Understanding Leadership in a Marriage

Understanding Leadership in a Marriage

It is important to understand who has various leadership roles in the marriage.  If you don’t understand what the different roles are you will have problems in a marriage.  It does take time to understand this, especially when you have been living on your own until you get married or since you have been divorced or even if you have seen other examples as you grew up or in your friends relationship.  It could be that you have never had the leadership roles correctly since you have been married and need to get them put in the right order.

The problem with leadership in the marriage is there are many who don’t understand what it should look like or for some reason don’t want to follow the right way when it comes to leadership.  There shouldn’t be a leadership struggle.  2 Samuel 3:1 says, “The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.” (NIV)  It is important to make sure you have your leadership in order for things to go smoothly.  In a Christian home it should be the husband who plays the main leadership role.

This doesn’t mean women don’t have leadership roles, but they are not the main leadership role.  For example, the women will be at home and taking care of the children, along with around the home.  The husband still has a strong leadership role, but the women are usually home more, so they play an important role.

It also means the husband and wife needs to talk.  By discussing the different leadership roles and who will be the one who uses them, you won’t have as many problems.  It is a good idea to also talk about why those particular roles are important and how to make them happen.  Also, as things change in the relationship or what is going on in life, it will be important to talk about how that will affect the leadership role.

Leadership roles include things like discipline, who makes what decisions, with or without talking to the other spouse and who gets the final say in what is going on or how money is spent.  Many of these things need to be discussed early on so when it does arise you already know how to respond, but if something comes up, be willing to take the necessary time to see what needs to happen.

The lack of leadership or the strong presence of leadership in a marriage can make all the difference in how well the marriage goes.  It should not be something that people in the marriage run away from, it should be something you look forward to.