by PAUL BYERLY | Feb 14, 2026 | Men&Women
Podcast: https://bit.ly/3MlQ19z
When I was in high school, most guys talked about women as a collection of body parts that could be used for a guy’s sexual pleasure. They told dirty jokes that stripped women of their humanity and dignity. They bragged about pushing a date to do more than she wanted to do. It was a gross, toxic environment, and I marinated in it for years.
It’s a wonder I can see my wife as a person, especially when she is naked. And looking back, I can see I fell well short of what is right with God when we got married. I felt entitled to sex because she’d said “I do”. I would have angrily denied that back then, but I can see it now. My attitude justified my anger at her for not servicing my sexuality as I thought she should. It was not the only negative sexual message acting on me, but it was certainly there, and it certainly caused problems for us.
Far too many adult men are stuck in high school thinking with regard to how they see sex. We are surrounded by men who feel sexually entitled, from powerful men who believe that sex is theirs to take from any woman they desire to incels who despise all women for being denied the sex they think they deserve just because they have a penis.
I want to talk to you about how this may be affecting your sex life. But first, I want to beg you to look around and get angry about it. Don’t accept it as how things are. God did not make women to be sexual playthings, and it’s not okay that any man sees women that way. Please don’t accept it, and don’t give men who promote the idea a pass. You don’t have to make a big deal about it, but you can make it clear you do not agree and don’t want to hear it.
If you have sons, please work to show them something better than what the world is teaching them about sex and women. Don’t just teach them about consent; teach them women have so much more to offer than just sex. It’s not enough to tell them the truth; you must identify what they hear from other sources as wrong.
As for you, unless you grew up unusually sheltered, you were exposed to a great many unhealthy, sinful, and downright evil thoughts about sex. Being exposed to such things as your sexuality was being formed means they get down in deep. This makes it difficult to see how they may be influencing you years later in your marriage bed.
Your best option is to ask your wife what she sees in you and experiences from you that she doesn’t like. Listen carefully, and don’t get defensive! I’m not saying everything she relates is right, but if it’s a problem for her, then it’s a problem for your sex life regardless of anything else. Once you have heard from her, pray and ask God to help you see the truth.
God created sex as a beautiful, wonderful thing. Humans twisted and perverted it. God’s way is superior in every way. Seek God’s way!
~ This is Paul, and our society does not help us Do Sex Well.
Yes, it says “Rabbit Retribution”.
When we had a house rabbit, it kept him from chewing things he should not.
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by PAUL BYERLY | Feb 13, 2026 | Men&Women
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4qAHa1J
Over on Quora, some guy was asking, “Why do women have it so much better than men in our society?” Most of the answers were from women who disputed his claim in strong terms.
Part of the common morning prayer for Jewish men is “Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe, who has not made me a woman.” Would you say AMEN to that? How many of the men who claim women are better off than men these days would want to be a woman? Probably none.
One of the scary realities of being a woman is that men are stronger than you. Years ago researchers looked at female college athletes and fratboy couch potatoes. They found the guys who didn’t work out had the same lower body strength as the women who trained hard. And they had greater upper body strength. Most men could best most women in a physical challenge. The next time a woman you don’t know treats you like a potential rapist, please see past being offended and think about the reality she deals with every day of her life.
Another place men are often stronger than women is emotionally. I’m not saying women are emotionally weak or silly. What I mean is men tend to be emotionally ‘thicker-skinned’ or harder. We push hard. We go after what we want, regardless of the cost to others. Most women are not emotionally equipped to do that, and those who try get called rude names.
Most women have been run over by a great many men in their lives. What’s really tough is most have been run over more than once by men they love and respect. Including their own husband.
Often the men doing this don’t mean to. They are just treating her the way they treat other men. One of the big lies of our age is that men and women are basically the same. In days gone by, men treated women differently than they treated men. Today we have far less of that, and women get hurt because of it. Listen, husband: even if you have a strong wife who can stand up to you emotionally, it’s not how she prefers to interact.
This is exactly why Peter’s instruction is so vital for us to hear today. When Peter told us women are the weaker vessel, I don’t think he was speaking primarily about our physical strength. Live in an understanding way and show honour doesn’t make sense if he is talking about muscles. He is talking about our drive, our force, our push. We are to understand that our wife is not the same, and we are to honour how God made her.
In the past, I regularly ran over my wife and didn’t even feel the bump. I hate that. And honestly, I still struggle to not do that. I don’t want to do it! How God has made me makes it so easy to do it without intent or awareness.
Do you need to adjust how you deal with your wife to live with her in an understanding way that shows honour?
~ This is Paul, reminding you that Doing Marriage Well looks different for every couple.
And so it starts…
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by PAUL BYERLY | Feb 12, 2026 | Men&Women
Podcast: https://bit.ly/3Zx9Ttf
As I was working on this week’s posts, my wife came in from working in the greenhouse. The eight-year-old girl who lives on the property was stuck in the mud. And she was really stuck! After I lifted her out of her rain boots and set her on a board I had brought, it took a good deal of my strength to pull her boots out. She probably could have gotten her feet out of her boots, but what then? Her next steps would have cost her her socks, and she would likely have become stuck again.
