“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.” Hunter S. Thompson
By a passive husband, I mean you are physically present but mentally elsewhere. And if you are less than an active partner in your marriage, you most likely will lose it.
Dr. John Demartini says, “In whatever area of your life you don’t empower, someone else will come in and overpower you.
So when you are only physically in your marriage, but not emotionally and mentally there, you’re basically saying, “Can someone else handle this?” And the person who gets to handle things, specifically your marriage, is your wife.
If this goes on too long, she will get resentful. If this resentment is allowed to fester and/or grow, your marriage will more than likely end.
Making your marriage a priority means being an active partner. It means making the effort to ensure it’s strong and healthy.
It won’t be healthy if it is getting input from only one of you.
Buying into “happy wife, happy life” means she has overpowered you in this aspect of your life. While it may seem like a good idea, it actually is a disaster waiting to happen. When it is all about her, even if it is done out of love, she carries the burden.
You’re allowed to be passive. You only have to follow her lead instead of participating in the decision making. As things tip more and more in her direction, your marriage becomes unsustainably lopsided.
Not engaging in challenging conversations or making the effort to arrange quality time alone as a couple are a form of abdication.
I get that your wife can sometimes make it difficult or unclear. This makes it even more important not to cede your power as a partner.
When the wife of one of my clients suggested they take ballroom dance or cooking classes together, he turned her down without offering alternative ways for them to be together. He completely missed that she was making bids for attention and affection.
Because there were no arguments and they were still having sex, he thought everything was good. But his passivity in this area led her to believe spending time with her in this way wasn’t important to him.
It’s easy to put your energy into things other than your marriage. To put it on autopilot and leave the day-to-day care of it to your wife. But this opens the door to questioning what she is getting from the marriage. Especially if she is getting love and attention from your children.
If you aren’t empowering yourself and your marriage, someone else will. And if she decides it isn’t worth the effort, if she gets tired of the job of caring for it, it will end.
And getting active then will probably be too little, too late.
You’ve got this. But if you don’t, I’ve got you. Reach out and let me know what gets in the way of being an active husband.
The Path to a Better Marriage
I often tell people that couples work is actually simultaneous individual work. It’s common to focus on what your partner is doing, but the only one you have control over is you. Looking within is often where the answers lie. The good news is that you don’t have to tackle this on your own. Award-winning memoirist, poet, and speaker Dr. Diana Raab reveals an unusual team of people who can help you on this journey and how you can access them.
