Have I Loved My Husband Well?

Dear Friend,

One cannot speak of well-ordered love without also speaking of the love a wife is called to have for her husband.

And on this very day, the eve of my nineteenth wedding anniversary, this bride cannot help but wonder: Have I loved my husband well? And what does it truly mean to love him well? What did God intend when He formed Eve from the very bones of Adam? What is the role of a woman, my role, not merely in service, but in love?

Curiosity, as it so often does, has once again gotten the better of me, and I find myself tumbling down another rabbit hole, descending deeper into the depths of Catholic theology, Sacred Scripture, and the lingering words of saints long departed from this earthly realm.

And because I count myself a dear friend to you, sweet sister, I would be remiss not to share with you what I have uncovered thus far.

1. A Wife Must Love Her Husband Toward Heaven

The first truth I uncovered, dear sister, is perhaps the most sobering of them all: a wife is not merely called to make her husband feel loved. She is called to help him become holy.

How strange that sounds against the noise of the modern world, which speaks endlessly of romance, attraction, chemistry, fulfillment, and emotional satisfaction, yet so rarely speaks of sanctification. And yet, the deeper I wandered into Catholic theology, the more I realized that Holy Matrimony was never intended to be merely a lifelong romance. It is a sacrament. And sacraments exist to transform souls.

Marriage, then, is not simply about companionship. It is about refinement. Exposure. Purification. It is one of God’s chosen instruments for sanding down pride, selfishness, vanity, impatience, harshness, and disordered love. The vows spoken before the altar are not merely promises of affection. They are, in many ways, the opening lines of a long and sacred surrender.

And perhaps this is why marriage can wound us so deeply at times. Not because it is failing, but because it is revealing. Revealing the parts of ourselves still untouched by grace.

For years I believed loving my husband well meant supporting him, encouraging him, comforting him, remaining loyal to him, and certainly these things matter. But Catholic theology asks a far more frightening question: does your love help lead him toward God?

Not toward comfort.

Not toward ego.

Not toward dependence upon you.

Toward God.

The wife is not called merely to orbit her husband emotionally, nor to become a silent extension of his desires. She is called to walk beside him as a companion in sanctification. A fellow pilgrim. A keeper of covenant. A soul entrusted, in part, with helping another soul reach Heaven.

And suddenly love becomes much weightier than sentiment.

The saints and theologians speak of love not primarily as feeling, but as charity. To love someone is to will their good. Not always their immediate happiness, but their ultimate good. Their eternal good. Which means a wife loving her husband well may sometimes look less like indulgence and more like patience, honesty, gentleness, prayer, sacrifice, forgiveness, encouragement, restraint, or even correction offered with tenderness.

For real love does not ask: “How can I keep this person attached to me?”

Real love asks: “How can I help this person become more fully who God created them to be?”

And this, dear sister, is where I found myself lingering longest beside candlelight and Scripture pages.

Because suddenly I began to understand why Saint Paul compares marriage to Christ and His Church. The husband is called to love sacrificially, as Christ loves. And the wife, in turn, reflects the devotion, fidelity, and receptivity of the Church herself. Marriage becomes something mystical then. No longer merely domestic, but deeply theological. An earthly icon of divine realities.

Even the home itself begins to change under this lens. The Church calls the family the “domestic church,” and I do not believe we have fully grasped the depth of those words. A wife shapes the atmosphere of a home in ways both seen and unseen. Through her presence she often sets the emotional rhythm, the tenderness, the peace, the warmth, the mercy, the beauty. Not in the shallow aesthetic sense modern women are often sold online, but in a deeply spiritual one. The condition of a home frequently mirrors the condition of the hearts dwelling within it.

And perhaps this is why the enemy works so tirelessly against marriage. Because holy marriages reveal something terrifyingly beautiful about God Himself.

They reveal covenant.

Faithfulness.

Mercy.

Self-sacrifice.

Communion.

Endurance.

The slow and sanctifying power of love that remains.

But there is another danger hidden here too, one Saint Augustine warned of long ago: disordered love.

For a wife may deeply love her husband and still love him wrongly. She may make him an idol. She may cling possessively. She may seek in him the security, identity, peace, or worship that belongs to God alone. And this is not holy love. It is love out of order.

A husband was never meant to replace God. He was meant to walk beside his wife toward Him.

And so perhaps loving a husband well means this above all else: to love him faithfully, tenderly, and sacrificially, while never forgetting that both husband and wife belong first to Christ.

And yet, dear sister, this is only the first truth uncovered beside candlelight and turning pages. There is still much left unsaid regarding the sacred mystery of marriage, rightly ordered love, and the role of a wife within God’s divine design. If you would care to wander further down this theological rabbit hole with me, I invite you to continue reading the remaining six truths over on my Substack, where this letter continues in full.

With Love,

Ophelia