Married to a Non-Christian
Page Two
Is It Spiritual or Emotional?
Some spouses believe their mate's problems stem entirely from a lack of spiritual life. Sometimes this is true. But very often conflicts between Christian mates and non-Christian spouses are also rooted in emotional or personality problems. Let me explain.
When psychologists study individuals, they usually identify about 18 or so personality traits. These may be thought of as usual ways of acting and behaving. Desirable traits combine to make a person well adjusted. Such a person is pleasant and fun to be around—to be married to. But men and women who have negative personality traits are considered maladjusted and are difficult to work and live with. Such hang-ups cause marital problems. They form roadblocks to good marriage relationships.
And they may be mistaken for spiritual deficits. Let's consider a few.
The first has to do with anger, or, on the other hand, the absence of anger. Some people have a high level of anger. Others do not. A person who harbors a great deal of anger may be overly aggressive, critical, abusive, negative, crabby, highly opinionated, sulky, vindictive, demanding, unloving, judgmental, non-cooperative, non-talkative, complaining, and the like.
On the other hand, a person who has little anger in his personality tends to be optimistic, happy, complimentary, encouraging, non-abusive, cooperative, and respectful. We all know non-Christians who are quite well adjusted in many ways, especially if, as children, they were raised in a loving home.
So what do these personality traits have to do with relating to a non-Christian spouse? A great deal.
A wife, for example, may be concerned about her husband being a non-Christian. And well she might. But if her husband is a man with a high degree of anger and hostility, he may be unusually difficult to live with. Furthermore, she may be attributing his negative behavior to the fact that he is not a Christian. This may be partially true. But even if he were, he may well still have a good deal of anger.
Why? Because there is not just one, but several causes of behavior. For example, he may have had a disastrous childhood that left him extremely frustrated, angry and negative. In such a case, a wife should try to understand these personality factors and encourage him to get professional counseling. This will avoid mistakenly turning the mate's problem into a spiritual one, which only creates further resentment.
Another important factor in being married to a non-Christian mate concerns the personality adjustment of the Christian.
Take Sheri, for example. She has been a Christian for a number of years. Her husband still hasn't trusted in Christ as his personal Savior. But Sheri has personality problems that prevent her from relating well to her husband whether he is a Christian or not. For example, if she took a personality test it might reveal that she is basically insecure as well as manipulative. Raised in a rigid, overly strict home, her parents were unloving and paid little attention to her. By the time she was five or six years of age she learned that if she were to exist, she would have to manipulate people and situations at almost every turn. She wasn't aware of this as a child, but it was taking place in her life just the same. By the time she was a teenager she was quite skilled in arranging things to her advantage, without due regard for the other person. In a sense, her manipulation was a mechanism for survival.
 Sheri is quite unaware of her own emotional
problems and blames her husband's lack of
spiritual life for their poor marriag.
In her last year of high school, she met some Christian young people who invited her to a Christian camp. At that time she gave her heart to the Lord. A few years later she married and she and her husband have been married now for a number of years. But her insecurity and manipulation still exist to some degree. Living for the Lord, reading God's Word, and associating with Christian people have helped her markedly. But it is impossible to have an excellent relationship with her unsaved husband because her insecurity shows up in a number of ways every day. Her manipulation, too, is sometimes evident in her daily living.
Sheri is quite unaware of her own emotional problems and blames her husband's lack of spiritual life for their poor marriage. She believes that if only he were to get saved they would have a happy home. True, if he were to trust in Christ, God would work in his heart and cause him to be a better person. The Bible says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (II Corinthians 5:17). But even if he should become a Christian, they would still have problems because of her tendency toward insecurity and manipulation. There is also a strong possibility that Sheri's manipulativeness actually pushes her husband away from God. Since he resents his wife's pushiness, moving toward God would feel like giving in to her manipulation.
If a husband or a wife is concerned about an unsaved mate, he or she should seriously consider whether personality problems need to be resolved in his or her own life. It's much easier to live with a non-Christian mate if both partners are emotionally well adjusted. And, it is difficult to lead a spouse to Christ if either of them has unresolved personality hang-ups. They both may be frustrated and be rubbing the other the wrong way and this clouds and distorts the spiritual message.
 Continued on Page Three
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