February is the month of love. Valentine’s Day is February 14th and the stores have been filled with aisles of cards and candy in different shades of red, pink, and white since the day after Christmas.

This month, Fightin’ Poseidon will be diving into the forbidden waters of the intertwined relationships between men and women. We started last week with the first guest post of this newsletter, Surgeon’s Sight, and now we’re continuing on. I do realize that not everyone who reads this is in a marriage, but single, married, divorced, widowed… we can still be a light to those we love who are in those relationships. Your story hasn’t reached its final page yet.

Why does that matter? The family is not an accident. The family is God’s design to spread His goodness and loving kindness throughout the world, which is why it’s a point of attack. The Bible isn’t shy about describing the spiritual forces that would delight in the familial breakdown. I mean, how much chaos have you seen manifested in families gone wrong?

This post is diving head first into romance and was largely inspired by the first two essays in Present Concerns by C.S. Lewis, a collection of essays assembled by Walter Hooper.

Let us start with the men.

Us guys bear primary responsibility in the family unit, so let’s take the long look in the mirror together first. Take this comfort: I’m also speaking to myself, brother in arms though weakness and suffering, so let’s go.

What do you know of chivalry, men? As is the case with pretty much everything in life, we are in danger of falling into one of at least two ditches on either side of an ideal. When zeroing in on the ideal, the archetype Lewis sets his sights over is a paradox.

The ideal is Sir Lancelot, the knight of King Arthur’s table. One on side, he is the knight, a man of blood and iron who displays fearlessness in battle, slaying men who beg for quarter or killing them at his leisure. On the other side, when honored in the court, he sheds tears and is almost maiden-like. He is not a man in balance. He is wholly fierce and wholly meek. He is not on a spectrum; he manifests both extreme ends of it.

The ideal is a tall order for men. On the ditches, we either fall into being mighty in battle but unable to be meek in the court, or meek in the court and then useless in battle. God forbid to split the negative of both ditches where they manifest into one man.

This Lancelot character is not natural for us, as Lewis points out that this type of man who combines both characteristics is a work of art. The true warrior poet.

I believe most men know this is the ideal and strive imperfectly for it, yet become disheartened. This is not an overnight change, and for it to come without the work of God in one’s life, I see it as an impossibility for He is our perfect source of humility and courage. If we attempt to become the ideal apart from God then our only ladder is pride as we attempt to build a forbidden tower into the sky.

Yet, we still try to do it on our own, even though many of us know better. We do not go to Him in prayer, seeking wisdom as Proverbs 8 (which you can click here for a study guide on), and try to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and our own effort and our own wisdom (or maybe the wisdom of podcasters and influencers and… newsletter writers. Be a good Berean and test everything I type). When we do that, we’re setting ourselves up for the ditch of failure.

Just typing that out, all I can think of is Paul in his letter to the Romans: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death!”

In either of those ditches, I believe we can make ourselves susceptible to becoming the objects of contempt to our wives. Contempt is corrosive and will eat holes in your ship no matter where it grows. We will tempt a serious slippery slope in exasperating our wives to contempt if we become strong with her and meek to the world around us. Then we become the third way man I said God forbid we become. Such a man needs to be rebuked by his friends and pastor, if he has not isolated himself from the accountability of such men.

And now we come to you, ladies.

It is never acceptable in any circumstance to beat up on women, which most men know and if they do so, it makes them rightly deserving of contempt. If other men confront them and they refuse to repent, such a violent at home man should be shunned.

Women are moral agents, capable of deep love and deep harm, just like men are. Scripture honors women with a high view of their worth, because as men are called the image of the glory of God, women are honored as the glory of man (1 Corinthians 11:7). That makes them the glory of the glory.

Yet, we live in a moment where honest speech about responsibility and accountability can feel like an attack because it’s clear. Men are used to this kind of tension; women, in many spaces, have been spared from it, which has often brought unintended consequences.

I’m not writing this to provoke anyone or score any manosphere points. I’m writing it because you deserve more than flattery or fragility. The Bible tells us that faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6). Sometimes faithfulness requires naming what quietly corrodes love, even if we’d rather eat a box of nails than hear anything uncomfortable.

If that feels weighty, it’s because it is. We bear the weight of one another’s glory and the backs of the proud will be broken, as Lewis writes else where. However, just because there’s weight to it doesn’t equate with condemnation. Guilt is a real thing and when it’s not handled in the right way, it can trap us in quicksand to prevent us from making actual forward movement. The point I’m trying to make isn’t to keep score of who wronged who; 1 Corinthians 13 clearly tells us love doesn’t do that, and 1 John 4:18 also tells us that perfect love casts out fear. The journey before us and the effort it requires, together, under the wisdom of Scripture, is to understand what love actually requires of us if it’s beating heart is to keep pumping with life.

Many of us are trying to keep intimacy alive while, knowingly or not, starving the very conditions that make it possible. This is why I find C.S. Lewis helpful. He isn’t flattering us or treating us like we’re fragile; he’s naming the problem beneath the problem. Lewis under understood that love, particularly eros, is not sustained by pressure, leverage, or self-protection. Love is vulnerable. Love risks something real. Before we can talk about how marriages drift, quiet contempt forms, or silent mutiny grows, we have to understand what desire is and what subtlety kills it.

