Chuka got home at twenty to eleven. The traffic on Third Mainland Bridge had been at a standstill for forty minutes because a trailer had broken down near Oworonshoki, and he had spent the time on a call with his line manager about a project that was already two weeks late. When he finally turned into the estate in Gbagada, the generator was off, the house was quiet, and the only light came from the kitchen.
Lola was sitting at the dining table with a cup of tea that had long gone cold. She looked up when he came in and said, “Good evening.” That was all. She had said almost nothing else for three days.
Chuka knew something was wrong. He had known since Monday. But he had been too tired to ask, and a part of him had hoped it would pass by itself, the way these moods sometimes did. Now he put his laptop bag on a chair, sat down opposite her, and asked the question he had been avoiding. “Lola, what is it? What have I done?”
She looked at him for a long moment. “You really don’t know what today is?”
He did not. He searched his memory frantically. Not her birthday. Not their anniversary. Not the children’s. Then she told him. It was five years to the day since her father had died. In her family, the day was always kept quietly. Her mother would ring each of the children in the morning, and they would pray together and speak about him. Lola had mentioned it once, about two weeks earlier, in the car: “The fourteenth is coming.” Chuka had nodded, and then a client had called, and the sentence had gone straight out of his head.
She had waited all day for him to remember. When he did not phone, she told herself he would say something in the evening. When he came home late, she decided she would not tell him. If he loved her, surely he would know.
“I am sorry,” Chuka said slowly. “I really am. But Lola, how was I supposed to know?”
That question, asked honestly at a dining table close to midnight, is where this teaching begins.
The person behind the expectations
Every husband and wife marries two people. The first is the real man or woman who stands beside you at the altar. The second is the spouse you have imagined, assembled over many years from your parents’ marriage, the films you have watched, the sermons you have heard, the couples you admired and your own deepest needs. Most of us are not aware of the second person until the real one fails to match it.
Chuka had grown up in a large family in Onitsha where nobody marked the anniversary of a death. Grief was handled at the burial and then put away. Lola had grown up in a home where important days were remembered without anyone needing to be reminded. In her picture of a loving husband, he would simply know. In his picture of a loving wife, she would tell him plainly if something was wrong. Neither picture was sinful. But neither of them had ever said their picture out loud.
Expectations are not bad in themselves. It is right to expect faithfulness, kindness and honesty from your spouse, because God expects them too. The trouble begins when our private expectations quietly become the measure of whether we are loved, and the other person is never told what is being measured.
Scripture tells the story of a marriage that began with a terrible mismatch of expectations. Jacob served seven years for Rachel, “and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her” (Genesis 29:20). Then Laban deceived him, and on the morning after the wedding, “behold, it was Leah” (Genesis 29:25). Jacob had married a woman he had not chosen, and he never really forgave her for not being Rachel. Leah, for her part, spent years waiting for a husband who would look at her with the eyes he reserved for her sister.
Listen to how her expectations are recorded in the names she gave her sons:
And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me. And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Because the LORD hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and she called his name Simeon. And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi. And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD : therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing.
Reuben: now therefore my husband will love me. Simeon: the LORD hath heard that I was hated. Levi: now this time will my husband be joined unto me. Each birth carried the same hope. Perhaps this time he will see me. Perhaps this child will finally make him love me.
We should not read this passage as though Leah were to blame. Jacob’s coldness was wrong, and the text says plainly that the Lord saw it. “When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb.” God noticed the unloved wife. He still does. If you are living in a marriage where you feel unseen, you are not unseen by Him.
But notice what happens with the fourth son. “Now will I praise the LORD: therefore she called his name Judah.” Something has shifted. Leah stops naming her children after what she hopes her husband will finally give her. She turns her face toward God. And it is through Judah, the son of the unloved wife, that the line of David comes, and eventually the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Leah’s turn to praise did not make Jacob’s behaviour acceptable. What it did was loosen the grip of an expectation that had been crushing her. Her worth no longer hung on whether one man finally looked at her the right way. That is often the first step in loving a real spouse. You let God meet the need that no human being was ever designed to meet completely, and then you are free to love the person you actually married.
