It is not the children. It is him.
The children would come. That is almost funny, given what everybody else on this subject seems to be dealing with. Your two would put shoes on tomorrow if there were a reason to.
The person in this house who will not go outside is a grown man of fifty one who has not done anything physical since about 2019 and who deflects the subject so smoothly that you have started to admire the technique.
He is not hostile about it. That would be easier. He agrees with you. He says you are right, he should, and then it is Thursday again.
And here is what you have been doing, and I want to name it gently because you have not named it and it is costing you.
You have been working on him.
Not nagging. You are careful and you are not a nag and you would be hurt if anybody used that word. But there is a campaign, and it has been running for about three years, and it has phases.
There was the health phase and the doing it for the children phase and the leaving articles open on the tablet phase. There was the six months of saying nothing at all, which was not really saying nothing at all, because you were watching to see whether it worked.
And he knows. That is the part that should stop you. He has known about every phase, and about the six months, and he has never once said so.
Without the word
There is an instruction in Peter about exactly this situation, and it is startling because of what it removes.
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. (1 Peter 3:1, King James Version)
That if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.
Without the word. That phrase is doing something specific and it is the whole verse.
You have a text here that removes speech from the method entirely, and 1 Peter 3:1 has never once made that a lesser or a sadder way to reach a man. The verse says without the word, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the winning that no argument was ever going to accomplish.
You are able to see how radical that is when you notice what it is talking about. This is not a small domestic preference. The verse is about a husband who is not obeying the word of God, which is the most important subject there could possibly be.
And even for that, the instruction is: not by talking.
That is not because a wife's words are worth less. It is because on this particular subject, from this particular person, words have a known effect, and the effect is not the one anybody wants.
And the word translated conversation there does not mean talking. It means the whole manner of a life, the way a person conducts themselves. In the original it is behavior, not speech.
You are able to reach him by how you live rather than by what you say, and 1 Peter 3:1 has never once described that as a woman falling silent and hoping. The Spirit of God is the one who does the winning in that verse, and the passage puts the whole method in the manner of a life.
The campaign is what is holding it up
Here is the difficult part and I am going to say it plainly.
The campaign is not failing to move him. It is the thing preventing him from moving.
You have been running a strategy that has quietly become the obstacle, and 1 Peter 3:1 has never once treated persuasion as the tool for this job. It is written that they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a man who is not being pushed.
Consider his position. He is fifty one, he knows he should, he has known for three years, and he has a wife who wants it for him.
If he goes out now, it is a concession. It is the campaign working. Something in a man of fifty one, and it is not a good thing but it is a real thing, cannot make a move that reads as having been managed into it.
And every phase you run raises the cost of him going. The more effort you put in, the more his going looks like your victory, and the less available it becomes.
He is not being stubborn about walking. He is being stubborn about being handled, and those are entirely different, and only one of them is in your control.
You are able to make it possible for him to move by taking your hands off it, and standing back has never once been the same as no longer caring what happens to him. The Spirit of God is the one who is at work in a man who is not being worked on, and 1 Peter 3:1 wins him by a life rather than by a word.
Go out yourself and never mention it
So here is the assignment, and the discipline in it is total.
Go out at the same time every evening without mentioning it to him once, and be pleasant when you get back.
You are able to do this for yourself and let him watch it, and doing it alone has never once been a way of punishing anybody. It is written that they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present with a woman going out of a door on her own for the eleventh time.
Not one word. This is stricter than the six months, because the six months had a purpose and he could feel the purpose. This has no purpose aimed at him at all.
Take one of the children if they want to come, which they will.
And when you come back in, be pleasant. Not pointedly pleasant, which is a message. Ordinarily pleasant, the way you would be if you had been doing anything else.
Do not report on it. Do not say how nice it was. Do not mention the weather in a significant way. Every one of those is a word, and the verse is specifically about not using them.
You have three years of speech behind you and none of it moved him, and one month of a life he can watch has never once been the smaller offering. First Peter 3:1 removes the word from the method entirely, and the Spirit of God is the one who does the winning.
And here is what to expect, so that it does not throw you: he may say something about it before he does anything about it. Something dry, or a joke about how energetic you have become. That is not resistance. That is a man noticing, out loud, which is the first thing that has actually happened in three years.
Say something light. Do not seize it.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman at a kitchen sink planning a fourth phase.
You are able to stop working on him, and putting the campaign down has never once been the same as giving up on the marriage. No conversation, no articles, no significant silences. First Peter 3:1 says they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, and it is the Holy Spirit and not a better approach who moves a man of fifty one.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have a husband who is not refusing to walk, and a man resisting being handled has never once been the same as a man refusing his wife. The Spirit of God is the one who does the winning in that verse, and 1 Peter 3:1 puts the whole method in a life rather than in a sentence.
Same time. Not one word. Pleasant when you come in.
Declare this over yourself
- Campaign of three years, you are not what moves my husband. First Peter 3:1 says they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, so by the Holy Spirit I go out at half past six tonight and I say nothing at all, in the name of Jesus.
- Fear that silence means nothing happens, you have never once been in the written word. The passage takes the speech out of the method and leaves the winning in a life, and by the Holy Spirit I stop working on the man I love and put the phases down.
- Father, You removed the word from the method for the most important subject there is, and You left the winning to a life. Your word says without the word be won, so by Your Spirit I go out this evening, and I come back in pleasant, and I do not mention it once.
1 Peter 3:1
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