As part of our In His Image series this fall, we sat down with Mike and Victoria, who shared their story of discovering gender roles in their home and work. God has changed their views over the years leading them to a place of flourishing and serving.
“Victoria was raised with the philosophy of ‘take no crap from a man,” Mike says. “Coming from a broken home at a young age, I was raised with models on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Those attitudes faced off in our marriage. Our relationship wasn't bad. It was good but it wasn't great. We were just two people trying to individually be a team, to both be the leader in a way.”
“I can look back at my families—I have two distinct sets of family—and the overriding theme was always hard work. Long line of laborers. You work as hard as you possibly can, and great things will come to you. On our first date, I told Victoria, ‘I'm going to Florida. I'm going to be a cop. If you want to go with me, great, and if you don't, this ends now.’ We tell that story as this kind of cool thing where we knew right away what we were going to do, but it shows you where my brain was: it had nothing to do with anybody but me.”
“It took me moving towards my faith to realize there's more to my role than working hard. It’s also necessary for me to work hard for other people. I've got these people that I need to take care of. You can't just provide and that's it.”
“I would say the same thing,” Victoria says. “Embracing my faith was when I started to understand roles better. When we first got married, I had no concept or teaching on roles in the home. My mom worked, she provided. My dad took care of the kids, cooked, and cleaned. That's not wrong at all, but it’s completely opposite of tradition. Also my mom was the leader in our home. I have her strong personality and am like her in a lot of ways.”
“When we got back into the church, I was a brand-new mom and one of the first things I did was join a Bible study. All the other women were retired or their husbands worked and they didn’t. I learned a lot just from seeing that. I learned a lot from seeing them embrace their faith and be in the Word. But also I learned from the way they talked about their husbands and their families, and it was very different than what I saw with other friends or in other environments.”
“Another thing for us was a marriage conference here at Calvary right after we started attending. That was a turning point. The pastor had a whole session on the biblical role of the husband and a whole session on the biblical role of the wife. It was very eye opening for us.”
“It was just like, ‘We’re doing it wrong,’” Mike says.
“It was a light bulb moment,” Victoria says. “Here's some ways that we need to communicate better. Mike needs to lead and embrace that. I need to follow his leadership and respect him. Those kinds of things.”
“Prior to that understanding, there was always some sort of surface tension,” Mike says. “I think it was two people who believed that they were one but trying very hard to be two people. And understanding roles switched that. The tension was broken as we became two people who are trying to be one.”
“It was a good shift,” Victoria agrees. “Also, right about that same time, I went to deeper counseling for some past abuse and dealt with some things that I hadn’t. That made a big impact. It helped a lot to be honest with Michael about things that I had not been vulnerable enough to share about my past. It helped him to have a better understanding as to why I struggled in some areas.”
“There was a lot of insecurity there,” Mike adds. “Especially that if I knew about the abuse, then that would somehow change my view of her. So it was super important that I throw myself the opposite direction—towards her—as hard as I could. I think that gained a lot of trust. That’s part of roles, too. I’m not just providing financially; I’m also providing shelter in a figurative sense.”
“A protector,” Victoria says.
She continues. “He's the leader in the home and I'm not, but I have value and input. I'm honored and invited to be a part of that. It's not always easy. I have to remind myself of it and remember he's the leader. He also has to remember, and he does, that he doesn’t call all the shots. But in the end, he's the one responsible for the decisions we make in our home for parenting and work and finances and all of those things. I didn’t understood that for a long time. For example, I do all the bills in the house. So back then I would make all the decisions about what to do with our money. That didn't work very well. I didn't always make great decisions, and he didn't always have my back because I rarely consulted him.”
Mike adds, “If you just take that one thing, financial decisions, that caused a valley that should not be there in a marriage. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing, and that's not good for a family.”
“For each of us, it made sense in our own minds that we would be the leader. When we understood roles better, it wasn’t ‘Aha, I’m the leader;’ it was more ‘Whoa, wait a minute. What do you mean I’m responsible for all of this?’ It’s a burden and you have to respond to burdens or they’ll beat you down. When I responded to it, then it became an honor to make those decisions for my family.”
“There has never been a moment since then where it’s been, ‘I’m the boss, that’s the way it’s going to be.’ It’s always, ‘Let’s talk about this.’ I think it’s incredibly important that men understand that this is not a power play. It’s the opposite. It’s about realizing the difficulties of leading and making hard decisions and then being able to turn to someone for their input and help and guidance. If there’s conflict or disagreement, I will make the decision, but I will make it with Victoria’s input at the forefront of my mind rather than my pride.”
“Sometimes you defer to me, and that’s huge,” Victoria says. “You’re giving up the final decision-making, but you’re still responsible for it when you defer. So you’re placing a lot of trust in your wife to make that decision, and then backing her up.”
“Carrying responsibility is easier when you’re a team,” Mike says.
“When there's clarity of roles and you're a team,” Victoria says, “you understand each other's viewpoints, preferences, and needs.”
“Something similar plays out in my work at the church, especially with Josh Reasoner and Jon Costas.” Victoria, Josh, and Jon are the 3-person lead team for Calvary’s staff. She oversees operations/administration, Jon oversees ministry, and Josh oversees vision-setting and teaching. “There is a clear definition of roles, we have clear leadership in the elders, but we're a team. We communicate with one another, we defer to one another, and we have that mutual respect for each other. That's a huge piece for a healthy work environment and a healthy church.”
“There is something I see almost every day in my work [law enforcement],” Mike says. “You probably see it in any male dominated work: leaders focusing heavily on mission rather than people. But when you find a leader who's focused on people rather than mission, the mission succeeds significantly better. I’ve been a leader for years, but I don't think that I had it right at work either until we were educated on this. Servant leadership is focusing on your people so that your people can do the mission. I find myself standing out as a leader in my organization because I’m service oriented. It’s easy for me to do that now because that’s what we do at home. It’s successful there and it’s successful at work.”
That servant attitude comes to church with Mike and Victoria too. “When we led a Life Group of young marrieds, we took them through the same resources we went through with the couple who mentored us,” Victoria says. “Now we do premarital counseling. We didn’t have that or that influence for the first 8 years of our marriage. You see the impact of doing it the wrong way and then you see the impact of doing it the right way, God’s way, and it’s a big difference. There is freedom in it. We want every couple entering into covenant marriage to understand roles and why God created us the way he did. They’ll flourish that much quicker.”
“When you’re pouring into other people or you’re modeling for other people, you stay on track better,” Mike says. “The things you know don’t have a chance to slip to the back of your mind, they’re always at the forefront as you lead other people to understand them.”
