Living with a wife who bears malice

Many years ago, before we were called into the marriage and family ministry, Carol and I paid a visit to a couple. We were to inform them of important good news. I try to narrate this story in such a way that even if the couple were still alive, they and their relatives will not know that I am writing about them. Anyway, both of them are dead.

We delivered the good news to them in their different bedrooms. The reason for this was because they had been bearing malice for about seven years. They had lived in the same house for about seven years without talking to each other. They lived together for more years bearing malice before their marriage finally broke up.

When I thought that was a world record, I was shocked when a young man travelled many kilometers to see me after watching our weekly Marriage and Family Intimacy programme on television. He wanted me to intervene in his parents’ marital conflict. They were living in the same house but avoided each other for about twenty-one years or so. Can you imagine that?

There are countless numbers of cases of couples that bear malice for not up to seven or twenty-one years. The malice can last for a day or two, a week or two, and some for a month or more.

No matter how short or long the malice period may be, the truth is that bearing malice is one activity that should never be allowed in any marriage.

I strongly suggest that one of the duties of parents and marriage counselling units in churches, mosques, and other groups should be to grow their people from the childish act of malice.

What if you are already living with a spouse who enjoys bearing malice as if it is a very special meal? If the man and the wife see bearing malice as a special meal to be enjoyed, they can bear malice for as long as over seven years or twenty-one years like the above cases. But if the man has a more mature mind that does not enjoy bearing malice, he has to study his wife carefully and begin to do those things that will make her break the ice of malice and make her happy again. He has to accept the fact that he has married a “baby” wife who he has to keep babying in order to make her happy. He has to accept the fact that he has married an emotional cripple who he has to aid continually for their marriage to keep moving on. He has to be ready to stretch out his hands to make peace, even when she is the one at fault.

But it will not be to the benefit of her emotional health and the children’s emotional wellbeing such a family will give birth to and release into society if the woman remains emotionally fragile or crippled.

The minds of people who enjoy bearing malice are not sound. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that God has given us (at the point of the new birth) the ability to have a sound mind. And sound minds do not bear malice. It is, therefore, now the duty of the husband to read books and listen to messages in order to arm himself with the information that will be needed to lead and love his wife out of the emotional and spiritual sickbed of malice. As he patiently and lovingly divides the word of truth to his wife (not during her malice bearing moods), there will be steady recovery from the emotional and spiritual sickness of malice bearing. If she loves you and she is willing to learn, it is possible to rescue her. Love you.