A husband’s prayer life can be short-circuited by his relationship with his wife. Peter wrote that husbands are to dwell with their wives “with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).
“Hindered” often means “to cut down a tree.” The picture is that an arguing couple’s prayer life is going to be cut down and die.
It can also mean “interrupted”—the message to heaven is short-circuited. Bitterness, division, and bickering are opposed to the spirit of prayer and operate to terminate all efforts in that respect (Guy N. Woods).
If a husband and wife have trouble, then most likely they will not pray at all, or, if they do, they will pray with a disturbed mind, and so have no success. “The sighs of the injured wife come between the husband’s prayers and God’s hearing.”1
Our relationship with God can never be right if our relationships with our fellow men are wrong (Matthew 5:23–24; 18:19).
Endnote
1 bible.org/seriespage/14-obligations-christian-husbands-their-wives-1-peter-37
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church.” Ephesians 5:25