Which brings me back to C.S. Lewis and Present Concerns.

Before I quote Lewis again, I want to be clear that what I am, and what I’m not, talking about. The statements that follow are not about your moral worth, ladies, nor are they an accusation. There’s enough pressure on you already for that. What I’m aiming for is a relational state that can occur without anyone intending for it to go this way.

I’ve often written about the different forces that can shape and influence us, whether they be spiritual, cultural/social, or internal. Comparison and constant evaluation come at us from every direction. There are so many voices telling you how to be, how to parent, how to work, how to educate, how to disciple, how to desire, and how to not need anybody at all. Over time, those voices create a fog that can cause even the most well-intentioned person to run aground. Online comparison conjures up accusation and guilt like nobody’s business. Pinterest perfect homes and mommy blogs, anyone?

I believe you want to be loved, to be seen, to be understood, to be cherished. I believe you want to be known by your husbands, which is why Scripture commands them to live with their wives in an understanding way. When the days are long, the demands are heavy, the questions come like a barrage, and your mental bandwidth is exhausted, foxes can start sneaking into the vineyard of your romance. Self-protection can start to feel safer than openness.

It’s here, where we try to measure up instead of embrace the dynamics God has made us with, that we can begin to short circuit the very things we want the most.

Here, Lewis is specifically looking at eros love. He’s not arguing for domination or coercion, but for the recognition that we can get in our own way of the ends we’re desiring. Men bear a responsibility to protect eros, and desire can not be commanded. Does Lancelot desire the compliance without the affection and heart? Barbarians and monsters might, but the true warrior desires it rightly, with heart and affection. This is not a call for women to carry the marriage alone or a denial of male failure. This is an attempt to name a state that many marriages can and have drifted into. It’s not because we intend to be cruel to one another. More often than not, it happens under the weight of exhaustion, disappointment, and unspoken expectations. While resentment and contempt may be understandable, they are still destructive. We have to ask what ends we’re working towards in our own homes and hearts. Healing requires humility, patience, and shared premises. Without purposeful guidance, couples can drift, but with vision, we can sail towards greater horizons together.

Another trap couples can fall into is that affection must be earned. Quid pro quo will never work, unless you’re aiming to amplify and escalate an argument. Having to constantly earn your spouse’s affection traps you in an endless loop of functional works-righteousness with them, where love is only given if you’re deemed worthy. When we give freely because Christ has given himself to us freely, then we might finally make progress to true intimacy.

In a marriage, neither party was meant to carry the burden alone. It takes two laying down their defenses and resentments and hurts and self-protective instincts before the Lord and asking Him to bear the weight. Having a “Christ centered marriage” is an easy thing to say, and people have said it easily, but in practice it costs more than you ever think it will. It doesn’t only confront our behaviors: it confronts our fears.

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then learning to trust His ways, especially when they run counter to our guarding or controlling instincts, isn’t about avoiding punishment. We can believe that His wisdom is higher than ours, ultimately working for our good, even if it costs us comfort. As Lewis said elsewhere in The Four Loves, to love at all is to be vulnerable.

Why go into all this? As I said in The Helm, the family is a point of attack. The mutterings under your breath, the cold shoulders, the impatient demands, the raised voices, the record of wrongs kept, and the grace withheld… all of that is like joining the legion at war with God and therefore at war with you and your marriage.

Rather, we can rely on God’s strength. Christ being our ballast gives us more than sea legs that keep us from nausea. By relying on God’s strength and armoring up against spiritual attacks that strike at the heart of our homes, we can push back the darkness and be the light in the world we’re called to be.

All of these wars begin in our hearts before they extend to our homes.

Men, does truthworthiness, strength and honor flow to those who are in your care from your actions? Women, does the river of the Lord’s life flow into the world around you through your actions? Guard your heart. It is the wellspring of life.

If you have a story you’d like to share with others in this space to encourage them how you learned Christ is your ballast and allowed you to keep standing when your marriage was under attack, hit reply, type it out, and let me know if you’d like to be named or share it anonymously.

This was a heavy piece. If you’re still reading, thanks for staying on deck with me.

There’s a real breakthrough if a husband and wife can look each other in the eye and both admit, “Either of us could destroy this at any time.” That’s humility. That’s understanding that death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and our marriages can be a powder keg read to blow, only waiting for the spark from an ill-timed word (James 3:6).

If you blew it this week, whether in explosive anger or silent contempt, take your sins to the Lord and ask Him to forgive you, for they’re first and foremost against Him (Psalm 51). Then, steadied with Christ as your ballast, talk to the one you blew it with and ask them to forgive your sins.

It may not be the way it was, but it may also be something new.

As Andrew Peterson sings in his song in his song We Will Survive, “It’s only when the straight line breaks and heals a little crooked that you ever see the grace.”

Stay Anchored and keep fighting the good fight,

~ J.P. Simons ⚓️

PS: If you haven’t already ordered it, please check out my first book, Pray Then Plow: Practical Steps For Men Who Won’t Give Up.

For this week’s Deep Dive, I’m providing both the audio essays for each of the C.S. Lewis quotes I mentioned in this article.

And since I’m dropping videos from content I’ve mentioned…