OK men. Let’s talk strategy. As men and husbands, God has called us to love our wives well. But what does that mean? What does it look like to love our wives well?
Listen To Her.
No seriously, listen to your wife. Listen to what she has to say and then share your own thoughts. Most women want their husbands to have conversations with them. Wives want their husbands to share the highs and lows of life through discussing what is happening, how they and we feel about what is happening, and sometimes trying to discover an answer to a problem or a way forward.
I admit that I’m not always great at this, sometimes I’m not even good at it. Listening to Stacy and then sharing my own thoughts can be challenging, but when I do, Stacy engages, and we have great conversations as a result. It’s always worth the effort to respond, because it shows her that I am actively listening, I care about her, and I enjoy time with her.
For the most part, women feel more connected, more intimate through emotional activities like listening, talking, and sharing their thoughts. They desire for us to hear them, engage with what they are saying, engage with their highs and lows, and then they want to hear about our highs and lows as well. They want to feel safe to be vulnerable, which means they want husbands to be vulnerable too!
Wives don’t want to feel like they’re traveling through life with a roommate. As husbands we need to take the time to listen to our wives daily. Sometimes more often than daily! Schedule the time if you must.
Years ago, during my first deployment overseas, there were almost always people around when Stacy and I could talk. I didn’t feel comfortable talking freely with Stacy when I was surrounded by people, so most of our conversations would be her saying something and me responding with “yes” “no” or a grunt. Obviously, that wasn’t good communication. Unfortunately, I continued that method of communication after I got back home.
I am blessed, because she didn’t get mad at the poor communication. Instead, she told me what she needed. We decided that when I got home from work after saying hi to our young daughter, the first 15 minutes would be time for Stacy and me to step away and share our days.
The scheduled time we had alone and focused on each other gave us time to discuss what happened throughout the day for each of us. It gave us insight into what each of us was going through that day. Sometimes the days had been great, so we got to celebrate together, and sometimes the days had been rough, and we got to listen, sometimes resolve, but always grow closer to each other.
Of course you can’t say it all in 15 minutes. Sometimes we discovered in those 15 minutes that we had bigger issues to discuss and would schedule a time later to do so, but at least we were able to bring attention to them during that time and know we were going to address them as a team.
We still continue this habit to this day. We both look forward to our “catch up” time, and it still helps us to stay connected each day.
Wives want a husband who knows their thoughts and who seeks to share life together. For them, this is rooted in communication.
The Lord listens to us anytime we come to Him. Our marriages should be a picture of Christ and His church, so we should also desire to listen to and communicate with our spouse.