What love actually is
The most famous description of love in the Bible was not written for a wedding. Paul wrote it to a church in Corinth that was proud, divided and competitive, full of gifted people who were treating one another badly. That makes it all the more useful for marriage, because marriage is where gifted, proud people learn whether they actually know how to love:
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
The word translated charity in the King James Version is agape, the love that God shows us in Christ. It is a love that chooses the good of the other. It is expressed in what it does and refuses to do, which is why Paul describes it almost entirely in verbs.
“Charity suffereth long.” Love is patient over the long haul. It does not hand over its patience in a single afternoon and then demand that everything be resolved by evening.
Punchline“And is kind.” Kindness is love’s ordinary face: the cup of tea, the gentle tone, the phone call to say you will be late.
“Seeketh not her own.” This may be the hardest phrase for married people. So much of our disappointment comes from love that has quietly turned into a search for what I am owed. Agape keeps asking what the other person needs.
“Is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.” The second phrase means that love does not keep a ledger of wrongs. It does not store up every past failure in order to bring it out in the next argument.
“Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Love carries burdens, believes the best where the evidence allows, keeps hoping and holds on.
We must be careful here, because these words have sometimes been used to tell a frightened spouse that love requires her to endure abuse. That is a misuse of Scripture. The same chapter says that love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” Love does not cover violence or pretend that cruelty is acceptable. Bearing all things describes the patience of love with a real human being’s weakness. It is not a command to remain in danger. If your spouse is harming you, love for yourself, your children and even for your spouse requires you to seek safety and qualified help.
For most marriages, though, the challenge is not danger. It is ordinary disappointment, and here 1 Corinthians 13 is searching. It asks whether my love depends on my spouse meeting my picture of them, or whether it can be patient and kind toward the person who is actually in front of me.
Love that pays attention
Paul gives husbands a striking instruction in Ephesians 5. They are to love their wives “even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Then he adds a picture from ordinary bodily life: “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church” (Ephesians 5:29).
Think about what that means. When you are hungry, you eat. When your back aches, you change position. When you are cold, you find something warm. You do these things without being asked, because you pay attention to your own body. Paul says a husband should give that same kind of attention to his wife: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28).
The word cherisheth is a warm word. Paul uses the same Greek word in 1 Thessalonians to describe how a nursing mother “cherisheth her children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7). It carries the idea of warming, of tender care that notices what someone needs.
These words are addressed to husbands, and husbands need to hear them directly. Many Nigerian men were raised to believe that providing money, a house and protection is the whole of a husband’s love. Provision matters, and the man who works hard to feed his family is doing something good. But Paul asks for more. He asks for the attention that notices. He asks a husband to know his wife well enough to understand what nourishes her and what drains her.
The principle reaches wives too. Paul tells older women to teach the younger “to love their husbands” (Titus 2:4), and the whole of Ephesians 5 sits under the call to submit “one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:21). Every husband needs a wife who pays attention to the real man, and not only to the one she hoped he would become. Men often struggle to name their needs, especially pressures at work, fear about money or the weight of family expectations. A wife who notices when her husband has gone quiet and asks gently is cherishing him.
Attention is the opposite of expectation. Expectation looks at my spouse through the picture in my head. Attention looks at the person actually standing in the kitchen. What has his day been like? What is she carrying that I have not seen? What does this person, not some imagined spouse, need from me tonight?
Love when you are tired
The Gospel of John introduces the story of the Last Supper with one of the most moving sentences in the New Testament:
Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son , to betray him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
Consider the circumstances. Jesus knew the cross was hours away. He knew that Judas would betray Him that very night. He knew that Peter would deny Him and that the others would scatter. If anyone had a reason to be preoccupied with His own burden, it was the Lord on that evening. And “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” He rose from the table, took a towel and washed their dirty feet.