The situation is an apt metaphor for why I am spending a week ranting about how we treat women. Far too many women are stuck in the mud of culture, sin, and male selfishness.
I should clarify I don’t think the men reading this are horrible people. The kind of men who make the world more difficult for women don’t read blogs about doing marriage well. But not being part of the problem isn’t enough; we are called to be part of the solution. And to be part of the solution, we have to understand the situation.
There are women in the world who are dismissed as angry, raging feminists. No guy is going to listen to a woman who says the solution to women’s problems is to castrate all men. But here’s the thing: that rage is a wrong reaction to a very real problem. Most men don’t hear about the truth of being a woman in our society. The women around us don’t share the truth because they don’t want to be put in the same category as castration-advocating radicals.
Another reason we don’t hear the truth is female acceptance. It’s the world she lives in, and there is no reason to think it’s going to change, so the best thing to do is to accept it and live within it as best you can. Some women go further, to a place that looks a lot like a Stockholm Syndrome situation.
I’m sorry for how the world treats my wife. No, I am ANGRY about how she is treated. But I can’t change the world. I can listen to her and agree it’s wrong. I can choose to make our home a place where she is not a second-class citizen. I can honour her for who she is and for the gifts and calling God has placed in her. I can further make an effort to help her use those gifts and callings. And I can commiserate with her and comfort her when she is not allowed to do that. What I will not do is tell her to pull herself up by her rain boots when she is stuck in cultural mud!
Have you gone along with culture treating women in ways that do not honour God? Have you laughed at jokes that make God’s daughters things for male pleasure? Have you remained silent rather than speaking up? Have you ever risked your position or reputation for a woman because it was the right thing to do? You know, like Jesus did with the woman taken in adultery or the woman who washed His feet with her tears.
How can you advocate for women? How can you protect them? How can you make them feel safer and be safer?
~ This is Paul, and pulling a little girl out of the mud is the most important thing I did today.
The driveway needs more rock!
But at least we are getting nearly a dozen eggs a day.
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by PAUL BYERLY | Feb 11, 2026 | Men&Women
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4trtLf2
When I look at women, I see beings who are not like me or the men around me. When I say that, I’m not just talking about the physical differences men so enjoy. I see significant differences in how we think, process and function. I see differences in abilities, desires, and function.
Some folks deny most of the differences. Others say the differences are created by our culture. I know that these differences are deeply rooted in our biology. Culture can and does play a part. Most of the time culture exaggerates differences based on biology. Other times culture attempts to suppress or erase things that are in us. I believe God made our bodies and minds, which means they are as they are because He wanted them that way. He said it was good. So for me to feel differently is saying God made a mistake.
Men’s and women’s brains are significantly different. Male brains have more connections within hemispheres, while women’s brains have more connections between hemispheres. These differences mean men, as a group, are better at some things than women as a group. It also means women as a group are better at other things than men as a group. Men generally have better motor and spatial skills, while women generally have superior verbal memory and social skills. Culture tends to embrace and strengthen these differences, but they start with gender differences created by God.
Sadly, men have often declared that what they do better is more important than what women do better. This comes from pride, fear, or a desire to control. It certainly has nothing to do with God. When we devalue what women do well, we hurt and limit ourselves.
The biological design isn’t accidental; it mirrors the relational purpose God described from the very beginning. “In Genesis 2:18, God makes Adam a “helper suitable for him”. We have traditionally translated that as “helpmeet”. Frankly, that translation would be like saying Jesus was a good guy. It’s not false, but it ignores a much deeper and far more important truth. The words used in Genesis really mean a strong partner and even a rescuer. That is who God made our wives to be.
Yes, God has made an order in marriage. The Bible says that, and I believe it. But how we have traditionally understood that is contrary to what God said about women. The “weaker vessel” is still a powerful force who can do great things. Our wife can do great things for us well beyond cooking, cleaning, raising children, and spreading her legs. She is so much more than this, just as we are so much more than earning a living and protecting our wife and children.
Headship is not about controlling, limiting, or restraining. Headship is about serving and honouring. It is about protecting, but it is just as much about promoting. My wife has incredible gifts. She has helped and blessed so many people, and I love seeing how God uses her. I will not allow the fact that she has breasts to keep her from being what God made her to be.
Your wife has different gifts and callings, but she very much has gifts and callings. And our world pushes against her being what God called her to be because she is female. Please help her fight this. Be her advocate. Defend her right to be who God made her the same way you would defend against someone who tried to hurt her. I believe this is part of your calling as the man blessed to be her husband.
As an aside, while my wife gives a great deal to many, I am the foremost recipient of her gifts and generosity. This is how it should be in your marriage; you should receive more from her than anyone else, and she should receive more from you than anyone else. If this is not what the two of you have, you need to figure out why and work on changing it. Limiting what our spouse gets to give or do elsewhere is both wrong and destructive.
~ This is Paul, and blessing our spouse first and the most is Doing Marriage Well.
