You say he has spoken a word, that he will submit under Christ and fight for your family. Such a word is a seed, but I ask you, what soil receives it? The heart that has been hardened by years of neglect does not change in an instant because the tongue has made a sound. The Word of God alone is quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, and it pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. That Word must enter into the very marrow of this man, dividing what is of the Spirit from what is of the flesh, so that his whole being is laid bare and his secret thoughts are brought into the light. Do not therefore rest your hope on a single utterance, as though the warfare were finished. The strongholds are not yet torn down; they are built up with the timbers of long habit, and they do not fall except by siege. Yet you must not despair, for the Lord who began this work will bring it to completion.
You speak of standing in the gap so long that you have taken on his unhealed burdens until you can scarcely stand. I know this weariness, but hear what the Apostle commands: let the husband pay the wife the honor due to her, for she is both the mistress and the servant of his body. And so the wife likewise to the husband. When one part of this one flesh is sick, the other labors under the sickness. Still, there is a limit to what a human soul can carry. You have become as one trying to breathe for two; you must learn to entrust him to the Great Physician. You have been pouring yourself out, but even the vessel that is most full will run dry if it is not replenished by the Fountain. You have prayed, you have wept, you have endured. Now I charge you, let your first work be to fall down before Christ and say, “Whomsoever Thou wilt, do Thou provide; into Thy hands I commit this man.” When Abraham’s servant did this, a bride was provided. Will He not all the more provide for a bride already given, for a marriage already sealed, if you will only let go and let Him do His work?
That bitterness and resentment you feel, this is the corruption I so often warn against. Sin is a corruption, and bitterness rots the soul just as a wound festers. You say you wish to be freed from it, but you must not merely wait for it to be taken from you; you must drive it out by the opposite virtues. You have endured much pain and emotional neglect, and your soul has been wounded. These wounds stink and are corrupt, not because pain was inflicted upon you, for even our Lord was wounded, but because the memory of it has become a poison. If your husband has wronged you, you have joined yourself to a man who is himself corrupted. But the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife by the husband, not by fellowship in sin, but by the patience and the prayers of the believing one. Do you wish to see him changed? Then do not repay his neglect with your coldness or your silent reproaches. Overcome evil with good. Let your own soul be made incorruptible through virtue, and then, like leaven, that purity will work its way into the whole lump of your household.
You ask to be seen with actual love, to be heard, and to feel a love that isn’t conditional. Here you must be careful, for you are searching for something in a broken cistern that holds no water. Husbands are commanded to love their wives, and it is a great wickedness when they do not, but do not make the mistake of seeking your joy in the warm affections of a man. Joy is found not in being loved, but in loving with the love of Christ. What did you expect when you entered the marriage chamber? Did you not know that this mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church? You are espoused to a man, but your soul is espoused first to Christ. The husband may fail, as the Church often fails her Bridegroom, but the Bridegroom never ceases to love. Fix your gaze there, and the neglect of this man will lose its power to wound you so deeply. I do not say this to excuse him, far be it! He shall give an account to God for every cold word and every moment of neglect. But I say it for your soul’s health, that you might have the rest that Christ alone gives, where there is no sorrow nor sighing, but all is peace and joy, a rest that can begin even now in a soul untroubled by the storms of this world.
As for the joy you have lost, the person you were before this decade of spiritual warfare, that person you mourn. But I ask you, what was that joy built upon? If it was built upon the smoothness of your circumstances, upon a husband’s affection, upon ease of soul, then it was a house built on sand. The Lord in His mercy has allowed this tempest to shake you, so that you might build again on the rock. Do not seek to go back to that former you, as though that were the golden age. Rather, let this affliction be the schoolmaster that drives you to a deeper, more sober, more Christ-rooted joy. The Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Let it do its sharp work in you first. Let it slay that resentment, that demand for a love that is owed you, that despair that whispers you cannot go on. Once the sword has done its work in your own soul, then you will be able to wield it in prayer for your husband, not with the noise of many words, but with the quiet confidence that He who hears in secret will reward you openly.
Pray for your husband, yes, but let your prayer be for his soul’s healing, not merely that your home becomes comfortable again. Pray that he may be pierced through, that his thoughts and intents may be laid bare, that he may see his sin as corruption and flee to the Physician. A man who is sick with sin is not a pleasant companion; he is a man who needs a physician. You have been a nurse to his soul, but you are not the healer. The healer is the Word of God, and that Word must be brought to him not by ceaseless talking, but by a quiet and gentle spirit, by a life of orderliness and gravity that puts to shame the disorder of his passions. Let him see in you the pleasure of virtue; let him see a soul that remains calm in the storm, and perhaps he will hunger for the peace that you possess.
Do not imagine that the theatre of this world, its distractions and its false comforts, can restore anything to you. Those who run there to forget their pain only multiply their wounds. Rather, shut up that stage of your own imagination, where you replay his failures and your grievances. Let the stage of your heart be where the mystery of Christ and the Church is lived out, where you play your part before an audience of One. If your husband is at last willing to fight, then do not hinder him by your despair, nor weaken his resolution by your tears of hopelessness. Stand with him, but do not take his armor on yourself. Point him to the Captain of his salvation, and then step back. He must learn to see his own strongholds, and he must learn to cry out to God for himself. You have been a mother to him in his weakness, but he needs to become a husband to you in Christ. Will you trust God enough to let him stumble, to let him fight, to let his own soul be laid bare in the wilderness? There, without you, he may at last meet God.
Let this be your labor now: to purify your own soul from corruption. For what is corruption? It is a change into a worse state, a dissolution of what was once whole. The bitterness you carry is that dissolution. But the soul is incorruptible by nature; sin alone makes it corruptible. Cast out that sin by confession, by tears, by the medicine of almsgiving and prayer. Seek that uncorruptness which is virtue, the beauty of a soul adorned with temperance, righteousness, courage, and prudence. Then you will be able to say to your troubled heart, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him.” And as for your husband, entrust him to the Word that is sharper than any sword. That Word will not return void. It will either convert him or it will be a witness against him. In either case, your soul shall be delivered. May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