Love was not a feeling that came and went with His circumstances. It was a settled commitment that expressed itself in the humblest act of service, on the worst night of His earthly life, towards people who would fail Him within hours.
Most of us love our spouses most easily when we are rested and life is going well. The real test comes when you are both exhausted. When the baby has been crying at three in the morning for a week. When one of you has lost a job, or both of you are working long hours and passing each other on the stairs. When the generator has packed up again, the house is hot, the children have exams and there is a family meeting in the village next weekend that nobody wants to attend.
Feelings matter. God gave us emotions, and the warmth of affection in a marriage is a gift. But feelings are a poor foundation. They rise and fall with sleep, health, hormones, stress and the weather. If your love depends on how you feel, it will be strongest when it is least needed and weakest when it matters most.
Jesus shows us another way. Love can choose the towel before it feels like it. And very often the feelings follow the choice. A husband who chooses to put down his phone and ask about his wife’s day, even when he is tired, often finds that his tenderness towards her grows. A wife who chooses kindness when she feels irritated often discovers that the irritation softens. Obedience to the call of love is frequently the doorway through which affection returns.
NuggetFeelings rise and fall with sleep, stress and circumstance. Love can choose the towel before it feels like it, and very often the feelings follow.
When the marriage you imagined does not arrive
Many married people carry a quiet grief they seldom speak about. They had a picture of what marriage would be: the husband who prays with his family every morning, the wife who is always calm, the home where there is never a raised voice, the partner who shares every interest. Real life has turned out differently. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12), and some of us are a little heartsick.
That grief is real, and it should be brought honestly to God. But it must not be allowed to harden into contempt for the person who did not match the picture. Sometimes the picture was unrealistic. Sometimes it was a list of demands that no human being could fulfil. And sometimes the spouse you have is better in ways you have not yet noticed, because you have been looking for someone else.
Paul tells the Colossian believers how to clothe themselves for life together:
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
“Put on therefore.” Paul speaks of these qualities as garments. You choose them and put them on, the way you dress in the morning before going out. Mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and longsuffering are not moods that happen to descend on us. They are clothes that believers deliberately wear.
And look at the identity that comes first: “as the elect of God, holy and beloved.” You put on these garments because you have already been chosen and loved. That matters enormously in marriage. A husband who is secure in God’s love does not need his wife to be perfect in order to feel valued. A wife who knows she is beloved of God can bear with her husband’s weaknesses without feeling that her own worth is threatened.
“Forbearing one another.” To forbear is to put up with, to bear patiently with what is difficult in another person. Every spouse has habits that will never change completely. Some of them are worth an honest conversation. Others are simply part of loving a human being, and love learns to carry them lightly.
“And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” Love is the belt that holds every other garment in place. It binds the whole life of a marriage together into maturity.
Saying what you have been asking them to guess
Go back to Chuka’s question: “How was I supposed to know?” It sounds defensive, and in part it was. He had been careless. Lola had told him the date was coming, and he had let a work call push it out of his mind. He needed to own that and apologise. But there was also something true in the question, and Lola eventually saw it.
Many couples run their marriage on a hidden test. If he loved me, he would know. If she respected me, she would not need to be told. We keep silent about our needs and then judge our spouse for failing to meet them. This feels romantic, as though true love should be able to read minds. In practice it is a trap. It turns your spouse into a contestant in an examination they do not know they are sitting, and it turns you into a silent examiner keeping score.
Love includes the courage to say what you need. That is not weakness, and it does not make the love less real when your spouse responds to a request. When blind Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus, the Lord who knew everything still asked him, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” (Mark 10:51). Jesus wanted the man to name his need. There is dignity in being asked, and there is dignity in answering honestly.
