8
Her Needs (for Him)
Just about every woman he had met who was worth anything thought that she was ugly. It was some kind of mass delusion.
—Thomas Perry, Sleeping Dogs
When men want to understand something, they find out as much as they can about it. For instance, if something needs to be repaired or we want to figure out how something works, the first thing men generally do is to take it apart (physically or mentally). We break it down into its components, then determine the logical sequence leading to its operation. We typically do this in a linear and chronological order. How does it operate? Why does it work the way it does? If this part connects to this part, what happens?
Even in our relationships we like a logical sequence of events to give orderliness and stability to our perspective. How does this person think? What kind of feelings does he/she have and how do they express themselves? What makes this person tick? We use sort of an “if I do this, then this will happen” approach.
While our wives are not machinery (and certainly don’t need to be “fixed”), it might be helpful to first look at the different components of a woman in order to help understand her better. Perhaps if we break down her differing aspects, we can get a glimpse inside her and understand better how she operates.
Her Need for Your Love
Many women do not place as much importance on material goods as they do relational gifts. Express your love for her verbally. She needs to hear those words frequently.
My wife has a need to know that I love her. She needs to be reassured of that often. If I am not giving her words that confirm my love or showing her through my deeds often enough that I love her, she will become needy. This isn’t the moping-around, desperate-for-compliments kind of needy, but more like a plant-that-hasn’t-been-watered-for-a-while needy. Sometimes (maybe in desperation? ) she will ask me for a favor to test my love. I’m not sure if this is a conscious act as much as it is instinctual. The favor isn’t actually something that’s needed as much as it is tangible evidence of my love. Usually there is something within my male psyche that causes me to resist giving my wife something I think she expects. I might even resent the whole thing if I think it is a test to prove my love more than a legitimate need. For instance, if she hints around about a task—even if I’ve already thought about doing it—I might be compelled to put it aside for a while. This might be something simple like hinting around about a birthday present or going out to dinner. It might also entail something around the house like asking me to change out the exhaust fan in the bathroom (note: not as simple a task as one might first assume). Her need for proof of my love runs counter to my masculine nature not to give in to such requests. Unfortunately, her asking me to do something before I can accomplish it on my own takes away my joy of having thought of it as a gift to her—it ruins the surprise, so to speak.
When she has to ask for evidence that I love her, it ruins it for her as well. She believes that “if he really loved me, he’d know what I needed and I wouldn’t have to ask for it.” Of course as a male I am not wired to be capable of thinking that way, and so if I am unaware of her needs, I have a small chance of intuiting what they are on my own.
This “asking for evidence that I love her” means that I am not doing well in my job as a husband to treat her in an honoring and loving way. To fulfill her need to be loved, she needs to be cherished. The easiest way to cherish her is to treat her like a precious gift. There’s an old adage that says, “Treat her like a queen and she will act like one.” If you place a high value on a person, they will grow to be that person. We see that in stories about teachers who didn’t know that they had a class of students who were failures. They inadvertently place high expectations upon them and the students fulfill those expectations.
The story of Johnny Lingo illustrates this concept brilliantly. Johnny Lingo was a Polynesian trader who wanted to marry a young woman named Mahana. This particular young woman was considered by everyone (including her father) to be sullen, angry, and of little value. Her father considered her to be worth only one cow. As a bargaining chip, her father asks Lingo for three cows for the hand of his daughter. Everyone laughs derisively at his presumptuousness, believing Johnny Lingo would reconsider the deal and leave. But Lingo considers and says, “Three cows are many . . . but not enough for my Mahana!”He then offers the unheard of price of eight cows for her. He and Mahana soon get married and leave the island on a trading trip.
When they return, to everyone’s astonishment, Mahana is a beautiful, happy woman. Even her father begins to feel like he had been cheated by only getting eight cows for her. Johnny Lingo had proven to her that her true worth had nothing to do with what others saw, but what she truly was. But Johnny got the best bargain—for a few cows he had found a wonderful wife with whom to spend his life.1
Many women need the man in their lives to prove his love for her by making sacrifices. Has your wife ever playfully asked you if you would give up something for her? It’s a fun game that young lovers play, but at the root is a woman’s insecurity over her man’s love for her.
The thing all women want to know is, “Does he still love me?” With men, our actions always speak louder than our words do. For instance, what we do always speaks louder than what we say. All men know you judge a man by his actions not his words. Men only spend time doing things they care about, regardless of what they may say. If we love something (fishing, hunting, fixing up old cars, etc.), we spend time on it. If we don’t like something (going to church, shopping, cooking, cleaning house, etc.), we don’t spend any more time than necessary doing it. So if we say we love our wives but don’t spend any time with them, we are sending a mixed message.
