One of the questions I hear most in marriage counseling is this: “How can I respect a husband who is acting unrespectable?”
It’s a fair question, because Scripture doesn’t hedge. “Let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:33). And our culture immediately objects: “Respect is to be earned.” In most contexts I’d agree. But Scripture puts love and respect on the same playing field. A husband can’t say, “She doesn’t deserve to be loved,” and a wife can’t say, “He doesn’t deserve to be respected.” Both are commanded unconditionally, because both run on the economies God wired into men and women: wives live in an economy of love, husbands in an economy of respect.
View Him as Superman
Here’s the picture I give wives: view your husband as a superhero — specifically, Superman. (I’m a Batman guy myself, but the illustration needs Superman.)
In the old Superman cartoons, Lois Lane treated Clark Kent as a rival — someone to dupe, to beat to the scoop, to keep at arm’s length. But Superman? She saw him as capable, able, someone who saved her, someone worth writing stories about.
Wives, you may not have a newspaper, but you file reports on your husband every day. What would others say your news coverage of him sounds like? Do you seek to praise him, or do you look for places to cut him down? Who on earth should praise your husband more than you?
Many husbands are Superman at work and Clark Kent at home. If your strategy is to make your husband love work and hate home, it’s working. But if you want a husband who hurries home, make sure home is where he’s Superman.
When Superman Meets Kryptonite
But what about when he sins? Keep the analogy. Kryptonite drains Superman’s strength; the longer the exposure, the weaker he gets, until the Man of Steel is hardly recognizable. Sin is to your husband what Kryptonite is to Superman.
Marriage is the arena where you discover — quickly — that you married a sinner, and so did he. So what do you do? You help him get the sin out of his life. There have been times Sarah has come to me respectfully, afterwards and in private, and told me I didn’t handle a situation well. My first response is usually a confident, “What? Of course I handled it well.” And about ten minutes later: “I was thinking about what you said… maybe you were right.” Private confrontation, not public confrontation, is what serves your marriage.
Remember, too, that your husband is good-willed toward you — he did marry you, after all. And remember that neither spouse is called to be the Holy Spirit for the other. Sometimes faithfulness itself does the changing: “even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives” (1 Peter 3:1). Sometimes the greatest respect you can show is simply obeying God. And sometimes winning your husband means encouragement toward godliness rather than criticism of every failure — never praising sin, but choosing to cheer him toward righteousness instead of cataloging the 150th wet towel on the bed.
The Line He Cannot Cross
Now, a key that protects everything else: all legitimate authority is delegated by God — which means it operates within God’s order and scope. No husband, no pastor, no government official has the right to lead anyone into sin.
In 1550, the churches of Magdeburg wrote what became known as the Magdeburg Confession — an early statement of the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. To make their point they used a domestic example: if a husband tried to sell his wife and daughters into prostitution, must they obey? Of course not — a husband has no authority to command what God forbids. Disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God.
So hear both truths at full strength: wives, your respect is unconditional — and you are never permitted to follow your husband into sin. You can go with him in preference; you cannot go with him in sin. When a husband calls his wife to sin, he has traded the husband’s role for the tyrant’s, and a wife should resist that. Draw the line there, every time.
Red Kryptonite: When Sin Enslaves
There’s another kind of Kryptonite — Sarah’s the one who reminded me of it. Red Kryptonite doesn’t weaken Superman’s powers. It may even amplify them. What it destroys is his virtue. He keeps the strength and loses the goodness — and that puts everyone around him in danger.
That is what enslaving sin does to a man. He may keep his abilities, even his anointing — Samson kept killing Philistines all the way down — but virtue is being destroyed, and the people nearest him, his wife and children, are the ones in danger. And remember: Superman isn’t the enemy; the Red Kryptonite is. The sin that enslaves him is the real enemy, and it is your covenant task, wife, to help save Superman — not to pretend nothing is wrong.
Scripture gives us the playbook in 1 Samuel 25. Nabal — rich, powerful, “harsh and evil in his doings” — insults David so foolishly that four hundred swords set out for his house. And Abigail, “a woman of good understanding,” does four things. She makes an accurate assessment: she plainly calls her husband what he is — “folly is with him” — not to demean him but to tell the truth to the one who could help. She makes haste and gets help, going straight to David without waiting for Nabal’s permission. She remains respectful: no public humiliation, no grabbing him by the ear in front of the servants — she actually fights to save the honor of his name. And she stays committed to righteousness through all of it.
Wives, if your husband is enslaved to sin: get help, and tell the whole truth when you do. There is nothing more frustrating as a pastor than someone who comes for help and says “we had a big argument” when the truth is he pinned her against a wall. A man enslaved by sin is dangerous — say what is actually happening, to someone with authority in his life who can tell him to get in line. And be accurate in the other direction too: the towel on the bed is not enslavement to sin.
If he refuses the help — hear this — that is not your fault. Abigail gave Nabal his chance; Nabal, not Abigail, answers for what Nabal chose. Every person has free moral agency. You can lead a horse to water; you can’t make him drink. You may reach a season where all you can do is pray while the Red Kryptonite is being fought. Then pray.
Want Superman Back
One last danger. A wife who has seen Red Kryptonite up close can start to prefer Clark Kent — weak, but safe. Don’t settle for that. Women need Superman for the battles ahead, and God made men to slay dragons, to take risks, to stand up when someone threatens their family. That’s not a flaw in men; it’s a righteous design.
So here is the mirror I hold up to wives, just as I held one up to husbands: do you view your husband as Clark Kent or as Superman? Not “is he perfect” — he isn’t. But if he’s Superman to you, you will help him conquer sin and cheer the victories you know he can win. If he’s Clark Kent to you, you’ll spend your marriage highlighting his weaknesses.
Don’t cut him down to Clark Kent. Help raise him up to Superman. Wives, respect your husbands.
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