How to Honor your Filipina Wife and Why

Honoring our wife is something God tells us to do, after it tells us to dwell with them in an understanding way. Much like love, I think honor needs to be shown by what we do more than what we feel. There is an article I will link in the description box that I wanted to share with you and another one I will link. Before I can honor my Filipina wife, I need to know what that means. Please subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea and I will do my best to help foreigners have a good relationship with a Filipina and to do that we will have to talk about some out of the ordinary topics. One of them is honoring this woman should you marry her.

I am going through a podcast series at lvbts.com about pornography right now, because you won’t be able to honor your wife if you are involved in that so check that out, the link is in the description box.

From the article I will link in the description box-a definition of honor-

“a valuing by which the price is fixed”

“deference, reverence”

We honor the position, not necessarily the person

“The Bible tells us to “Honour thy father and mother” (Ephesians 6:2) and when we honor our parents, we are honoring their position as our parents, not necessarily their person. It is the same way with a husband or wife. A wife is called to respect her husband’s position even if his person is not respectable. (Ephesians 5:33). A husband is called to honor his wife’s position even if her person is not worthy of that honor.

For most of us, while our parents may have been imperfect, they not only deserve to be honored for their “position” as our parents, but they also deserve to be honored for their “performance” as our parents.”

Me now-In a sense we are to honor our supervisor at work by virtue of their position (our boss) and their performance. We may not like them as a person, maybe they don’t always treat people with respect or fairly, however we must do what they ask us to do. They have a position we don’t have, and are paid more because of having a job with more responsibility and perhaps more risk. It’s the same way with parents as the author states-position/performance.

Another excerpt and disclaimer since he is going to talk about praise-“On the other hand – praising one’s wife does not mean we have to worship her or give her false praise for things she has not really done.  If your wife is frigid in the bedroom you don’t have to pretend like she rocked your world when she clearly just phoned it in.  And you don’t have to praise her for her sexual availability if she only allows you to have sex with her once or twice a month.”

“Remember that unlike the Agape love that is unconditional (love from the will, not based in feelings) that men are called to in the Scriptures to have toward their wives – praise is something that is earned by one’s actions.” The link has 12 ways to honor your wife. I will link the video “How to praise your Filipina wife” in the description box.

12 Ways to Honor your wife

1. Praise her faith This is something I need to do, as I hadn’t thought about praising her for this.

2. Praise her use of her talents My wife is bright and is good with gadgets and computers, things like that. She also likes to fix things and is resourceful. It is important to not criticize her or belittle her for not having particular skills.

3. Praise her submission

“Praise your wife for her submission to your headship, especially when it is hard to do. You might have to make a decision as the head of your home that she disagrees with, but when she recognizes your authority to so, and follows you even when disagrees – don’t forgot to show your appreciation for that. Don’t take that for granted.”

When my wife and I got married, she wanted to do the visa paperwork, perhaps to save money, perhaps to show me she is competent, however I just wanted to get it done and over with and minimize the risk of mistakes that could keep us apart longer or cause us to quibble and argue about things.

I am not overly impressed with the forms and questions as they seem antiquated and didn’t always make sense to me, so I insisted I hire someone to handle it for us. This was a tussle and I wasn’t expecting that. We talked about how important it was for me to do what I thought was best and that I would try to defer to her as much as possible but not with this. She finally relented and said she would submit to my desire in this area. I might have said thank you but I should have told her that I appreciated that she submitted to this despite how she felt.

4. Praise her wisdom

“Praise your wife for her wisdom, when she gives you advice that really helps you make a good decision and praise her when she gave you advice that you didn’t follow, but later you found to be right.”

My dream Filipina is good at helping me to calm down before talking to someone when she knows I am very upset or frustrated. Just last night she was jokingly remining me of the time I got scammed by someone claiming to be working for a Microsoft technical team, who was telling me I had something wrong with the computer.

It was one of those things where you are using the computer and then all of a sudden you get a message on the screen, your computer freezes and you think something is very wrong with it, so you get bilked out of money to get it fixed, when in reality there was probably nothing wrong with it. I am better at the next four ways to honor your wife.

5. Praise her cooking

“Praise her for every meal she makes, even if it does not taste good, praise the effort.”

6. Praise her care of your home

“Praise her, and notice when she cleans the house, even if it is done imperfectly.”

7. Praise her organization

“Praise her for how she looks out for your family, to make sure everyone has the right clothes and the house is stocked correctly.”

8. Praise her efforts to make herself beautiful

“Praise her whenever she fixes herself up, when she puts on makeup and nice clothes, never forget to praise her for this. Tell her she is beautiful.”

9. Praise her efforts to be sexy for you

“Praise her when she dresses sexy for you, or when she puts on lingerie, never take that for granted.”

I know how my wife feels about wearing certain things and we don’t agree on what is acceptable, so this can be a sensitive thing to talk about, if you want her to wear something that she isn’t comfortable with. Just be polite and explain why it is important to you but don’t pressure.

10. Honor her for respecting the importance of sex in your marriage

“Praise her when she initiates sex and show her your gratitude. Recognize her when you know she acted selflessly and had sex with you even when she was not in the mood.”

11. Make your children respect her position

“Respect your wife’s position as your children’s mother and authority. Don’t let your children undermine your wife’s authority, and unless they tell you something immoral or sinful she has done (something abusive or wrong) you need to back her.”

12. Protect her reputation whenever possible

“If you need to confront your wife about something she has done wrong, try to do this in private. There are some exceptions where confronting her behavior in front of others is appropriate. For instance, if your wife disrespects you in front of your children, it is appropriate to call her out on this in front of them so they will understand that type of behavior is not acceptable.”

If a husband does not live with his wife in an understanding way or in a considerate way, and doesn’t honor her, God makes a startling promise-He will hinder our prayers!

“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” – I Peter 3:7 (KJV)

I have personally experienced answered prayer I consider came from a God who knows me and understand me completely and it felt good, but here I need to know that how I treat my Filipina wife matters so much to God, that failure to be considerate and honor her for her position and performance will result in God deciding to not grant a request or to put it on hold. In another place in the Bible it says God will not hear us if we have unrepentant sin in our life. Oh, He hears alright, He just won’t respond. He will cast a deaf ear to prayers that don’t meet His conditions for answered prayer.

This point about hindered prayer is as important as anything else mentioned here but I think that verse needs no further elaboration.

I will have additional ways to honor your wife from another article I will link for you and add my own thoughts but that will be next time on Love Beyond The Sea.