Fortunately for men, women tend to believe a man’s words more than his actions. For instance, women generally believe what a man says regardless of his actions. Perhaps because women value verbal communication to a greater degree than men do, they have a propensity to believe what is said to them. I know many women who have chosen to believe a man’s words over his actions and are paying the price for that choice today. They are also wired to want and need to hear specific words. They need to frequently hear that they are loved and cherished. Expressions of love counter the continuous program running through their mind that questions their worth, value, beauty, and lovableness.
That means spending time doing things she likes to do. I offered to give up watching the ball game yesterday to go to a wholesale warehouse with my wife. The fact that the Cardinals were leading the Dodgers 12–1 in the top of the ninth inning had nothing to do with this supreme sacrifice, but that’s not the point to the story. She loves shopping at this store, but I hate it—it’s crowded, people are pushy, and I always spend more money than I need to there. Besides, they don’t sell my books there, which is a constant source of irritation to me. But I manned up and accompanied her on her hunting and gathering foray because that’s what she likes to do. Would I have preferred vegetating in my recliner in front of the ball game? Yes. Did I get points for going with her? Absolutely.
Just like many men have a continual subconscious fear of being found inadequate or incompetent that plays into our core self-image, women also have a prerecorded program running through their minds. They constantly question whether they are valued and wanted.
Here is how one woman put it: “I wish he knew that the way I see myself is linked closely to how he sees me. If he thinks I’m the greatest thing, then my self-esteem soars. In turn it makes me want to be the best wife I can to him. On the other hand, if he downgrades me, my self-esteem seems to suffer. I find it harder to be the wife he would like because I feel like I can’t please him, so why try.”
Occasionally I will make an offhanded remark to my wife complimenting her on something I think is obvious. But from her reaction you’d have thought I presented her with a diamond necklace. She glows and stammers about how much that means to her and how happy it makes her that I feel that way. You’d think I never compliment her (hmmm).
Will He Fight for My Heart?
Would you be willing to fight for your wife to defend her honor? Would you even be willing to die for her? Most men would, I think. But the question is, does your wife know that or do you just take it for granted that it’s understood?
There are various ways of defending your wife without rushing in and physically fighting someone—although there might be times when a man has to physically defend his wife’s honor. In fact jumping in and yelling at her boss for treating her poorly is probably just the opposite of defending her—it’s implying she can’t handle her own problems. But it might mean not allowing her to be influenced by people who are destructive or have emotional ill will toward her. Sometimes parents, relatives, or even friends can be negative influences. When people criticize her to her face or behind her back, or take advantage of her, that’s when a husband needs to defend his wife. Even (maybe especially) if it’s your own mother doing the criticizing, you need to step in and defend her. Allowing your mother to berate your wife is a severe form of betrayal. Your wife is the woman you have chosen to spend your life with and to bear your children. Not only does it set a bad example to your children to allow your mother (or father) to interfere in your marriage, it also is most often cowardly. There are probably also times when it is important to defend her from her own father or mother as well.
Another way of fighting for her is lifting her up when she can’t lift herself. Maybe she is suffering from postpartum depression after having had your child. She’s not fun to be around and you don’t think things will ever get better. That’s the time a man needs to fight for his woman by making sure she gets proper medical care, medication (if needed), plenty of rest, and the positive support of friends and family. To get petulant and pout about not getting your needs met in that circumstance (even if it has been a long time and it is miserable) would be like running away when she needs you to defend and fight for her the most.
Many times we would not have a problem defending our wives physically, but if it requires an emotional or long-term sacrifice, it seems too daunting to contemplate. But in today’s world, those may be the things she needs from you most. In fact in today’s world those may be the only things a guy has to “fight” for.
Struggles Women Face
I confess I don’t have a handle on the trials that most women face. But as I understand it, most women (either at one time or another or, for some, most of the time) feel fat, ugly, stupid, inept, or some combination of all the above. Frequently the women who have the least amount of reason to feel that way suffer from those insecurities the most. Nevertheless, most women appear to place at least some amount of self-worth and value upon their physical appearance. A recent study confirms that women’s low perception of themselves is nearly universal: “Harvard University professor Nancy Etcoff and London School of Economics professor Susie Orbach surveyed thousands of women internationally to find that only 4 percent of women think they are beautiful.”2
While many men probably secretly feel incompetent from time to time, as a gender we don’t seem to suffer the same level of low self-esteem or self-value as females. Women beat themselves up about perceived imperfections in their physical appearance or psyche. Much of this self-flagellation seems to be internally driven, although words of criticism cut deep into the heart of a woman. Even women who should know they are beautiful (just look in the mirror, for goodness’ sake) or competent (look at all your accomplishments) are knocked off-kilter by the most innocent of critiques, causing them to question their own worthiness. And words deliberately spoken in malice can be devastating to their sense of value.
