small fraction of our behavior that erupts from us due to some triggers and/or pressures that built up that we don't think we have the reserves to handle properly. Since she (like we) never knows when that incident will arise, her insides are unsettled most of the time around us.
Here's one of his lines: "A woman must have something to which to respond because God has made her a responder. So whatever you put out, the wife responds to that. Therefore, if your wife is no good, it's because you haven't put much out for her that is good. If you have the best wife in all the world, then you've done something right."
And this additional thought from Mr. Williams' book: "This is why it is so easy for Satan to break up your home — because you are not assuming your God-given right to be a good king. These are the temptations Satan puts in you, and you must recognize the source of your trouble and use the weapons God has given you to deal with the conflict. These weapons are listed in Ephesians 6."
Shalom,
Todd
