If your husband is not leading, the answer is not to nag him, mother him, or quietly take over. The real work starts underneath the surface. Submission was never designed to be the starting point of a marriage; laying down your lives for each other is. That is what builds the trust his leadership requires.
Why “Just Submit Harder” Is the Wrong Advice
Plenty of women have brought this pain to a pastor or mentor and walked away with a single instruction: submit more. But that advice skips how Ephesians 5 actually works. The passage describes an ecosystem that begins with mutual submission and a husband who lays his life down like Christ. Submission is what thriving looks like inside that ecosystem. It was never meant to be the crowbar that forces a broken one to function. For the full picture of the design, start with What Does Biblical Submission in Marriage Actually Mean?
Here is a more honest diagnosis: if you find yourself unable to follow your husband’s lead, that resistance is usually an indicator light, not a rebellion problem. Something is going on under the hood, and almost always it is a breakdown of trust. You do not start with submission. You start by rebuilding what submission stands on.
And this struggle is common. We live in a culture with an epidemic of passive men and absent fathers, and many Christian wives are carrying homes their husbands have checked out of. If that is you, the goal is not to shame you into compliance. It is to give you a better starting point.
Why Taking Over Makes It Worse
When a husband will not fill the gap, a capable wife naturally rises up to fill it. It feels responsible. It even feels spiritual. But over time it slides into mothering him, and mothering is one of the fastest ways to kill both respect and attraction in a marriage.
Author Lisa Bevere tells a story from her early marriage, when she had fallen into exactly that pattern and was ranting to God about her husband. She sensed the Lord say: what is a yoke to you is a mantle to John. The weight she kept grabbing was crushing her precisely because it was never designed for her. It was designed for him, and her grip on it was keeping him from picking it up.
There is also a cycle at work. When a man feels disrespected, he disengages. When he disengages, his wife feels unloved and takes over more, which he reads as more disrespect. Around it goes. Somebody has to put the brakes on and name it out loud: we have to stop and take a breath. That interruption, not another lecture, is what opens the door.
How to Rebuild Trust First
Trust is built in small, repeatable deposits, not in one dramatic conversation. Pour into the emotional bank account of your marriage on purpose. A few places to start:
Invite his perspective instead of prosecuting his failures. “I want to hear how you see this” lands differently than “you never step up.”
Celebrate what he already carries. If a win at work or a decision handled well goes unacknowledged because you are keeping score, competition has replaced partnership. Competition brings out the ugliest version of both of you. Celebrating him is how you resign from it.
Hand back something you took. Pick one area you grabbed out of frustration and visibly entrust it to him again. Trust grows when it has room to be proven.
Get outside help early. Wise couples do not treat counsel as the emergency brake; they reach for it at every stalemate. If he will not go, go yourself. Working on your half still changes the whole system.
What Healthy Leading Actually Looks Like
Before you grade your husband as a failed leader, check the rubric. Leading is not booming spiritual pronouncements or making every decision solo. Ask a woman married 27 years and she will tell you her husband has never once made a major call without her. His leading looks like refusing to decide until he has heard her, because he knows his understanding is limited without her perspective.
That means a quiet man who consistently brings you in, keeps his word, and stays submitted to God may be leading far better than the stage version in your head. Do not measure a real husband against an imaginary one. Sometimes trust gets rebuilt simply by recognizing the leadership already happening in a form you had not counted.
What If Nothing Changes?
Keep asking the better question. In a standoff, the question is not whether your voice matters more than his. It is what the Lord is saying to both of you. Chasing His voice together reorders the whole argument.
Stay honest about the line. If passivity has become harm, if he is leading you toward sin, or if you are being abused, submission does not apply to that. Get safe people involved and get help. God’s design never requires you to endure destruction quietly.
And hold on to hope. The same man who feels impossible to respect today is often one season of rebuilt trust away from becoming a man worth following. Marriages do not change because a wife finally submits hard enough. They change because two people get back on the same team and start laying their lives down again, and that can start with you.
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Listen to the Full Episode
This post is based on an episode of the Let’s Talk About It podcast by Moral Revolution. Listen to the full conversation:
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Related Reading
- What Does Biblical Submission in Marriage Actually Mean?
- How to Have Hard Conversations in Relationships: 5 Scripts That Actually Work
- Christian Marriage Advice from Couples Married 30, 40, and 50 Years
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it actually mean for a husband to lead spiritually?
Spiritual leadership is not having all the answers or making every decision. It is a husband staying submitted to God, initiating toward Him, keeping his word, and bringing his wife into decisions instead of announcing them. Consistency and character count far more than volume.
Should I tell my husband I feel like he isn’t leading?
Yes, but frame it as an invitation, not an indictment. Lead with what you need and what you trust him with, not a list of failures. If the conversation keeps collapsing, bring in a counselor or a mentor couple. Outside help is wisdom, not defeat.
Is it wrong for me to make decisions in the meantime?
No. Healthy couples give the deciding voice in each area to whoever holds the stronger conviction or higher standard there, and plenty of those areas will be yours. The danger is not making decisions. It is quietly concluding you must carry all of them alone forever.
