Transcript
Ben Fallon: “I'm respected at work, but not at home.” This is the complaint that Aaron, who is a counselor, has heard recently from two of his clients. Here's the context.
I'm counseling two middle-aged Christian husbands with marital problems, and in both cases, the men say this, “When I'm at work, my colleagues and managers have nothing but amazing things to say about my leadership gifts and the way I relate to my co-workers. I have earned tremendous respect in the workplace and am praised for my competence and skills and success. But when I get home, the opposite is true. My wife and kids don't recognize my success and skill. I feel disrespected and especially made to feel less than or inadequate and lacking in the home. So, which is it? Why do I get so much respect and appreciation in one arena and not in the other?”
Paul Tripp: Well, I want to start with a quasi-humorous but actually serious response. You get all that respect at work because the people don't actually know you; they just don't know you. They don't know you in your worst moments. They don't know you when you get up in the morning and you're cranky. They don't know you when you're exhausted at night and you wish you didn't really have children. They don't know you when your wife disagrees with you, and you know you're right, and you think she's stupid, and you just want to make sure that you win the argument. They don't know you when you're sick, and you wish you could ship off your family somewhere so you could just be by yourself. They don't know you when you get a bill, and you weren't expecting it, and you think that God doesn't really care for you. They don't know you!
And so, you have to be very, very careful with how people who don't know you define who you are because that's just not a valid definition of who any of us are. All the people that work with me, love me, but they don't have to live with me. And if they did, they would have a whole new definition of who Paul Tripp is. People who read my books, they just think I'm a spiritual star. Luella realized long ago that I'm not a spiritual star because she lives with me. So, we need to be very, very careful who helps us understand who we actually are.
Now, from the moment of creation, God understood that it wasn't good for human beings to live alone. He looked at Adam and it wasn't that Adam cried out, “I'm lonely!” God looked at him and said, “This man shouldn't live by himself.” And God created marriage and family. Family is the foundational community of human culture and of God's design for our lives. And family is meant to be the safest place on physical earth for us, a place of love and honor, mutual service, confession, and forgiveness. And family is so important in the eyes of God, I love this, that God takes the name “Father,” and calls us his children. The whole word picture of God's relationship to us is family. It's beautiful. One of my favorite passages is Psalm 103:13 and 14, “As a father shows compassion for his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.” It's such a sweet thing. God loves us as a father, and he's not going to turn his back on us because we're weak and frail and failing because he knows that that's who we are.
But there's a second thing you have to say. The Bible warns us that we live in a fallen, sin-scarred world that doesn't function as God intended. And often, that dysfunction is most clearly seen and most hurtfully experienced in the family because a family falls short of this beautiful thing that God desired it to be. So that's the background of my answer of this question. This question really does speak to something that's foundational and important in the eyes of God.
Now, I don't know the exact situation here, and I can't give exact counsel, but I want to lay out what my counsel would be to a person in this situation. If you're thinking that, “I get this respect at work that I never get at home,” first of all, remind yourself that the people at work don't know you. But the second thing you should do is be humble enough to start with your own heart. Are there things in your words, behavior, actions, reactions, and choices in your home that do not gender respect? One of the questions I have people ask, “If your children or your wife could write down five character-qualities that most describe you in the home, what would they write?” Humbling question. Are there patterns of impatience, anger, selfishness, harshness, unwillingness to sacrifice and serve? When you're going to assess the difference between outside respect and inside respect, start with examining yourself.
Second, do you seek the grace needed to be the kind of husband whose words and actions are so godly and loving that they're worthy of respect? Really, a really significant question. I'll continue.
Have you taken time to have a loving, anger-free conversation with your wife about your hurt, the kind of hurt that you're experiencing in your home and in her relationship to you? And in that conversation, are you willing to listen and consider her explanation for why she treats you the way she does?
