She kicked out her hip and leaned heavily on her chair, shifting her nose up and setting her glasses just so on her face as she uttered in an exasperated, haughty tone, “He should’ve known better!”

Her eyes were limned with pleading, her posture sunken, “Doesn’t he know better?”

She stood tall, hands on hips, nose scrunched in rage and derision. “He knows better,” she demanded with the punctuation of a stiletto heel heavy on the wood floor.

You’ve likely encountered many of these situations, stared down the feminine fury of them. Maybe all of them. But what is it that you were supposed to know? And how in the world, were you supposed to know it?

The Impetus

As with many of my musings, this starts with a conversation at – you might have guessed it – a coffee shop. I had been trying (and failing epically) to write on the concept of a beautiful death. My community lost someone recently, and after part of the funereal procession, I have been disconsolate – restless. I had my hat pulled low, headphones over my ears, and focus music blaring as I tried to force words onto the page. I sat on the second floor of Morning Brew in Kailua, HI (which consequently is a place I highly recommend). I was fighting back tears (and losing) as I struggled through the emotions around the whole event. A table of four young ladies next to me very politely pretended they noticed nothing of my distress, but I couldn’t focus. I finally gave up after maybe thirty minutes of the writer’s equivalent of a dry cough, lots of painful effort but no progress.

That’s when I took off my headphones and let myself (rudely) eavesdrop on the table next to me. Apparently it is “breakup season.” The ladies were commiserating over their various woes (and real pain that I do not for a moment diminish). Some day I will likely write a longer series on romance in America, but that is for another time. In this case, one of the gals brought up a particular issue and finished with a kind of mix of astonishment and anger at what her paramour had done. I confess, it gave me an eyebrow raise as well, but, with a splitting migraine on my way home opening up my psyche to the possibilities of new perspectives, I started to think on it more. Where are the gaps in what we ought to know? And, perhaps more importantly, how do those gaps get filled?

I’ve noticed the trend of this kind of judgment about what one ought to or ought not know, but except in cases of extreme moral behavior (vis a vis – murder or the like), they are often over relational foibles rather than true moral concerns. Yet they carry the weight of an almost moral indignation. They range from “he should’ve known to never wear a black belt with brown shoes,” to something along the lines of, “how could he possibly think it was right to confront my coworker who I complained about in that way?” There are myriad variations here, but I want to make clear this isn’t about what we ought to know morally, but rather what it seems is expected of us socially as men and as people. In a world largely disconnected, where are we supposed to learn that other than the hard way, of stepping on the relational landmine and hoping it doesn’t blow up the whole thing?

A Quick Aside for Women

I don’t generally write for women. They aren’t first in mind as my audience because I don’t know your experience, but I put an aside here for you before I continue. Please, show a little grace to those men who step on the relational landmines. We often don’t know better (even though we “should” this is about bridging a gap not simply lamenting the gap). We were never taught better because many of our fathers didn’t teach us, or we didn’t have fathers in our lives, or we picked up the wrong things from media and other places. I emphasized a little, because it takes wisdom and discernment to extend grace for things that really are fixable versus things that are fundamentally destructive – like cheating. Don’t stand for that, and neither will we.

Back to the Men

Now, for the men. I am not going to give you some drivel about emotional intelligence or getting in touch with your feminine side. To be a good man is to be a good man, to embody the principals and design of manhood. Part of that is accepting mistakes when they are truly yours, and taking steps to correct them, as well as being kind and gentle with those who otherwise wound us. The ladies will never know what it is to be undermined the way a man is. They know what it feels like for them, but can’t for us. Just like we can’t for them. Stop trying to reach understanding and start trying to reach trust. That is the advice for men. You can tie yourself in intellectual knots in the attempt to understand exactly why the woman you love is acting (or not acting) in a particular way. You can take your practical guy brain and try to force the issue to a conclusion – which will almost certainly result in a fight and at least one relational landmine moment – or you can develop trust by being steady.

The best way to produce trust for the ones you love is for you to be steady. Consistency (predictable and measured responses to various events and problems) and constancy (firm, dependable loyalty) are the hallmark of the steady man. The stoics talked much about this, but the stoics fail in that they seek the kind of internal control of self that is defined by the self. That is as futile as a toddler trying to solve the three-body problem in physics with an abacus. In order to have a foundational steadiness, a dynamic balance (which I wrote about here) you have to be rooted in the Word of God. It is not that you need to increase your trust in your partner first, but rather trust in God. Trust in God and consistently apply His Word to your life and stability will result. You need to trust (and build trust with) the woman you love of course, but you cannot place your trust in the woman you love. This goes for any relationship, but is especially important for romantic involvement. People change (and it’s brilliant that we do, because otherwise we could not grow and learn and become better), but God never does.

In short, if you don’t trust God, you’ll never be stable and she’ll never be able to trust you, because trust placed anywhere else is trust placed in changeableness. Trust placed in the Lord is hidden away in immutability. I am a man and can always be moved in some way. God, cannot be moved. He cannot be destabilized or thrown out of His groove. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He is the eternal source of stability.

Alright I hear you, What’s the Point?

What does this all have to do with these non-moral strange relational issues we face? How does that help me with landmines with my loved ones, my wife, my daughters, my [insert relational concern here]? When we see God as our source of stability, and act faithfully according to His Word because we place our trust in Him, it is possible to reframe the relational landmines into relational lessons. We can be teachable and humble in areas where we were and are wrong. We can also be firm and steadfast in areas where we weren’t wrong in a particular action and can weather the storm of our loved one being in the wrong. We can calmly re-assert our trust in the Lord no matter the circumstance. In all this we gain wisdom. To be in relationship with other people is to wrong and be wronged, each another opportunity to glorify the Lord by being forgiven and forgiving. Chasing the “why” of a particular behavior, to seek understanding in a purely rational sense, will lead down a rabbit trail, but to seek trust in the Lord and to cultivate that in every relationship through consistency and constancy is the way to be the stable man who can lead with wisdom.

So, I think there are three things that you “ought to know” in the complex relational space and some associated “ought to dos”.

1). You ought to know, you suck at this. That’s part of living after the Fall. You are going to screw up and not know what to do in almost every case.

What to do? Keep trying. Ask forgiveness where needed. Seek Wisdom. Persevere, and Learn

2). You can’t control the outcome. You can only control your actions and responses.

What to do? Focus on doing what is right in every circumstance. Act according to good conscience on the principle of God’s word in every case. Let God take care of the outcome.

3). You serve a Lord who gives wisdom generously to all without finding fault (James 1:5).

What to do? Put down your pride and ask Him (and His people) for help. Not only shouldn’t you do this alone, you can’t do it alone. Wisdom doesn’t just get deposited like a check to your bank account (unless maybe you are Solomon, but even he didn’t end all that well once he was led astray by his pagan wives).

Place your trust in the Lord your God, and you will never be put to shame.