Things I Wished My
Mother had NOT Taught me about Marriage
by Victoria Thornton
I grew up with a single mother. My mother and father divorced when I was very young, so the majority of my life I grew up in a single parent household. My parents had their share of problems so when they separated my mother had a very negative opinion about my father and men in general. As a result her opinion of men changed for the worst as she spoke her opinions very strongly to her three daughters. One thing I heard over and over again was that she would never marry again! She spoke those words so strongly and so many times that I assumed something must have been terribly wrong with marriage because how strongly she said it. And, two, because she seemed so miserable. As a result of her strong warnings, I wanted no part of it.
As time progressed, with the hardened opinion she had of men and with now having the sole responsibility of taking care of her six kids alone, with no help from my father, she made sure to give us advice that I wished she hadn't. "Never trust a man." "Never look to man to help you." "Whatever you want, get it on your own, never depend on a man." Now my mother preached her message as she worked too low paying jobs to provide for us. And the reason why she could only get these low paying jobs was because she had no work experience. A man, of whom I was never to depend on, had provided for her so completely that she rarely had to work while married.
My mom and her terrible views of men no longer respected marriage. She, who was once married, now looked down on women who were married. She made these women seem brainless, weak and obtuse for being married. She made the desire to take care of a man into a menial, dishonorable job. Her views, now entrenched into my being, did several rotten things for my attitude toward men. One, it put me in the mind set of being very disrespectful to men. Two, whatever relationship I entered, I entered with a very antagonistic point of view. And three, I failed at them because failure in a romantic relationship is what my mother set me up for.
Because I grew up in this, I never knew anything was wrong with this kind of thinking. Now while one sister adopted a saying about men that, "men were like potato chips, there is always another one in the bag." I adopted the attitude, "all men are dogs." With these warped attitudes, how many good long-lasting relationships do you think we had? And a very weird thing about this is, we primarily seem to find very good men but somehow the relationships didn't last long. When the relationships ended, it didn't bother us much because our hearts were so seared with bad information that we weren't hurt too much over them, at least for me, not until the last one.
I believe God began to draw me and my sisters. I cannot speak about her revelations but I began to see cracks in my mom's thinking. It started with the last bad relationship I had. It was so bad it drove me to Christ. I now see it was a blessing because it drove me to the arms of Christ and his Word. As I studied God's Word, I soon saw how my mom views were so radically different from God's Word. I had been trying to reconcile God's view about relationships to my mothers. I had been trying to find a balance then one day, I returned to visit my mom and the very first thing she asked was, "are there no men in your lives?' What, I thought? I couldn't believe she was asking that question when she spoke evil of relationships and downplayed their importance to now asking why didn't I have one! From that day, I did whatever I could to dislodge my mom's teaching about men and cling to the Word only. It was a hard, difficult task and when I began seeing or hearing those bad teachings in my environment, I would cast them down.
While my mom spewed those hurtful messages from a place of hurt and pain, her views coincidentally aligned perfectly with the feministic views of today. Now, if you embrace feminism that's fine and it's your choice but if you want the relationship God has for you and to be a success in the things of God, as it pertains to a marital relationship, you might run into contradictions. The contradications are as follows: One, feminism teaches that women are better than men or to be put in a higher position than men, yet the Word teaches the husband is the head of the wife, (Ephesians 5:23). Feminism teaches you don't need a man that you can do it alone, however, the Word teaches it is not good for man to be alone, (Genesis 2:18). Feminism teaches to be independent yet the Bible teaches that two are better than one, (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). And last, feminism alludes to men being made for women, and again, the Word teaches the woman is created for the man, (I Corinthians 11:9).
The first time I saw the above teachings in the Bible, I had a difficult time accepting them but as I desired to make Christ my Lord and Master it became a sheer joy to yield to Him. My old thought patterns began to fall away at the beauty of Christ. He is so good, He makes you want to bow and yield and put Him first and if my godly husband was supposed to love me as Christ loved the church, I was definitely interested. I knew I had to first correct my thinking because the Bible states in I John_4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Meditating on this scripture helped me see how I was wrong in my opinion of men that my mother implanted in me.
As my eyes began to open to the atrocities I was taught about men and marriage, I began to see wrong teaching everywhere. I saw them in movies, tv shows, tv commercials, other women, young girls. When I heard a young lady tell me, ‘she would choose her career over a relationship because men were intimidated by her,’ my heart broke. It made me want to scream, from the housetop, that those kinds of views will leave you heart broken, sad and alone. As a blunt minister of a marriage once said, you can’t take your degree to bed. Your degree can't provide the love and human support you need. It can’t console you when you’ve suffered a tremendous loss nor hold or comfort you when you are going through your darkest hour. It even can’t provide long-lasting memories of joy and fulfillment in those special moments in life but God provided someone who will. But, will you be ready?
So take a moment to examine your heart's beliefs about men. Are they antagonistic? Are they degrading, hurtful, harmful?
If you are a man, what thoughts do you hold about women? Do they coincide with the Bible or with the world? Do you find yourself objectifying women because that’s what our culture teaches us? Ultimately, if Jesus brought your mate across your path today, would you be ready and prepared to treat him or her like Christ treats His Church?
If not, examine yourself to see if you are in the faith or the traditions of men taught by television shows and movies.