Here is a simple way to begin. Choose a calm moment, not in the middle of a quarrel or when one of you has just walked in from a two-hour commute. Speak about yourself, not about your spouse’s failures. “I need you to remember the fourteenth with me. It is a hard day” will be heard very differently from “You never care about my family.” Be specific. “Please phone me at lunchtime” is easier to act on than “I need more attention.” And then listen, because your spouse almost certainly has unspoken needs of their own.
When Chuka and Lola finally talked that night, it turned out that he had one too. He had been coming home every evening to a house that felt tense and full of unfinished tasks, and he had begun to stay at the office later and later because he did not know how to say that he needed a little peace when he walked in. She had no idea. He had expected her to guess as well.
Some unmet needs run deeper than this. If one of you is living with depression, addiction, ongoing neglect or a pattern of being belittled, an honest conversation at the kitchen table may not be enough. Seek a pastor you trust or a qualified Christian counsellor, and where there is any danger, put safety first. Asking for help is part of loving well.
Loved first
Where does this kind of love come from? It cannot be squeezed out of a tired heart by determination alone. John tells us the source:
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” Love begins with God. He loved us before we had anything to offer, while we were still far from Him. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He did not wait for us to meet His expectations before He gave Himself for us.
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” The love that we receive becomes the love that we give. A spouse who keeps returning to God’s love for them has a source to draw from on the days when their own reserves are empty. Paul says, “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Romans 15:7). Christ received you as you are, with your weaknesses and your unfinished growth. You can receive your spouse in the same way.
This does not mean pretending that nothing needs to change. Christ receives us and then patiently transforms us. In marriage too, love receives the real person and then works patiently with them towards growth, through prayer, honest conversation and faithful example. What love refuses to do is make acceptance conditional on the other person first becoming the spouse you imagined.
They talked until almost two in the morning. Chuka apologised properly, not with an explanation, but by saying plainly that he had been careless with something that mattered to her. Then he asked her to tell him about her father, and she did, more than she had ever told him. He learned things that night he had not known in seven years of marriage.
PunchlineLola admitted something too. “I wanted you to remember without being told,” she said, “because I thought that would prove you loved me. But I was testing you. That was not fair.”
Before they went to bed, Chuka took out his phone and put the fourteenth into his calendar, with a reminder a week ahead. Lola laughed at him, and then she cried a little, and then she said, “Thank you.”
The following year, on the morning of the fourteenth, Lola’s phone rang at seven. It was her mother, calling as she always did. But when Lola answered, her mother said, “Your husband has already called me. He prayed with me. Did you know?” Lola did not know. Chuka had left for work at half past five to avoid the traffic so that he could be home by six that evening. He was.
He had not become a man who reads minds. He had become a man who pays attention, and she had become a woman who tells him what she needs. Neither of them was the spouse the other had imagined. They had found something better: two real people, loved by God, learning to love each other.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What picture of an ideal spouse did you carry into marriage? Where did it come from, and how has it shaped your disappointments?
- Read the story of Leah again. Where are you waiting for your spouse to meet a need that only God can meet fully?
- Which phrase in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 most challenges the way you love your spouse at the moment?
- What need have you been silently expecting your spouse to guess? How could you name it this week, calmly and specifically?
- How does knowing that God loved you first change the way you respond when your spouse disappoints you?
This Week
Set aside thirty quiet minutes with your spouse this week, away from phones and television. Each of you completes this sentence for the other, honestly and gently: “Something I need from you, which I may not have said clearly, is...” Listen without defending yourself. Then each of you chooses one specific, practical way to respond to what you heard, and does it before the week is out.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for loving me first, before I had anything to give You, and for receiving me in Christ as I am. Forgive me where I have measured my spouse against a picture in my head instead of loving the person You have given me. Teach me to pay attention, to notice what my husband or wife is carrying, and to choose the towel even when I am tired. Give me the courage to speak my needs honestly and the humility to hear the needs I have not seen. Clothe me with kindness, patience and love, the bond that holds everything together. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.