“Behind every great man is a great woman.” -Unknown
Don’t we all think of our men as great? At least most women did at one point or they wouldn’t have married, right? 🙂  The truth is that deep down inside every man, is a greatness.  That same great God created you with a unique greatness as well. And He chose you to be the match, the team mate for your great man.
Do you view your husband as a great man?
My husband has been in leadership for many years. And in many ways, he doesn’t need any help from me. BUT, I know that He rises to a whole new level of leadership when I am proactively encouraging Him–when we are engaged in the mission together.
As women who are married to leaders (and we all are), we need to be a complementary team member.
Marriage takes team work and we, the women, need to assess what our husbands need from us and try to offer what they need. The reality is that many men have been held back by their wives. The reality is that God has made us a team, but when we get our roles confused, or we don’t truly believe in our man’s unique greatness, we hold them back by compensating.
From the beginning women have struggled with the great temptation to rule over man. God knew this haughty spirit was dangerous and so his punishment {Genesis 3} was given to restore us to the Lord, but also to restore our complimentary role with man.
Does this mean that we don’t have a unique call and mission? No.
We do, and the Lord has blessed us by giving us a team-mate to help us fulfill a bigger mission– our marriage mission.
In our society, most people are so quick to blame and judge the hard-working man and blame him for never being around, or for putting all his efforts into the business. No one ever mentions the reality that many men are never really allowed to pursue their dreams or callings because their wives hold them back.
Two Reasons Women Hold their Men Back:
1.) Personal Low Self Esteem: These women have a different motto… Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes. They have no belief… and many times it stems from not believing that they have any greatness within themselves either.
We need to fight this kind of thinking. Recognizing how toxic it is to our marriages, our families, our legacy, and  to our hearts.
My whole childhood and young adulthood that is what I believed about myself. Average Angie. Now I am teaching my sons and daughters that they were made for greatness. Each unique… each equally special and needed as a member of God’s team.
2.) Pride and Immaturity These wives are simply immature in their view of themselves, prideful, holding back the potential of what could be accomplished if their gifts were utilized within a team, all because the lime light of success and independence feels good. Since it feels good it must be right, right?! Wrong. The road less traveled is less traveled because it is usually harder.
These women have dominated fulfilling their dreams above their husbands, making it easy for the man to not have to lead.
What is the Solution?
Jesus. How He modeled love. How to love was taught through how He modeled servant leadership, sacrifice, dyeing to self, his humility, and His boldness in claiming God’s power in other’s lives to do great things {He even believes in our ability to do greater things than we read in the Bible}.
As a christian, I believe we were all created for multiple purposes in life.
Some purposes, such as fellowship with our Maker, complete allegiance to His Word, and stewardship of the gifts and talents the Lord has given us are a few to name. One purpose relates to the specific calling of how we contribute to this world we live in and how we make a difference eternally in that industry/vocation/role.
As wives, some of our greatest gifts include nurturing, building up, and complimenting our husband’s gifts so that we can fulfill our the mission of our marriage. You see you can have a personal mission and have a mission for your marriage at the same time!
Women hear a different message from our culture.
We hear a message that encourages entitlement. That we always need to be the first or second priority (depending on if we are Christians). There are news magazines at the grocery store that talk about women being dissatisfied and tv shows that encourage rebellion against anyone who dissatisfies us or doesn’t “appreciate us enough.” Women are encouraged to stand up for their rights, their feelings, their wants and desires. These messages feed and breed selfish ambition, pride, and entitlement attitudes.
How is this focus on self going to feed a “team” vision in a marriage?
IT DOESN’T. Entitlement and selfish ambition only creates division and breeds a heart of rebellion.
The more a woman focuses on what is standing in her way of being treated the way she thinks she deserves, the more her heart will grow in bitterness toward that thing. For women who are married to business owners or leaders, if they view the business or organization as the thing that is taking their husband away from them, the will begin to despise and hate the business, even to the point of not being supportive or worse yet, becoming an adversary in competition with the business for her husband’s time. This is a very dangerous place for a wife’s heart to go.
Am I advocating men work hard? YES.
At the expense of their marriages? NEVER.
Many times the lack of support is faulted in a lack of vision  or trust on the part of the husband, or in a lack of communication between both team members.
Am I alluding that all marriages should look like mine and Isaac’s? Nope. In fact, the mission God has for our marriage may be very different from the mission He has for yours.
In some marriages, the women are the strong visionaries, but God has united you with your spouse for a reason.
I would ask these women if they have taken the reigns quickly in their marriage, if they have been impatient and focused on their dreams without consideration to their husband’s? Why do I ask these questions? Because I have the same temptation in my marriage. I too am a visionary. My mind is constantly spinning with ideas, and my head gets easily puffed up ideas and dreams. But I realized a long time ago, that a man’s self-esteem has a lot to do with what He thinks His wife thinks of Him and His ability. I will share more of our story another time, but for now, I want to leave you with this. Jesus came to fulfill prophecy, to bridge a gap between us and God, but He does not advocate rebellion from his creative design. We do have a road map that is the best path for life, including how the marriage team should co-operate, it’s called the Bible.
So how do we as women rise above blaming our husbands, the businesses, or whatever they is consuming their time for the problems in our hearts?
I am not saying the men are off the hook, I believe strongly that if a wife is supportive, it is largely a reflection of her husbands leadership within their marriage and home. Men need to rise up and create vision with their wives today! We are not in control of our husbands, but we are in control of our own heart attitudes towards supporting our husbands pursuits. How do we become the “great woman behind every great man?”
Building a Man’s self-esteem isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s refining as we surrender pride in order for them to lead and be empowered.
I think we have to purpose to try to be that woman behind the scenes that is supporting, cheerleading, believing in them when maybe, just maybe, no one else does. Sometimes it means dreaming with them and encouraging them to keep going when things are tough and it would just be easier to give up and go get another job. Sometimes, it is as simple as giving grace and not making it difficult for them when they have to work late (not laying on the guilt trips). And sometimes, sometimes it may even mean sitting back and waiting for them to lead.
We need to rise up and be that complementary other half, they need us to be to be able to fulfill our callings.
Sometimes rising up may mean being big enough to sit down and other times it may be stepping up and out of our comfort zone and choosing to lead along side our man. God blessed your husband when He united the two of you together. You are to work together, to be a team.
May we encourage one another to be the wives we were made to be, and may our relationships flourish and produce fruit.
May you be empowered today,
Angie
I would love to connect with you on facebook, twitter or in the comments below! Be sure to make sure you sign up for emails in the sidebar at the top of the page!
