My wife and I have been married for 24 years. As ‘fully committed’ Christians we both tried to maintain our walk with God and I’d often pray and ask God to help me ‘change into the ‘right’ sort of husband that my wife wanted. However we both have a ‘lot of baggage’, etc and basically have found living together quite difficult. Now my wife feels that I don’t love her and never did, which is incorrect as I do love her but just find her difficult to live with. She recently told me that I was now in ‘sin’ and out of God’s grace as I wasn’t ‘loving my wife as Christ loves the church”.
Technically she’s correct I guess but I did tell her that I’m just a ‘fallible man’ whereas Christ is perfect., but as she’s’ the one who’s pulling away from me I ‘hope’ that I’m still in God’s grace. I know that all of my sins have been paid for at the cross and God now sees me as ‘righteous’. I’d appreciate your thoughts on this.
It sounds like your wife is trying to make you solely responsible for your broken marriage. Ephesians 5:22-28 contains responsibilities for both husband and wife because it’s a joint effort. Unless she has always done her part, and assuming there’s been no infidelity, she has no standing in criticizing the way you’ve done yours. If you’re both born again, God’s grace will cover her sin and yours, but His desire is that you stay together and work this out.