feeling inadequate as a spouse
If you and your spouse have never taken the love language quiz to best find out how to give love in a way that is best received, then I want to highly encourage you to do that before you finish reading this. Knowing how your spouse desires to be loved and pursued can greatly improve your awareness of showing them how much you love them. It’s like having the answer to every test question. This is an amazing tool to understand what makes each of us tick in a romantic relationship. Knowing that my wife’s primary love language is Acts of service means that I have head start on pursuing her each day. And there can be a top two or even three that are all closely scored and if that’s the case then pursue your spouse in each of those areas daily. For me my two primary love languages are Words of affirmation and physical touch. One of those categories is -100 for my wife and the other if I’m not careful with what my focus is on each day can wreck me emotionally for the day if I don’t stay consciously aware of what my job as a husband is to be and do for my wife.
It can become an emotional rollercoaster if I spend my day “performing” as much as possible for my wife to ensure that I “feel” like I am succeeding as her spouse. Being consciously aware throughout the day of knowing her love language and finding ways and opportunities throughout the day to serve her so that she knows and feels loved needs to be my focus above everything else on this earth and second only to serving the Lords will for my life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this mindset and is actually one of the best ways to show your spouse each day that they are your priority during the day and showing them love through your actions is one of the best ways to live your love out for them. Don’t stop doing that, ever.
What you should not do and is in no way healthy is for your validation and feelings of adequacy to be tied to your performance as a spouse. This is not what we are called to do and is not healthy and will only steal your joy and peace in a day later on. Because none of us are perfect and none of us will ever be perfect at anything we do in this life so why would being the perfect spouse be any different. We are all going to fail and unintentionally let our spouses down. We are human and unfortunately live in a fallen world where we are going to make mistakes.
We aren’t judged by our performance as Christians and most of us know that. We know that God isn’t sitting on a fluffy cloud in heaven looking down at us next to a chalk board tallying up all the good and bad things we do in live. We are covered by the blood of Jesus and because of that we don’t have to strive to earn the love of God and to be “good enough” for Him because none of us are. So, if we are to live a life pursuing Christ above all else and know that we aren’t to live in worry of our performance then why would we live our life as a spouse any different. Our adequacy should never be tied to our performance as a spouse. Our adequacy in every aspect of this life is covered by the blood of Jesus and that trumps all areas of our life. One of our joys in life should be in the pursuit of our spouse and loving and serving them better in the ways they need each day, but when our joy is tied to the results or lack of serving our spouse then we need to reset our focus.
You can allow yourself to be overjoyed when the results of your love and serving your spouse knowingly brings them love and joy but never allow that joy to be robbed by your falling short because if that’s the case then you will miss additional opportunities to better love and serve them that same day because satan will have you so beat down with feelings of inadequacy that you will continue miss your calling as a spouse because you have anchored your joy to the outcomes of an imperfect person and not to what the outcome of the only perfect that ever walked this earth did for us.
Your spouse can be a source of joy and happiness, but they can never be allowed to be the ONLY source of that joy and happiness. We live in a world full of imperfect people that at some point by your own actions or the actions of your spouse will leave you feeling inadequate. Inadequacy is a tool of the enemy that is not ever from Christ so don’t give the enemy that power over your life. You are a child of God loved by and covered by the blood of Jesus and nothing on this earth you do, you’ve done, or you will do will ever change that. Love and serve your spouse better by avoiding missed opportunities to serve them because of the weight of feeling inadequate can put on you.
Ephesians 2:8-10
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And not of your own doing but it is the gift of God, 9. Not a result of your works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are in his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”