Scientific American | How Men’s Brains Are Wired Differently than Women’s
Lori Byerly | Why I Don’t Use the Words “Help Meet”
Speaking of planting a field, Lori’s been doing cleanup in the hoop house.
The left side has strawberries that limp through the winter and then take off before the outside plants break dormancy. It gives us an early batch of strawberries and plants to replace any that die outside.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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by PAUL BYERLY | Feb 10, 2026 | Men&Women
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4aKZH5N
So let’s talk about Proverbs 31. I know a lot of women hate the Proverbs 31 woman. But I think what they hate is who men have told them she is. What they hate is a false doctrine that lacks intellectual integrity and ignores basic hermeneutics.
I’m not going to do a line-by-line study here, but I do want to point out a few things, including some lines that make the Proverbs 31 woman a rebellious wife who does not respect her husband as she is supposed to! (All text from the ESV)
Verse 16: She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
Wait, she considers? She buys? Without getting permission from her husband? What a Jezebel!
Verse 20: She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.
Again she is spending money without checking with hubby. But she is doing what Jesus later commands us all to do in Matthew 25, so there is that.
Verse 24: She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant.
She runs her own business, apparently without her husband watching over her shoulder. What kind of a man is this guy?
Verse 26: She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
King Lemuel really should have clarified that she only teaches women. Of course, verse one tells us the king learnt this oracle from his mother, so he probably didn’t know better.
Verse 10: An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
Verse 30: Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
We are told nothing about how a Proverbs 31 woman looks. We know she takes care of herself, but she could be homely! And if she is good-looking, that’s not why her husband loves her. He must be a low-testosterone beta guy.
Okay, let me end on a serious note. All joking aside, when we look past the “rules” we’ve projected onto the text, we see some powerful things.
Verse 11: The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
Verse 23: Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.
These verses tell us about her husband, but they also tell us about her.
He trusts in her. Digging into the Hebrew, he has confidence in her and feels safe and secure with her. He does not assume she is good-willed; he knows she is. He can and does count on her.
Having no lack of gain is not about what the man does; it is about who his wife is. She blesses him richly, and because of her, he lacks nothing.
In ancient cities, the gates were large places with multiple small rooms built into them. The gates were where business and politics happened. It’s where you went to learn the latest news and where legal matters were decided. To be known in the gates and to sit with the elders of the land is a big deal. And at least in part, Mr. 31 has this recognition because of who his wife is and what she does. She makes him look good!
The couple I see in this passage does not fit what many of us have been told a godly marriage is supposed to be. As I tried to point out using humour, some of it is unacceptable by some standards. And yet, Proverbs sets this marriage as an example for us. Not a checklist to make sure we are doing it “right”; it looks to me like a framework for Doing Marriage Well.
~ This is Paul, and that Proverbs 31 chick has nothing on my wife!!
The pond now has an island of ice.
Widget has it figured out.
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by PAUL BYERLY | Feb 9, 2026 | Men&Women
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4aeMqmZ
This week is primarily aimed at the men. However, I would really like the ladies to read along and comment.
I want to talk about men and women and how we should interact, in general, and especially as husband and wife.
It is common to start a discussion of this nature among Christians by declaring oneself a complementarian or egalitarian. I can’t do that because I don’t belong to either camp.
Egalitarians believe that men and women are equal in value and have no gender-based restrictions on their roles in the home. Complementarians believe men and women are equal in value and worth but hold distinct, complementary roles, with men specifically ordained for headship in the home. Some take this pretty far; others take a more moderate view.
I am not an egalitarian because the Bible shows God sees us differently and expects us to do the same. I am not a complementarian because what some have made that, and how some have used it to limit and hurt women, is ungodly.
When I was young, I was fairly far down the hard complementarian path. If you are sloppy with scripture, it’s easy to build a biblical case for it. That, and let’s face it, if you’re a guy, what the hard complementarians teach is pretty appealing.
However, the more I studied what the Bible said and what had to be true based on what it said, the more problems I saw. Even when I read Proverbs 31, I saw a woman who was not what the complementarians say a godly woman must be. (I’ll discuss that later this week.)
More than anything, I want to be right with God. I want to know and live His truth. That is often not a fun path, but it’s the path I want. That desire has messed with a lot of my doctrines and ideas, and it has certainly had a major impact on how I see women and how I think I am supposed to treat my wife.
I realise this is a hot-button topic, and most of us have pretty set ideas. My goal this week is to get you to think. Examine what you believe. Pray and meditate on what you think about this issue. Ask God to confront you if any part of what you think falls short of His truth.
Seeking this truth isn’t just about being “right”; it’s about the real-world impact our belief has on others. I see our sisters in the Lord, our fellow heirs with Christ, suffering. I pray this series results in a few women suffering a bit less.
Before tomorrow’s post, please think about how you view your position and authority as a husband, and ask God to show you where that belief came from.
~ This is Paul, trying to do my relationship with God well!
Tilly has been accessing the loft by climbing a post.
After trying the stairs, she went back to using the post.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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