It always "takes two to tango." It's very difficult to counsel you wisely with only half the story of what's going on between you. Obviously, no godly husband should ever be carrying on in the way you describe above. How is it that you married a man who behaves in such a way? How did you not see at least some hint of this sort of man in the lead-up to your marriage to him? Being married isn't a job!! Her husband is abusive. i feel as though you're victim blaming here.
This is a terrible contortion of God's word, a self-serving one, that ignores the fact that your husband does not occupy the same position as God does and that your husband is called in Scripture to love you self-sacrificially as Christ did for the Body of Believers, his Bride, the Church.
Ephesians 5:21-28
21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; (See also 1 John 4:7-11)
See verse 21? Believers are to be "subject to one another". Even the Elders of the Church are not to "lord" it over the communities they lead:
1 Peter 5:1-3
1 Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed,
2 shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness;
3 nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.
Your husband is to be to you an example of Christ his Saviour, humble, gentle, loving, just, truthful, gracious and kind; like an Elder of the "flock of God," not lording it over you, but demonstrating in his godly conduct toward you the character of Christ.
As a new husband, your spouse may be feeling inadequate to meet all of your expectations of him and his just-respect-me thing may be his way of securing himself against these feelings. I used to teach a martial art and we had a saying in the training hall: "The empty barrel makes the most noise." When a person is confident in their skills as a fighter, they have a relaxed, quiet, assured manner; always it was the insecure person, unsure of their fighting skills, who would bluster and chest-thump, trying to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy with a lot of aggressive noise. Sound familiar?
Are you acting to make your husband confident that, succeed or fail, you are committed to him and love him? Or, when he doesn't meet your expectations, do you subtly scorn him, letting him know in various ways that you're very disappointed in him, maybe even giving him a bit of the cool - if not cold - shoulder? To one who is eager to please you but deeply insecure about being able to, this sort of treatment will be intensely troubling and provoking.
Then again, maybe your husband is just a power-mad jerk. It's impossible to say from such a removed vantage point.
Whatever the case, you are not relieved of the same biblical commands to love your husband self-sacrificially that he is under in dealing with you. Too often these days Christians will counsel you to flee your husband, to drop him as fast as you can, when things get ugly. Is this what Christ did? Is his example to you to forsake your husband when he behaves badly? We'd all be in very serious trouble if this was the sort of contingent, self-serving "love" Christ had shown for us.
1 John 4:10-11
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Colossians 1:21-22
21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds,
22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—
Romans 5:6-10
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
How do we love like this? Often only in the relational crucible of marriage do we learn to do so. Our spouse may push us well beyond our capacities to love like God loves us. And when this happens, God does not say to us, "Ah, well, just dump him and run." No, He holds out to us His love in the Person of His Spirit and says to us, "Submit to me in all things (James 4:7), be a living sacrifice to me (Romans 12:1), and I will fill you with Myself and be for you what you cannot be for yourself." (1 Peter 5:6)
Your "job" as a wife is to be more and more like Christ, to be the hands and heart of God to your husband. And this is your "job" even when your husband is not doing the same toward you. When you are meeting each other as vessels filled with the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, your marriage will be incredible, the best, most exciting and satisfying relationship you will ever experience.
But you will not be able, when you stand before Christ, to make your lovelessness toward your husband, your anger toward him and your rejection of him his fault. There will be no finger-pointing and saying "I was a miserable wife because he was a miserable husband!" That's not going to wash. You have the same access to the awesome transforming power of God that your husband does and you are just as responsible for placing yourself under, and in, the flow of that divine power so that you may love your husband even when it hurts.
And hurt love does! Even for God it hurt. Just look at the cross of Calvary on which Jesus died. This is the great challenge of love: It costs us to love - sometimes a very great deal. This is never more true than within the bonds of marriage.
