5 Things Women Need in Marriage

1. Women need a relationship with God in marriage.

First and foremost, a woman needs a relationship with God in order to be the wife we are all called to be. While our relationship with our husband is single-handedly the most important here on this side of eternity, it is the relationship with God that will last eternally and should never be placed below your relationship with your husband.

You may be familiar with the passage in 1 Peter 3:1 that says, “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands…” Numerous passages of Scripture like these talk about how a wife is to be submissive to her husband. And there is so much truth to that, but what I’m referring to is that what a woman needs in marriage is a submissive heart to her husband, yes, but a submissive heart until the Lord first. It’s about being God-oriented first, submission to Him first, then husband-oriented second.

Through submitting and having a submissive heart as unto the Lord, you are, in essence, submitting your husband over to the Lord, trusting that the Lord has your husband in His hands and that the Lord will give him wisdom, direction, and lead your husband for you and your household. Submit to God first, and trust that as you submit to your husband, you submit to the Lord and His provision. A wife’s submission is not as much to her husband, a mere man, as it is to God and His plan for marriage.

Sarah is an example of a woman who trusted God because of her relationship with the Lord first, yet still obeyed and submitted to her husband even after Abraham lied about her. He identified Sarah as his sister and not his wife (Genesis 20:1-18), and as a result, Sarah was immediately taken into the King’s captivity. At this moment, Sarah was not trusting in her relationship with her husband because he had been deceptive. Sarah’s relationship with God enabled her to trust God by submitting herself to God to work on Abraham. God intervened as she gave Him time to work on Abraham.

Our husbands might not send us off into captivity of our government, but there might be times we question our husband’s leadership and decisions; our trust should be in our relationship with God first and foremost, and we let Him do the work on our husbands. We are to trust that God is leading our husbands and trust God with the lives of our husbands.

2. Women need a prayer life in marriage.

Next to a relationship with God, a prayer life is one of the most important and powerful things women need in marriage. You will deepen your relationship with God through your prayer life as it aligns your heart with His. Prayer is important because it places our marriage in God’s hands rather than keeping it in our own. You see - it’s God’s job to intervene and move mountains in our life and our marriage, but it’s our job to pray in our marriage. As women, we tend to want to control, so prayer sometimes is our last resort and not our first. The greatest impact you will see in your marriage begins with what is done on our knees in the quiet. In an article I wrote, How to Pray for Your Husband instead of Trying to Change Him - Christian Marriage Help and Advice (crosswalk.com), I highlight this idea of wrestling with God in prayer first with everything before wrestling with your husband.

Jesus was our most excellent example of this as He “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” (Luke 5:16). Prayer is by far the most powerful weapon we have and need in our marriage. Our greatest role as wives is to trust God with our husbands, cover them in prayer, and then let God do everything else.

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3. Women need Christian girlfriends in marriage.

When your marriage goes through seasons of hardship or drought, it’s even more important to have a close circle of friends near you in your marriage. And not just any friends, but Christian friends that can encourage you with biblical encouragement full of wisdom and not worldly advice. Jesus, again, is our greatest example that while he loved everyone he met, unbelievers and sinners alike, he spent most of his time with the three disciples closest to him, Peter, James, and John.

Marriage will have seasons of difficulty, so you need to be closest to those that will always point you to the cross and the truth and always back to Jesus. I have friends that are non-Christian and are wonderful women, but I’ve had these women give me advice that is not biblical. Remember, good ideas don’t necessarily mean they are God’s ideas.

The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:14 to “not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”

Paul is not telling us not to have unbelieving friends but rather don’t join them in their own way of doing things and their worldview. In other words, yoking together means joining them in their lifestyle and belief system around their marriage and views and becoming like them. We truly become like those we surround ourselves with; therefore, we must be careful.

So, ask yourself, who are you talking to the most? Are you slandering your husband to them, and are they participating in the slander, giving you advice that is far from biblical? Take inventory of who your closest friendships are and where you are spending and investing the majority of your time, and make sure they are those that will point you to Jesus every time.

4. Women need a discerning and quiet mouth in marriage.

Ouch. No one wants to be told they must be quiet. But as someone who loves to talk and has even turned her love for talking into writing, I’ve learned my mouth has got me into trouble in life and my marriage more times than I can count. I am not saying never to speak your heart, feelings, and truth behind a matter. Instead, I am challenging you to cling to some of the Scriptures that speak some sound wisdom on keeping quiet and then see how your marriage begins to unfold in a new way after applying these truths.

One verse that always sticks with me the most is Proverbs 10:19, which says, “In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise.” Think about that simply: the quieter you are, the less sin is capable of arising. Again, it’s not saying to never speak but to think before you speak. The less said is better in many situations because you can never take words back. I’m sure many women can say they have damaged friendships and even their marriages over the years with their very own words, so living in a way to be quiet first is a strategy I try to use in my own life.

We need to begin practicing being wise in our speech. Let’s bring our words to God first in prayer and wrestle with Him before our words unleash on our husbands, causing damage to our marriages.

5. A woman needs a forgiving heart in marriage.

Forgiveness is something every woman needs in marriage. There have been many times where I have become unglued in my marriage, and I unleash myself in the worst way. Can anyone else relate? Sometimes it’s due to the overwhelming stress each day brings. But what if most of my unglued actions and reactions are a result of the unforgiveness I am harboring deep inside? Usually, when I have spurts of anger and become unglued by reacting poorly or harshly to a situation, I must take a step back and ask what I am really upset about. Most of the time, it is about something completely different from what I became unglued about. It’s something I had never solved before, as I harbored bitterness and unforgiveness in my heart.

Women need a forgiving heart in marriage, which we are to do daily. Otherwise, we will pick up little pieces of offenses daily, eventually growing into a wall of offenses. This wall separates you from your spouse, and sometimes it comes crashing down in a destructive way. Day-by-day offenses are capable of building day by day, brick by brick, wall by wall between you and your spouse. One day of unforgiveness turns into weeks, months, or even years and decades of offenses if you do not choose to forgive daily. And I mean daily.

When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13, part of what we are told to pray daily as part of the Lord’s prayer is to ask God to “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” We are told that forgiveness is a daily thing we are to do. We live in a fallen world with fallen people that disappoint us daily and perhaps offend us daily. We need to be able to walk freely with our husbands by forgiving each offense each day, and in turn, our Heavenly Father will also forgive us.

We sin daily, and sin separates us from God, but asking for forgiveness with repentance relinquishes that separation. In the same way, we also don’t want to build a wall of separation between us and our spouse due to unforgiveness. A woman needs a forgiving heart practiced daily in marriage.