What to do when spouses feel more like roommates than friends.

INSIDE: The best way to fight bitterness and build intimacy.

Author

SpurgeonBooks
January 02, 2026

THE GOD CENTERED HUSBAND

A Weekly Email to Help You Love God and Your Wife
By Doug Hanna

🧠 WISE WORDS

The duty of husbands is to love their wives. The love of Christ to the church is an example, which is sincere, pure and consistent, notwithstanding her failures.

Matthew Henry

đź’Ą WHAT IS A GOD CENTERED HUSBAND?

A God Centered Husband must be zealous for God’s glory. In all of life, including marriage, he longs for God to be glorified more than anything.

Are you a God Centered Husband? Have you allowed your preferences to dictate your decisions more than God’s Word?

🛠️ ONE QUICK TIP FOR MARRIAGE

What to do when spouses feel more like roommates than friends.

The best way to fight bitterness and build intimacy is to cultivate a heart full of gratitude.

  • Praise your spouse privately. Make a note on your phone of reasons you’re grateful for your spouse and add five things to it every day.

  • Praise your spouse intimately. Tell your spouse the things you love about them. Make a habit of celebrating them when you go to bed at night. Leave notes on the bathroom mirror or the coffeemaker.

  • Praise your spouse publicly. When we celebrate something publicly, it becomes more true to us, so tell other people THAT you love your spouse and WHY you love your spouse.

Don’t complain about your own spouse, or anyone else’s, even in private. While our spouses aren’t perfect, they really are a blessing from God himself.

đź“• ONE VERSE + ONE SENTENCE

“In this way they will pronounce my name over the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:27)

God puts his name on his people — he has chosen them and given them to himself.

đź“š RESOURCE HIGHLIGHT

Know God. Know his calling.

I put together The God Centered Husband Bible Study Workbook to teach men two things:

  1. How to be the husband God has called them to be.

  2. How to study the Bible for themselves.

If you want to grow in either of these things — grab a copy today.

This is a hands-on workbook that will have you marking up the pages, calling you to real life change, and (finally) understanding what God has called us to do as dudes.

Grab copies for yourself, a small group, or one-on-one discipleship.

đź’¬ A CONVERSATION STARTER

Ask this question and listen to what your wife has to say:

  • What has been stressing you (wife) out recently?

🔥 PRAYER FIRESTARTER

Prayer life feeling cold? Light it up again with this prompt:

  • God, help me to pray.

❤️ REMINDER: JESUS LOVES HIS BRIDE

Marriage is a picture of Christ’s relationship and his bride, the church. When we seek to grow as husbands, it can be easy to feel discouraged that we have failed to “love our wives as Christ loved the church” while forgetting that we are the bride whom Christ has loved.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word.” (Ephesians 5:25–26)

If you feel like an imperfect husband, Christ has not abandoned you. He came to cleanse you and make you holy. You will not be stuck in sin forever.