Next, have you dealt with the fact that God has never promised that you would be respected? In fact, he has warned you that you'll be misunderstood and you will suffer. And as you face that reality, are you protecting your heart from bitterness and subtle acts of vengeance? Are you responding to your wife and children out of the anger you have for how you feel you've been treated, or are responding with a forgiving heart?
Next, are you committed to do good no matter what, no matter how you think you're being loved or not loved or respected or not respected? Are you absolutely committed to do good no matter how you're treated? When I think of this, I think of 1 Peter 3:8–17, and I want to read this passage. It's a little bit long, but it really does speak to this issue.
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For
“Whoever desires to love his life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your heart honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, (Listen to this.) so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
Willingness to continue to do good in God's eyes, no matter what, is a true sign of trust in him and a sign of spiritual maturity, and God promises blessing.
Finally, remember that the family was not intended by God to live in healthy isolation. God created the state and the church, because the family needs help. If problems can't be solved in the family, you have places to go for help. For example, if there is violence in the family, you can call for the help and protection of the state. If there's sin and conflict in the family, you can call for the help of the church. Have you invited your wife to go with you to get solid, gospel-centered, heart-focused biblical counseling? If you cannot solve a marriage or family issue on your own, God has gifted you with his church. Live in your home in a way that's worthy of respect, be determined to do what is good, no matter what, and seek the help that God has provided for you if you cannot solve the problem on your own.
BF: Now, in all of these Ask Paul Tripp episodes, it's impossible for us to give a comprehensive answer that covers every potential scenario or relationship, so you'll just have to give us grace, please. We don't know the full context behind the question being asked, and for Paul to paint a full comprehensive answer, he would need ten hours and not just ten minutes.
Now, that said, Paul, I'm going to ask you now to talk about the other side of the coin, please, and speak to the other side of this relationship, primarily the wife. You do it in your full marriage conference, and so if you could address that now and just cast for us a beautiful vision of what a healthy marriage could look like with a hardworking husband who is both respected in the workplace and in the home because the wife invests, on her side of the relationship, to make that happen. So, I think you know where I'm going with this, so if you could just speak to the wives.
PT: You know, one of the beautiful character-qualities that God calls us to—and it is the soil in which so many things grow—is gratitude, and I want to speak to the wives in this regard. It's so easy as you live with a husband, you get to know him, to see him only in light of his failures, his weaknesses, his areas of immaturity, which all of us have, and that becomes the lens that you view him from, and the way that you respond to him. And that is a marital lifestyle that never goes anywhere good and never produces anything good. No one can live in that kind of relationship, and the problem is it lacks gratitude. And so it's very, very important that a wife thinks, “What are the things in the life of my husband that I should be daily grateful for?” Maybe he's a very hard worker, maybe he has great mechanical skill and can fix things around the house, maybe he spends a lot of time with the children, whatever the issue is, “I want to be known for my gratitude.” And gratitude is the soil in which respect grows.
Often wives don't respect their husbands because they only see their husbands in the lens of his weaknesses and failures and not in light of his good character-qualities and the good things he does for the family. So, I would just say to wives, “You don't have to deny your husband's weaknesses, you don't have to deny his failures, but you should be grateful.” God calls us to gratitude, gratitude is a command, and if you have a grateful husband, a grateful wife, they're on the road to a good relationship because then they have a context where they can talk about their weaknesses. Think about this, “If all you've done is criticize me, when you come to criticize me again, I just think, ‘Oh man, not again!’” And I'm not ready to listen, and I'm not ready to confess, but if you have been grateful and thankful, when you come to me with a criticism, I'm way more ready to listen, to consider, and to confess.”
BF: Paul wrote a chapter on work and career in his book Awe, which is worth looking at, or you can read an abbreviated version of that in our May 1, 2025, Grace and Knowledge article, "A Balanced Work Life." That’s available at paultripp.com/articles, or you can get Grace & Knowledge emailed to you on the first day of each month when you sign up to our email list at paultripp.com/email.
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