The Dangers Of Finding Your Identity In Your Spouse

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things that you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3

To the courageous husbands reading these words: There is no one that knows your wife better, and loves her more, than the One who made her.

To the valiant wives reading these words: There is no one who knows your husband better, and loves him more, than the One who made him.

Guest post by Emily Jamieson 

Hi, my name is Emily. I am a wife of 11 years to Marshall Jamieson – the witty, one paced wonder who won my hand with his humble heart and deep faith. I am mom to four hilarious and rambunctious boys – Tucker {9}, Bennett {7}, Wesley {4} and Finn {18 mo}. I run an academic coaching business and have served alongside my husband in the ministry of Young Life for the past decade. I love chai and spoken word and soccer. I laugh easily and am a 3 on the enneagram for those who are curious.

As for my faith journey – for a lot of my life I believed in God, but somewhere in the midst of playing Division 1 soccer and getting my intellectual butt kicked at Dartmouth College, I made that treacherous 12-inch journey between head and heart and began to know Jesus.

There is nothing that gives me greater thrill and deeper security than being in the presence of the God who knows me better than I know myself. I love to hear His voice. I live for ushering others into His presence for the sake of their own hearts to be satisfied, and to witness the outpouring of love that overflows from a heart who contains the living God. I have watched lives and marriages and families transformed by the grace and love and power of Jesus, my own included.

In large part, the refinement that has come in my life has been the result of God ordaining a blind date 13 years ago with the steady soul I mentioned above. Relationships in general are sanctifying, let’s be honest, but you throw two sinners together with differing chromosomes, tell them to come under one roof and one mission and become one flesh, allow them to produce and try to rear 4 small humans with free will, and a little something called “dying to self” occurs.

To be clear, it was not long into our relationship when our independent wills began to conflict, but the roots were exposed in the midst of our engagement.

{As an aside, the engagement season is not all it is cracked up to be. I have met very few couples who blissfully prance through this season… more on that in another post!}

Marshall and I were months away from our wedding day. We were sitting on the couch one evening and I was having one of those weepy. I-need-more-from-you, insecure, tell-me-I’m-beautiful, painfully raw moments that women {and men} sometimes have.

I am sure some sort of cycle was happening, if you catch my drift, and that fact met with lack of exercise and not enough time spent marinating in God’s presence resulted in an insecure and needy mess of a woman.

Let me be clear. I am super independent. When Marshall was dating me, the only hesitation he had in considering me as his wife was whether or not I would give up enough of my independence to ever “need” him {in a healthy, non-codependent way}.

That said, even the strongest of men and the strongest of women have fault lines. And I was crumbling.

But the response that Marshall offered to my messy request for approval set the course for the rest of our marriage. He looked at me for a moment, and then gently yet firmly said the following words, “Emily, I love you, but I cannot be Jesus for you.”

Yes, you read that right.

I love you, but I cannot be Jesus for you.

Now, I could have immediately gotten rather defensive {or offensive}, but something about his words carried weight. The Holy Spirit gave them wings and they alighted on my heart in a way that radically changed my perspective. In truth, I would not know the depth of their impact for many years.

The fact of the matter is that women {and men, I would contend} were created to be desired. I want to be wanted! And yet the desires of my heart will never be met fully in my husband. Yes, I can certainly “coach” him in how to love me better, help him to know what words set my heart at ease, affirm what actions convey love and respect and care. In fact, my husband and I have a responsibility to help one another love well! It is a great privilege when I know what things show my husband love and then do them {things like timeliness and order and things I am naturally terrible at and don’t even think about}!  And for my man of few words and a love for personal space to learn how to affirm me verbally more regularly and hug me randomly and flex on the timeliness thing every now and again shows me an incredible amount of respect and sacrificial love.

It is a mutual submission of wills to love another person well, not in the way that we want to love, but in the way that they best receive love.  

Likewise, it is important for me to recognize the ways that Marshall naturally loves me {like keeping the kitchen perfectly clean and saying “no” to things on my behalf to guard the boundaries on my time and our family}. Neither of these things did I initially notice or even appreciate, but have learned to see that they are a great gift to me, and they are Marshall’s way of extending love to me in the way that he uniquely defines loving like Jesus.

What Marshall articulated that night on the couch was profound. Essentially, he was telling me that he cannot bear the weight of being my savior, my identity-giver, my confidence-infuser.

And neither can I do that for him. When we look to the other in a relationship to be our source of identity, worth, beauty, and love, our partner will be crushed. They will not only fail us but they will flounder under the burden of trying to be our God. It became a great source of freedom to know that when I felt insecure, or needful of affirmation, {and would naturally look to Marshall} that was a trigger for me to run to Jesus, ask Him to tell me how I am, who I am, and what HE thinks of me.

Jesus is always available, always receptive, always ready to give me a response to the deepest longings of my heart.

This does not abdicate my husband from loving and serving me; it is his delight and responsibility! But, it certainly frees him up to not love out of obligation and fear for his wife’s sanity, and rather out of the overflow of his heart and in response to the Lord’s love for Him (and me!)

• What ways does your spouse best receive love? If you don’t know, go on a date night and ask!
• What are the ways your spouse most naturally shows love?
• Even if they aren’t your “native language,” begin to be intentional about recognizing those things and thanking them for the way they uniquely are expressing their love and affection for you.