CLUELESS HUSBAND. CLUELESS WIFE.

Observing marriage in action is very enlightening especially as you get older. I am amazed at the cluelessness of married people. I call it cluelessness (which undoubtedly is not a word) but I think in reality, it is carelessness.

Amazement comes over me when right out where everyone can see it, spouses just don't get it. A wife is in an overload mode...getting ready to give a birthday party, running to the store, the dog barking incessantly, the kids needing a bath...and the husband is enjoying the football game on TV! Husbands come home from work after an especially hard day, choke down a frozen dinner, need a shirt so they iron one, take out the garbage, and the wife is engrossed in her emails for the day.

Wives do not pick up the message when their husbands say, "Let's get going, I have to be up at 3:00 a.m. tomorrow." They keep chatting even after 3 or 4 requests to go. Husbands play video games while the wife puts on a birthday party for one of the kids. Sometimes, they both work but the wife comes home to do laundry, cook a meal and plop into bed while the husband comes home to watch the news, eat the meal and plop into bed.

I'll make mention of this pretty often: one of the items on the list of signs of the perilous last days is that people will be lovers of their own selves. It's happening. People seem to be clueless as to the needs of each other. She needs a chair in the midst of a gathering. Used to be that the husband would never miss such a thing. Up he'd get and provide the chair. Not now. Used to be that a wife would notice that her husband was uncomfortable at such a gathering and she'd drop everything to stick by him. Not now.

I marvel at what I see and I want to stand up and holler. I'm sad and embarassed for that husband and I feel badly for that wife. Sometimes I find myself filling in for either one of them. 

In a way, we are all clueless. It's a mark of society. Do you notice when someone needs a chair and jump up to provide one? Does it ever hit you that someone you love looks really tired...or would you even know?

In the case of married people, I believe that compelling illustration of marriage being like Christ and the church is all but gone. The pastor speaks of it at the wedding; it will probably be the last time they'll hear of it.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

I think that when kids are four and five is the time to teach them to be watching out for the needs of others. When they are 10 and 11, it needs to be woven into the junior high way of life. At 16 and 17, it needs to become an expectation that guys treat the girls with care and same with the girls. And I think it needs to be preached from the pulpit without fudging!