I’d like to think that I’ve been quite transparent when it comes to my desire to be in control. It stems from years of feeling like my life was so chaotic and out of control that I think if I can keep a handle on the situation things won’t blow up in my face. But sometimes just the opposite happens. I end up in a disagreement with my husband because my actions don’t line up with my words. I say I believe in my husband, I tell him I believe in him, but the problem is I don’t always show it. I often find myself telling him how things should be done and groaning when he doesn’t do them my way. I say to him, “How about I just take care of it?” And then I complain because I feel like my plate is too full. But, didn’t I just say I’d take care of it?

Not long ago, I wrote a post about believing all the way. My husband was going to care for our daughters while I attended a conference and it was going to be the longest amount of time our baby had been without me since birth. Of course, rather than him staying at home with them, I convinced him to stay with me at the hotel room close by. I didn’t want to be away from them. But there was also the part of me that worried that he wouldn’t be able to comfort our little one the way I did. That she would cry and he wouldn’t know what to do. I had an aha moment around that time. I reminded myself of the fact that he loves his children just as much as I do. They are his world just as much as they are mine. I reminded myself that we simply do (some) things differently. We aren’t competing to see who does something better. Instead, we are a team learning from each other in hopes to do this parenting thing the best we can together.

It’s funny; when we think of trust and marriage we are quick to think about adultery. Ask me if I trust my husband and my response will be yes of course. But the notion of trust goes deeper. As children, our parents helped us learn our first lessons in trust. If they were responsive to our cues as infants, tending to our cries, we learned that they would meet our needs. If they weren’t responsive, we learned that they wouldn’t.

Over time, different scenarios resulted in us learning to trust or not knowing how to trust. For some of us, we are still struggling with trust issues that started long ago. We say we trust our spouses, but our actions suggest otherwise.

• We trust that they will care for the baby but give them strict orders and call and check on them constantly.
• We trust that they can prepare dinner, but tell them how to do it. We trust that they will handle the bills, and remind them over and over to.
• We trust them to be the head of our family, yet try to tell them how they should act as the head.
• We tell them we believe in them, and yet are quick to point out when they made a mistake or should have done things our way.

I imagine not everyone struggles in this area but at times I do. As a result, I am beginning to spend more time looking inwardly rather than only at my husband. I am realizing that as his wife I need to rally behind him and support him even when he does things differently than I would have done them or on a different timetable. I need to bite my tongue and not point out the should haves and instead work more on being his partner. I need to show him that I trust and believe in him in all things not some; that I trust him with all of my worries and concerns not just some of them or the ones I think he will more easily understand. I need to trust the decisions that he makes for our family knowing that he is the kind of man who seeks God first in all things. One of the characteristics that I loved about him was that he took care of his business. His actions have shown me that he is deserving of no less than my complete trust. And for me, part of that entails me learning to sit back more often and trust that my husband’s got this. And us.

BMWK – How do you show your spouse that you trust them?