Do you consider your wife to be incredibly complex? Some men throw their hands up in despair and exclaim, ‘What does a woman really want?’ Women are unique and so are their needs. What you need most from your wife is not necessarily what she needs most from you. Consequently, if you express love to your wife in the way you want to receive love, her deepest needs will go unmet and you will experience frustration because it will feel like she’s not appreciative of what you’re giving. Her needs are different from yours, so your expressions of love need to be tailored to her desires, not your preferences.
If someone asks you for an umbrella to shield them from the rain and you give them sunglasses because you like sunglasses, regardless of how beautiful the sunglasses are they will go unappreciated because you have not met the stated need. So it is with your wife’s needs. One of the best investments you can make in your marriage is to study your wife and understand what makes her thrive. 1 Peter 3:7 puts it this way, ‘Husbands, in the same way live with your wives knowledgeably’. Understanding your wife’s needs and making it a priority to meet them will pay tremendous dividends in your relationship.
One of the primary ways to get into your wife’s head and understand her thinking is to spend time talking to her. Women are mostly verbal creatures so they build connections and intimacy by talking. Your wife wants to be able to reveal herself to you. She wants to share her deepest thoughts with you and have you do the same with her. Quite simply, she wants to be your best friend. You cannot build intimacy with someone you only have meaningful conversations with occasionally. Scheduling time to talk to your wife about what’s on her heart communicates to her that she matters to you.
Spend time with your wife, not because you want something from her but because you care about her as a person. Don’t consistently ignore her in favour of work, recreation or your friends, and expect her to be at her best. Listen to her concerns, even if you’ve heard them a hundred times before. Most women are very verbal and sharing with their husbands helps them feel emotionally connected. Your wife needs emotional intimacy in order to be able to enjoy physical intimacy with you. Some men think that physical and emotional intimacy are synonymous, but in a woman’s mind they are two very distinct things and she needs both to be truly fulfilled. Show her that you care about her emotions and opinions.
Your wife might be one of those women who processes her concerns by talking. This means that sometimes she may appear to talk in circles rather than straight lines. For a man who is logical in approach and who wants to get to the crux of the matter so that he can solve the problem and move to the next one, this can be a frustrating experience if he does not understand what is going on in his wife’s mind. The truth is that most of the time when your wife is sharing with you, she is not looking to you to solve the problem, she just wants you to empathise and feel what she is feeling. In fact, she might get upset if you try to give her solutions rather than listening to her emotions. Resist the urge to leap into problem solving mode immediately otherwise your wife will be dissatisfied at the end of the conversation. In such situations, the simple fact that you have connected with her heart-to-heart is therapeutic in its own right, even if the problem has not been resolved. Have you ever had your wife talk I circles for half an hour and just when you begin to lose the will to live because the conversation seems pointless to you, she beams at you and says, ‘Thanks for listening. I feel so much better’? If so, you just offered her talk-therapy without even knowing it.
If you are a problem-solver by nature, this will make no sense to you but what does it matter? You may feel that the real issue is not resolved but for her at that point her emotions are the real issue. All that matters is that you have given your wife just what she needed in the moment. A listening ear, an empathetic heart and a shoulder to cry on when she needed it. On top of that you will win top marks for being an understanding husband and you will have a happier, more satisfied wife. When your wife needs a solution, she will most likely ask your opinion directly but by default listening to her emotions first counts most.
Secondly, your wife longs for open and honest communication with you. Women connect by talking and sharing their hearts. Your wife wants to be able to connect with you on a deep intimate level, to understand your thoughts and feelings, and to share life with you on every level. Communication is what connects your wife to your world. When you talk to your wife, she feels close to your heart and intimacy grows in your marriage. When you shut your wife out by withholding open and honest communication, intimacy is lost and she begins to feel more like a stranger than your best friend.
Men can sometimes feel overwhelmed by their wives’ insatiable need for discussion. However, it is a wise husband that recognises that talking and sharing meets a very deep need in his wife’s life for emotional connection, and commits to meeting that need. The more you talk to your wife, the more valuable she feels. She sees herself as your ally and is secure in the knowledge that you value her opinion.
