Mary, I'm Leaving

[00:00:00] Welcome again to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. My name is Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled Mary I'm Leaving.

[00:00:29] So, Counselor, get ready. This is something that you might hear from one of your Counselors. So here it comes. Mary, I've had it. I can't take it anymore. I'm leaving.

[00:00:42] You won't want. I'll see to it that you and the children are provided. But I'm leaving. I just can't take it anymore. This fighting, this screaming, this yelling at the children, it's too much for me.

[00:00:57] I've lost all my respect for you. I grit my teeth every time I walk through the door at night, one of the wood kinds of problems you'll hit me with. And whether I'll be able to pick up the pieces again this time. I'm just tired of it all.

[00:01:11] This is no way for two Christians to live. I know it's wrong for me to leave, but it seems wrong to stay here too. I guess this is the lesson of two evils. I just don't love you anymore.

[00:01:24] I don't feel a thing for you. All my love has been drained to the last drop. Well, there you have it. So Counselor, what are you going to do with somebody who calls you with these very similar kind of comments?

[00:01:38] And yet it's not unfamiliar in one form or another, the fighting, yelling at the kids, the losing of respect for one another, the greeting of the teeth, the waiting for a problem, waiting for the roof to come down. All of this very difficult and yet very familiar to many people listening today.

[00:01:56] So where do we start? Well, first of all, this father was abandoning his headship responsibilities.

[00:02:04] He was responsible for the wife as well as for the children in this home, as well as for his own life. And he wasn't seeing things that way.

[00:02:14] That's the first principle and the first guideline that needs to be mentioned. That the father himself has got to realize that this condition is primarily something that he is responsible for.

[00:02:26] He should have done something about it long before this. And even now he is responsible to do something about it at this late date in history.

[00:02:34] He cannot leave and run away. That's not the answer. He must change the situation.

[00:02:41] He sees it as an either or. I know it's wrong to leave, but it seems wrong to stay here too. He sees those two options, those two alternatives and only those two.

[00:02:54] But friends there is a third. It is wrong to leave. That's exactly right. And so he can't do it. It would be sin against God. And it's already sin in his heart to think of doing so. It's sin against his family. It's wrong to leave.

[00:03:09] So that's not an option. It's wrong to stay too, he says. Well, what he means by that it's wrong to go on in the way that they have been going on fighting and arguing and screaming and yelling and anticipating fights and picking up pieces and so on just growing farther and farther apart.

[00:03:30] He's right about that. It is wrong to go on that way. It's wrong to stay there in that condition, but the alternative is not to do another wrong thing and leave. The only alternative.

[00:03:43] The only option that either one of these people have, Mary and her husband have is this. You have to change the situation. It's wrong to go on as they do in the status quo with all of its sin and it's wrong to break it up.

[00:04:00] The only thing to do, the only option that God holds forth and it's the best and most wonderful option of all is to change this situation his way. Now the husband thinks that because he doesn't feel anything anymore for his wife, that his love has been drained out to the last drop that he can't make a marriage anymore out of this marriage.

[00:04:25] The fact is that love is not feeling first as we said many times on these broadcasts and I just repeated at this point and he needs to have a counselor tell him so.

[00:04:36] The two of them need to go to their pastor or a biblical counselor where he can sit down and he can evaluate the situation biblically and give them the kind of concrete direct assignments that will help them to solve these problems God's way.

[00:04:53] Now the situation by no means is hopeless. This situation has all kinds of hope in it. The basic reason why there's hope is because the spirit of God is here.

[00:05:05] You might not notice it from what's happening in the home but both of these people know Jesus Christ as a savior and the spirit of God dwells within them even though the spirit may be quenched at times by the fighting in the heart of these evil languages that greets him so deeply.

[00:05:22] But he's there and that is an unanswerable resource, an unfathomable depth of resources that they can really dip down into as a spirit of God gives them strength and help and information from the word of God if they are only to seek it and follow it in obedience.

[00:05:42] This marriage can be dealt with. One of the things that's going to have to be handled right away is the matter of headship that's missing.

[00:05:52] Responsibilities and headship need to be stressed. Secondly, deep concern and love for the wife. Thirdly, discipline for the children.

[00:06:03] Much has to be done here to deal with the right kind of discipline with these children. Fighting, screaming and yelling at the children is no way to solve the problems.

[00:06:13] But there is a right way to discipline children and this family has not developed that right away.

[00:06:20] The husband and the wife both are going to have to sit down together and to work out rules, perhaps even a code of conduct dealing with the children.

[00:06:29] And they'll be amazed as soon as they begin to work out these rules only a few at a time but beginning to really follow them through the reasonable biblical responses.

[00:06:39] Instead of yelling, using a switch as the Bible calls it the rod may be a nice piece of springy, forcibly a switch to use on the kids' legs whenever they go wrong or whatever it may be but using the switch and showing them how they're going to be dealt with when they're sin.

[00:06:56] And then making them do the thing that they ought to do in spite of it and in spite of their sin.

[00:07:02] Yelling will never solve any problems but the Bible says that the rod will make a difference.

[00:07:08] Then the self-pity that the husband has, the fact that he ready himself up for an anticipation coming home in the car.

[00:07:17] He says, I grit my teeth every time I walk through the door at night wondering what kinds of problems you'll hit me with and whether I'm able to pick up the pieces again this time.

[00:07:27] He's been probably thinking about coming home or not coming home all the way home in the car.

[00:07:33] And so when he gets there he's all ready for it.

[00:07:37] And no matter what the wife says, no matter what she does, no matter what conditions and finds he's likely to create a problem even if it does not exist.

[00:07:48] And of course, if it does exist, when he's in that condition he's not going to be in shape to handle it.

[00:07:56] If he were praying on the way home asking God to give him strength and wisdom to handle whatever difficulty might meet, trying to think of God's solutions and the passages of Scripture that might guide him in reaching them, then he could be productively preparing himself for what's going on when he gets home.

[00:08:15] And this husband has become a blame shifter, his anger is all over his frustration.

[00:08:22] Instead of assuming his own responsibilities as he should, he's blaming everything on the wife and kids.

[00:08:28] No, this husband needs to have the help of a sturdy biblical counselor who can face him with his responsibilities and then who can go on to show him the how to of practicality, the how to of applying Scripture passages to the concrete situations in this marriage that need to be dealt with.

[00:08:49] There is all the hope in this marriage that there is in Jesus Christ.

[00:08:54] The development of a conference table at which problems are solved around the word of God and which prayer ascends for these difficulties and which people speak to each other in a right and biblical way is something that will soon be developed and replaced as screaming and yelling with joyous solutions to the problems.

[00:09:13] So, there you have it. If you have an opportunity to become involved with a case similar like this, look at the priorities, look at all the facts that were involved, look at what's missing.

[00:09:26] The presentation problems that you are giving are not the problems of this family is the responsibilities that certain members of the family are not standing up for.

[00:09:36] I hope this helps and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Have a good day.

[00:09:43] Thank you.