Hopefully I am responding to you all correctly. I am new to using this website so I’m not sure on how to work it yet.
overall I think the meeting with our pastor went well. He told me to not worry so much about correcting my husband on certain things day to day and not try to have control over certain situations. I should just speak words of love over my husband. He acknowledged that my husband screaming in my face was wrong and that my husband needs to learn how to love me better. There was a lot said so hopefully I am not forgetting things.
The pastor also mentioned something that my husband is again just taking and running with. One of the tools he gave us is that whenever we are trying to communicate with each other we should repeat what the other said back and ask if they understand. I mentioned that I will do that and that my husband will repeat my statement back at me and say he understands but his actions will not follow. The pastor said that me asking my husband if he understands me is manipulation and I shouldn’t seek to control him. I was completely thrown off by that and I didn’t quite understand it because I don’t want to control my husband and I really thought I was doing things correctly. I guess I should have asked him to clarify that but I was taken back. In the car that’s the one thing my husband fixated on and basically decided that I was a manipulator.
The pastor also spoke to us individually and he spoke with my husband for almost an hour before coming to get me. My private conversation with him was actually positive and insightful. He told me that God blessed me with the gift of administration and that my husband does not have that but I should not seek to correct things when in our daily lives things aren’t going according to plan.
so overall I think it went well but I am still a little confused on things.
Are you two going to be going back to the pastor to follow up?
Did the pastor tell you both to clarify things to each other, but disagree with the way you were doing it with your husband? Did he tell you a right way to clarify what your husband was after? There is a right and a wrong way to ask someone if you understand them.
I will not deny that there are women who consciously or unconsciously needle their husbands with their words or behavior, and I can understand a desire to de-fuse the reaction to that needling. But it needs to be understood that respect is a two-way street, even with a good complementarian model. How that respect and love is expressed will differ between husband and wife, with the greater emphasis given to wives giving respect and husbands giving love. But that respect that she gives and that love that he gives both come from the same root, and just as the respect she gives will not be devoid of love, the love he gives will not be devoid of respect. What is different between the two is the expression of what is given, not what is really given. 1 Peter 3:5-7 and Ephesians 5:22-33 are expressions between wife and husband of Philippians 2:1-8, and Philippians 2:1-8 should govern our interactions with all people, especially within the church. Everyone in the church is to give Philippians 2:1-8 to each other, man, woman, and child. How it is done is what differs. You don't love a child the same way that you love your spouse, and vice versa. But it all needs to come from the same place, the basic putting the other's needs into consideration above your own wants. (And no, this is not to be interpreted as remaining in a situation where your life is at risk - Jesus stepping up to meet our spiritual needs by dying for our sins is not the same as dying because abusive spouses think they need human punching bags.) My source on this: church elders who have been married to each other longer than I have been alive.
Now, there's a difference between giving that love badly, and not giving it. It is the responsibility of every spouse to give that love more consistently, and to give it better. If I want to give love in a way that the other person finds disrespectful, I have failed to give love even though I tried. If I am simply going by established rules of interaction to govern how I manipulate and hurt someone, I'm not trying to give love. As to which of those is happening in a given marriage, and how often, I can't always tell because I am human. I can't advise how to properly establish which is happening, especially in the heat of the moment, I know that the wrong way to do that will make matters worse, but I'm mentioning this because the difference is important.