My Job as a Wife

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sisterofasaint

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I’ve had this idea in my head (since as far back as I can remember) and pressure on my heart + soul that it’s my “job” as a wife to bring my husband to heaven…if that’s true, wouldn’t that make me his savior? Which, of course, is wrong. I am not his savior; he already has one.

But what does that mean for me then? If, according to the Church, it’s my “job”, or purpose, to bring him to heaven, then how do I do that without feeling responsible for his salvation? I’m super frustrated about this.
 
It is not your job to bring your husband to heaven.

It is your job to love your husband, help and support him, nurture and care for him, and work with him toward the goal of heaven.

It is the job of your husband to love you his wife, provide for you, protect you, care for and support you, and guide you and work with you to the goal of heaven.

You and your husband form one body - he is the head, you are the neck and body.
 
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All good works are due to God. Nothing is our own good work. It all goes back to Him, the source of all Good.
 
I don’t think you should put the pressure on yourself that you have expressed here. St Paul said that spouses can bring about the salvation of one another, but that doesn’t make it your responsibility under penalty.
 
Both husbands and wives have a responsibility to help bring their spouse to heaven. Sometimes one is more adept at that than the other, but the result is up to God.

There was a French woman, Elisabeth Leseur , whose husband become a militant atheist, even attempting to destroy his wife’s faith by giving her books against the faith to read. She kept a secret diary and devoted her prayer and work to the conversion of her husband. He never did convert before Elisabeth died. After her death, he discovered and read her diary, and experienced a profound conversion. So her prayers were answered after her own death.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/com...-drew-her-atheist-husband-back-to-the-church/
 
Oh don’t do it alone. You’re to do it with God, letting Him do the heavy lifting. We carry just a bit of the happy Cross of Marriage.

God gives us great dignity in being able to cooperate with Him in the Redemption of our spouse, and “through that work”, our very own redemption, and the redemption of all our children, and friends touched by our generously-lived, trustingly-lived marriage.

You are certainly a big part of his salvation…that’s why God put you and him together…we become “instruments of God’s salvific” work, not just abstractly…but every hour of every day.

We have to think much bigger about Marriage. Every marriage should take on aspects of Jesus’s ENTIRE life, even the life that was hidden from us before His public ministry.

Our whole marriage needs to become Jesus’s own life relived, including His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

This is how “big” marriage is, and how grand, and beautiful, and dignifying, and difficult…but we don’t do most of the lifting…He does.
 
Actually it is…we become God’s principal human instrument in bringing our spouse to heaven. See post below.
 
Thank you…I need to focus more on what you said.

You last point about he is the head…what happens when my husband is “baby Catholic” and I’m the one who’s more “head” of the faith life in our home? I pray he can be the spiritual leader of our home but for the last 8+ years, that’s been me…
 
sisterofasaint said:
I’ve had this idea in my head (since as far back as I can remember) and pressure on my heart + soul that it’s my “job” as a wife to bring my husband to heaven…if that’s true, wouldn’t that make me his savior? Which, of course, is wrong. I am not his savior; he already has one.

But what does that mean for me then? If, according to the Church, it’s my “job”, or purpose, to bring him to heaven, then how do I do that without feeling responsible for his salvation? I’m super frustrated about this.
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It is part of your vocation to facilitate the journey that only he can make and only by the grace of God.

Whether you are a parent or a spouse, you have an extremely close relationship and stand as a person uniquely placed to make the road to sanctity either harder or easier. Your duty is to do what is in your power to be a remover of obstacles rather than an obstacle yourself. You are so close, you can hardly help being one or the other. You can only do your part to shape the environment your spouse and children are in, though. Their free will is still theirs.
 
This explanation brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for your helpful insight!!
 
LOL. A lifetime isn’t long enough to share with my husband!!!
 
sisterofasaint said:
LOL. A lifetime isn’t long enough to share with my husband!!!
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I like to think what a wonderful gift it will be, to be made a saint and have the grace to love and have the gratitude for all the saints that I have already been granted with regards to my family.

If you look around your church during Holy Communion and consider what God has in mind–to make all the experts at love of God and neighbor that we are meant to be!–it is enough to take your breath away to even look at a fraction of the saints God has in mind for us to spend eternity loving Him with, all as one and by means not even granted to the angels.

“…Our birth would have been no gain,
had we not been redeemed.
O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!..”
(from the Exsultet)
 
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That’s like saying, “if I drive my husband to the hospital, doesn’t that make me his doctor?”

If you are the reason your husband grows in faith, that’s awesome. But it doesn’t make you his savior any more than my waiter becomes a rib-eye steak by bringing me my food.
 
I think the terms the Church uses are actually that husband and wife find redemption together.
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
That’s like saying, “if I drive my husband to the hospital, doesn’t that make me his doctor?”

If you are the reason your husband grows in faith, that’s awesome. But it doesn’t make you his savior any more than my waiter becomes a rib-eye steak by bringing me my food.
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You aren’t his physician, but if you cook for him, sleep with him, help him decide what to do for work and in his free time, and give him advice when he’s deciding how often to go in for a check-up, his physician will definitely want you on board to keep the patient compliant!

God did not make the two become one for trivial reasons or make marriage the model of Christ and his Church for trivial reasons, but for reasons having to do with our everlasting redemption.
 
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Oh I agree the spouses have a role to play, for sure. You just can’t confuse that role with role played by Jesus, his actual savior.
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
Oh I agree the spouses have a role to play, for sure. You just can’t confuse that role with role played by Jesus, his actual savior.
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Yes. Even Our Lady’s role in salvation is described by the Church in these terms:
“For no creature could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer. Just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.”

Likewise, Christian spouses are surely intended by God to take part in this “manifold cooperation,” which is why marriage was raised by Christ Himself to a sacrament, a source of manifold grace.

Yes, it all flows from Our Savior.
 
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