The Unconscious Barrier to Love

If you have got this far, you may be beginning to ask a fair question.

Why isn't every Christian husband already living in these truths? After all, the four things we have covered so far are not entirely new to a man who is committed to his faith. He has heard about love. He knows Christ is the model. He believes in the Holy Spirit. So why does the gap between knowing and living remain so wide for so many men, including men who genuinely love God?

I have come to see that there is a very quiet but very powerful force at work. It does not announce itself. It does not look like a problem. In fact, for most of my marriage, I did not know it was there at all.

That force is pride. Unconscious pride, to be exact.

That word unconscious matters as much as the word pride itself.

What Unconscious Pride Actually Looks Like

Pride in this sense rarely looks like arrogance. It does not reveal itself in obvious selfishness or a loud need to be right. Instead, it lives in a quiet belief that you are the master of your own destiny. That if you work hard enough, try sincerely enough, and want it badly enough, you can succeed at anything, including loving your wife the way God intends.

For years I walked in this pride without knowing it. I genuinely thought I was a humble person. I was non-confrontational by nature. I cared about fairness. I had a real disgust for any kind of oppression. By almost any outward measure, pride did not seem to be my problem.

But what I have been learning through walking more closely with the Holy Spirit is that pride is a condition of the heart, not simply a pattern of behaviour. This kind of pride seeks its own will rather than God's will. And it is almost always disguised as something that sounds entirely reasonable.

Career success. Financial security. Building something that lasts. Church ministry. Legacy. Influence. These are not bad things. In fact, walking genuinely with the Holy Spirit could produce every one of them. What becomes prideful, and what must be honestly faced, is when these pursuits are quietly placed above seeking God and above loving your wife the way He has called you to love her.

When a man's energy, attention, and best hours are consistently directed toward his own plans and ambitions, even well-intentioned ones, his wife gradually receives whatever is left. That is not the love described in Ephesians 5. And deep down, most men already know it.

The Remedy Is Not Effort

Here is what makes this revelation different from simply being told to try harder.

The remedy for pride is not discipline. It is not a better routine or a stronger resolve. The remedy is humility. And like the love we have spoken about in these foundations, humility is not something a man can manufacture in himself. It is only born out of an honest love and reverence for God. It grows from a heart that knows God is a Father who loves us without condition.

Scripture is plain about what humility opens up. God gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). That is not a small statement. It means that the degree to which a husband humbles himself before God determines the extent of grace available to him. And it is that grace, not personal effort, that enables him to love his wife in the way she needs and God requires.

The Clearest Picture of This Humility

Perhaps the most honest picture of Christ-like humility in all of Scripture is found not on the cross but in the garden before it. In what must have been one of the most deeply human moments of Jesus' life on earth, He prayed to the Father with complete honesty about what He was feeling.

Spend a few moments in that garden. Watch Him there, in real agony, praying honestly to the Father. And then hear what He says. Not my will, but yours.

That is humility in its purest form. Not the absence of personal feeling or preference. Not a pretence that sacrifice is easy. But a settled choice to place the Father's will above His own, even at the greatest possible cost.

A Christian husband who seeks to love like Christ is called into a version of that same posture. There will be moments when loving his wife well means setting aside his own plans, preferences, and comfort. Those moments are not the exception. They are the calling. And they are, in truth, the clearest tests of whether the love he is walking in is his own or God's.

The Walk

When a husband first begins to move toward this kind of humility, it will feel unnatural. That is not surprising. He is moving against a lifetime of learned self-reliance. But as he humbles himself before God and remains close to the Holy Spirit, something gradually shifts. Grace increases. What once felt like sacrifice begins to feel like love. Not because the man has become stronger, but because God's love is now flowing more freely through him.

This is the walk the Holy Spirit leads every willing husband into. It is not a destination. It is a daily direction. Away from pride, toward humility, deeper into the love that God designed for your marriage from the beginning.

That is the foundation. Now the real journey begins.

Hello there! I am Gerrad, and for the first sixteen years of my marriage, I struggled to understand my role as a husband. At what felt like the lowest point, through the prayers and support of my wife, close friends and good mentors, I began learning the truth about being a husband from God's perspective. These articles are written to encourage any man who has a genuine desire to love his wife - as Jesus Christ loves the church.