Just as a general principle – DO NOT bash your man to other people.
It’s not a wise idea. It is VERY disrespectful. Even if your boyfriend/fiance doesn’t ever find out about it – talking about him in a negative light sets off a series of disrespectful thoughts in your mind that will erode your respect for him over time. And the people you talk to may hold a grudge against your man or think ill of him for the rest of their lives. You can’t take those words back.
If he DOES find out what you said – he will be outraged and his trust in you will be shattered. Your words to someone else may well destroy your relationship with the man you love.
DISRESPECT IS CONTAGIOUS!
If your friends badmouth their boyfriends/husbands and badmouth other people in their life, YOU WILL BE TEMPTED to do the same! It is so easy to turn a wonderful time with our girl friends into a gossip-fest and man-bashing session that is extremely dishonoring to God, to ourselves and to our men. That is sin. It is ugly. It is destructive. It contributes to the breakdown of MANY romantic relationships. NOT WORTH IT!
Gossip is where we tell about other people’s business to people who have no need to know about it and who can’t do anything constructive with the information. Gossip is meant to hurt the reputation of the victim. It is mean-spirited and cruel. And it causes irreversible damage to many millions of relationships. Gossip does NOT honor God and is NOT what we need to be doing.
TALKING TO FAMILY/FRIENDS /COWORKERS ABOUT YOUR GUY DURING A FIGHT
I know that if you are having a fight with your man, it is really, really tempting to run to everyone in your life (other than him) and vent, running him down, telling them all about the awful way he treated you and how horrible he is. Then they will pat you on the back and sympathize with you and agree with you that he is Satan and you are a total victim. But you know what? An argument or misunderstanding usually has guilt on BOTH sides of the relationship. There is almost never one party who is 100% innocent. How much more constructive to focus on what YOU did to contribute to the problem and to try to work through it with God and your guy.
Telling everyone about how evil your guy is – is a recipe for disaster! When you make up with your man – your friends/coworkers/family won’t be there to see that. All they know is the awful stuff you have told them. They are not going to have the grace for your guy that you do. They don’t see the making up part. And, for some reason, we women tend to go into explicit detail about fights and drama and hardly any detail about the making up – I guess we aren’t upset anymore so we don’t feel the need to rehash every single little point over and over.
I would recommend having a godly, older woman (with good relationship experience) as a mentor and talk to HER about problems – someone who can help you see a more balanced view and help you understand his point of view, too -and who can identify YOUR sin, controlling tendencies and/or disrespect that may be triggering the whole problem. Try to keep the details of drama and disagreements to yourself around other people. If you are being abused or sinned against in a major way, you can ask your friends, family or coworkers for help – but they are going to try to protect YOU, not your guy, so don’t expect them to take up for him later. And don’t expect them to be happy if you get back with the guy after an episode like that.
I believe it is necessary to discuss the topic of how to respect your guy on FB.
There are SO MANY opportunities to disrespect your man on this medium. It is quite terrifying. And many women do a really horrible job of showing proper respect here.
- DO NOT talk about the details of your relationship on FB!!!! PLEASE!!!!! I am begging y’all!
- Complaining about your man’s habits, his diet, how he looks, how he dresses, who he is talking to, his job, his parenting skills, his romantic abilities, his faults, his bad habits, his hygiene, his snoring, his unthoughtful behavior is extremely disrespectful! And it makes you look awful. This reveals much more about YOUR character than it does about his.
- Do not go into detail about your sexual relationship or post pictures of you in bed. NOT APPROPRIATE! Even if you are married – it’s just not appropriate. You may not actually be having sex – but as a believer in Christ, we are to avoid even the appearance of evil and posting pictures of the two of you kissing with closed eyes in bed is going to make all who see the pic assume that you are having sex. This dishonors Christ greatly! He commands us to live in sexual purity and reverence to His Word. Our bodies are not our own. We were bought with a price. We must honor God with our bodies – and with our pictures and with our FB messages!
- I have seen countless women rage against their ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands and I actually pity the men in those situations for having to deal with a woman who is that hateful, contentious, prideful, disrespectful and ungodly. It makes the WOMAN look like she is out-of-control CRAZY. And it makes people hide your stories! No one wants to see that!
THE BIBLICAL MODEL FOR HANDLING IT WHEN SOMEONE SINS AGAINST YOU
If you are being wronged by your man – confront him respectfully. If he won’t listen to you – the Bible says for you to take 2-3 witnesses with you to confront him about his sin. If he still won’t listen, you are supposed to take him to the church and everyone is to avoid him until he repents. I haven’t seen many churches practicing this. But you may be able to do the other parts if you are in a situation like this.
Smearing him in public proves how far from God you are, how much hatred and sin is in your heart and how seriously spiritually immature you are. And it is obvious to everyone that you would treat ANY man who loved you this same way. This is an issue with your heart and soul. Your guy can’t MAKE you be disrespectful. He can sin against you and hurt you. But his sin against you just puts pressure on you and whatever comes out of your soul during that pressure was already in there before. He is just revealing your true character because of his sin against you. He isn’t making you sin.
So many women say, “I would be respectful if I had a good man.” That is a lie! If we are disrespectful or respectful has NOTHING to do with what our men do to us – it has everything to do with our spiritual condition and whether we are Spirit-filled or controlled by the sin nature.
BREAK UP WARNING
If you have a big fight and break up THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING you could EVER do is to trash him all over FB. If you write him a 1000-3000 word post on your wall and you verbally assault him and drag up every sin and flaw and everything he has done wrong for the past 5 years – you cannot fix the extreme carnage you have caused. You drug his reputation through the mud. You have made yourself look like pure evil incarnate. And if you EVER hope to get back together with this man – please understand, he may not be able to forgive you for the irreversible damage you have done to his reputation.
DISCRETION AND WISDOM
It is time for us to learn to have discretion – not sharing intimate details of our relationships with other people. And it is time for us to learn wisdom – keeping a hedge of protection around our relationships and valuing our men MORE than our desire to entertain our girlfriends with funny, sarcastic, biting criticisms of him.
While we are talking about discretion and wisdom. Please do NOT send sexy, immodest (in clothing or posture) pics of yourself to your man. Not wise. That could cost you a job later if he puts it online somewhere. And it could ruin your reputation. Let’s be women who conduct ourselves so that we honor Christ in all that we do!
God instructs us that he who holds his tongue is wise – and where words are many, sin is not absent (Proverbs). He also instructs us:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:29-32
If you would like to talk about your situation with me – you are welcome to comment.
Peaceful Single Girl 
November 9th, 2012 → 6:20 AM
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