Section 4 | Rule 20: The Custos’ Response to His Wife’s Lack of Respect for Him

When a husband feels deprived of respect, affirmation, or intimacy from his wife, temptation often follows.
Moments of disappointment can become openings for resentment, dishonor, or infidelity.
For this reason, the Christian husband must learn to imitate Christ the Bridegroom.

Let the Custos be aware that the evil spirits will take advantage of the occasions on which he does not receive the desired respect, affirmation, and intimacies from his wife or of the apparent diminishing of his wife’s physical beauty with age; with these motivations, the evil spirits will entice and lure him to dishonor his wife or to seek such consolations elsewhere. The evil spirits will use the absence of respect and affirmation from his wife to try to convince the Custos that he is justified in dishonoring his bride or in being unfaithful to her. Yet let the Custos turn toward Christ the Bridegroom and His holy example. It was not Christ’s condemnation that inspired the sinner to return to Him but the sacrifice of Himself expressed by His mercy and forgiveness. As the Mystical Doctor said, “Where there is no love, put love, and there will be love.” Therefore, if respect from the Custos’ wife is lacking, he is all the more to place love in her midst by expressions of mercy, acts of disinterested service, and forgiveness.

Call to action: When respect seems lacking, the temptation is to withdraw love.
Yet Christ teaches the opposite path.
The husband who places love where it appears absent becomes an image of the Bridegroom who loved first.

Related articles:

• The Well-Ordered Man

• A Man’s Plan

• The Lament of a Regretful Father

• Five Things St. Joseph Did for Jesus—That Every Father Must Do

Devin Schadt | Executive Director of the Fathers of St. Joseph

Ite ad Joseph