Marriage is a sacred thing, and any Christ-following married man keeps it that way. His relationship with God dictates how he will relate to his wife, and his relationship with his wife will shape his relationships with other people, particularly women.

Friends, I am writing on behalf of my fellow married Christian men. We all want to honor God and love our wives the way Christ loved the church. We may not say it, but we seriously want to tell our unmarried sisters, the single women in the church and outside it:

Respect our wives and our marriage.

Why this?

We Christian husbands desire the best for our wives. We desire to protect them, keep them safe and provided for, always make them happy, cherish them and lavish our love on them. And this kind of love is reserved only for one person: our respective wives.

As such, we want to keep our marriages sacred. We want to keep our marriages flying high. And we also want to see the next generation of married men and women enjoy the beauty of marriage the way God designed it to be: precious, priceless, and full of joy.

This article is written to help married men enjoy their marriages, for their wives to be more secure, and for single women to be guided and taught commonly unspoken standards that should be respected.

What married Christian men want from single women

What do Christian husbands want from single women? Here are a few that Christian husbands may not say out loud, but actually want.

1) For them to honor our wives

Many single women who like married men tend to ignore the wives of the men they admire. This is very wrong. The Bible tells us of marriage,

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

As such, whatever is done to our wives is actually done to us. If our wives aren't respected or honored, we are disrespected and not honored as well!

Ladies, we ask that you honor our wives. In fact, we desire that you would honor them more than you would honor us, their husbands. They are precious to us, and any disrespect for them won't sit well with us.

2) For them to desire friendship with our wives, not us

We desire that every woman who wants to be our friend should befriend our respective wives. In fact, we desire that if any woman wants to befriend us, she should instead befriend our wives and not us.

Why is that? It's because our wives are our female counterparts. If we are one with them, it naturally follows that anyone who wants to befriend us should befriend our wives. If any woman wants to befriend us but can't do that to our wives, we'll automatically be cautious of that and say "no."

Sisters, it would be a great joy for us that women would desire to befriend our wives, not us.

3) That they'd leave our wives and marriages alone

Ladies, no offense, but we are happy with our marriages, with the woman that God gave us to be our partner in life, period. I know this sounds proud or offensive to some, but it must be said:

Please leave us alone with our wives.

Some single women can try to catch the attention of the man they admire - sometimes without even realizing they are doing it. While any God-fearing husband will ignore it, these women need to realize two things: that they don't have a place in the married man's life, and that he's not what God wants for her.

Sisters, here's a better option: choose to pursue the love of God for you.

God alone can give you the love that you need, the attention that you want, the care that you desire. A married man is not an option for that; God is. He loves you, and wants to give you His best.

Who knows? Perhaps at the right time, God will give you your own husband who will love you. Just leave our wives, us, and our marriages alone.