Wives Shouldn't Be Friends With Benefits

(Story is altered to protect identities)

My wife recently was walking with a group of other wives in our neighborhood for some morning exercise. Things were going well for a while and she was enjoying herself with the group. Except at some point, the topic of sex was brought up and it went downhill very quickly.

The other wives proceeded to tell the entire group how much they were annoyed by having sex with their husbands and how they wished they never had to have sex with them again. They compared notes and tactics about how they have denied their husband sex or how they had successfully stalled or stopped it from happening. It then morphed into a game of one-upmanship with each wife almost bragging about how long they have made their husband wait for sex.

My wife maintained a stoic face through all this but was mortified to hear what these wives were openly discussing and even bragging about. We have had discussions prior to this where I mentioned that many women simply do not love nor respect their husbands. I told her that they are only using them for their resources and ability to provide. She disagreed with me at the time and thought I was completely nuts to believe that most wives today do not love or respect their husbands. This walking group changed her mind in an instant.

She was faced with the unvarnished truth in its raw form. But it is the truth and one that our culture needs to grapple with. Far too many wives today have no respect nor love for their husbands at all. This problem is fueled by and celebrated by our culture which tells women to behave this way towards their husbands. Almost every single pop culture reference to husbands and wives today shows a wife who tolerates and endures her oafish, stupid, clownish and cartoonish husband. You can’t think of even one tv show or movie where the husband is portrayed as competent, skilled, smart and the leader of the family. It’s always the wife who is bossing around the child-like husband.

So how does all this tie in to the title of this post? Well because these wives are not being wives. They are acting as roommates and “friends with benefits” to their husbands. They are refusing to be a spouse and instead behaving as if they are entitled to use the resources their husbands provide, but never themselves behave like a wife. They are not interested in bonding with and united with the only man who has pledged himself (before God and mankind) to her for life. They in fact reject this bonding and go out of their way to destroy that bond.

Each of these wives in the walking group lives a very comfortable life. Their husbands work hard and provide them and their families with beautiful homes, nice cars, and an upper middle class lifestyle. Some will respond that these wives also work, but work in the home as stay-at-home moms. But calling them stay-at-home moms is far too generous and not correct at all. Most of them don’t clean their homes, they pay for a cleaning lady. Most of them don’t cook, they microwave and order their meals. Almost none of them care for their kids because their kids are glued to their electronics for most of their waking hours. So what exactly do they do?

These wives have rejected ANY responsibility that they have to their husbands and families. They actively brag about how they are merely roommates with their husbands while living pampered lives on the back of his work and effort. Then to top if off, they stab these same husbands in the back when looking for attention from other people.

It would be one thing if these wives were not interested at all in sex, because that is an issue with intimacy that needs to be corrected. But these wives are the same ones who will flaunt bikini shots of themselves all over Instagram and Fakebook. They are the same ones who go to see movies like Magic Mike and read books like Fifty Shades. They will gab nonstop about the topic of sex and reveal to their friends and neighbors about their own sex life. They will happily receive the attention and validation from other men through social media and around town but reject their own husband. Many of these wives will also end up cheating on their husbands, because if they don’t respect their own husband nor have sex with him, many will find temptation towards another man.

If you are one of these wives, take a good long look into the mirror. Realize that YOU are the problem. You have allowed this sick and depraved culture to tempt you into behaving like a monster towards your husband. You have taken the man who pledged himself to you for granted. You have abused him and it needs to stop.

Start treating your husband with the respect he deserves. Start by being a spouse who loves her husband. (Remember, love is a verb, not an emotion.) Stop posting racy pics of yourself online and look instead to your husband for validation and attention. Treat him how you would like to be treated. And if you have a group of women or friends who act this way towards their husbands, you need to separate yourself from them. Because the Scripture is correct that “bad company ruins good morals” (1 Cor 15).