Perhaps because men tend to develop their self-esteem through accomplishments and not relationships, they are somewhat immune to the opinions of others—or else just don’t care.
When I was a much younger man, I made the mistake of suggesting to my wife that it wouldn’t hurt if she lost a few pounds. After all, I’d want to know if I was gaining too much weight or if my clothes were starting to fit a little too snugly. In fact you’d be doing me a favor if you told me a certain shirt or pair of pants made me look heavy. But did my wife appreciate my honest and forthright assessment? No, of course not. What do you think her response was? Well, if you’ve ever watched a female praying mantis methodically and deftly remove the head of its male counterpart, you know how I felt. She then disemboweled me with surgical precision. I felt like I’d just woken up after having had a spleenectomy. It’s a mistake I haven’t made too many times since.
The truth is that my spoken criticism of her looks, body, or appearance represents words that cannot be easily forgiven or forgotten. These words cut too close to the core of her being. The closest example I can think of is if your wife called you incompetent as a provider and inadequate in the bedroom. Even then I suspect that the wounds inflicted by a husband’s critical comments of his wife’s appearance are deeper and more jagged than anything she could say to us.
Beauty is at the heart of all womanhood. God made the female face and body to be adored and even lusted after by the male of the species. All women want to know they are beautiful. Even more than want, they need to know they are desired and beautiful. Women develop their self-esteem through their relationships and their physical appearance. God created each woman naturally beautiful.
So it only makes sense that the one area where Satan would attack women would be in their need to feel beautiful. The most effective strategy he can come up with is to cause women to dislike and even hate themselves. It makes women and girls feel bad about who they are as human beings. When they feel bad about themselves, it impairs their ability to use their tremendous power to nurture the lives of others. By focusing strictly upon their outward appearance, it prevents them from relishing their inward beauty—the beauty God gave them to love, nourish, and empower others. It is a distraction the evil one uses to full advantage.
Despite being created as the glory of God’s creation, nearly every woman on the planet seems to struggle with these self-image issues or lack of esteem stemming from their looks or body. They have a skewed image of what they look like. Even the most beautiful women (maybe especially the most physically attractive) feel bad about themselves. I know several gorgeous women (inside and out) who are nearly crippled by this perverted perspective of their appearance. It causes them to lack confidence, to feel ashamed, and to be “less than” they are designed to be. It prevents them from using the miraculous power God gave women to help others thrive and flourish.
Your wife desperately needs to know she is beautiful, especially in your eyes. In fact, your eyes are the only ones that count to her. I know of men married to women who might be considered very plain looking who have convinced their wives that they are beautiful. These women are confident and self-assured—and very happy. Unlike women who fall apart when anyone else even remotely criticizes their appearance, it doesn’t matter what anyone says to these women because they are confident in their heart that their husband finds them gorgeous and that gives them contentment and peace. Other physically beautiful women who have been emotionally and psychologically abused by their father or lovers (especially their husband) feel ugly and unworthy of love. And what women feel is what they believe to be true.
I see my wife when she looks gorgeous and other times when she looks slightly less than glamorous. Yet I always seem more ready to comment on the negative aspects of her appearance than on the positive. Sometimes the light will catch her just right or her inner beauty will burst through onto her face and I am stunned at her natural loveliness. But I am almost always speechless, never knowing how to articulate that. Yet those are the times she most needs to hear those words.
Tell your wife everyday she is beautiful—and mean it. You will have a happy wife. And a happy wife means a happy man and a happy home.
What Women Want: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held.
What Men Want: Tickets for the World Series.
—Dave Barry
Our culture seems to have propagated upon many women the innate expectation that the world revolves around them and their happiness. Some women seem to feel it is a man’s job to make them happy and satisfied (some men probably feel it is their wives’ job as well). The truth is that no man (or child, or other woman, or job, or house) can make a woman happy. Contentment comes from within. When a woman grows to the point that she recognizes that, she can then get on with figuring out what she wants out of life and striving toward those goals. Many women don’t know what they want. They just have a yen or itch for something, but they don’t know what. There’s an old saying, “What do women want? They don’t know, but if they don’t have it, they’ll get angry.” Women like that tend to make those around them miserable because they are always expecting others to fulfill their needs, yet can’t express what they are.
Most men I know feel that the women in their lives are at least somewhat dissatisfied. Why aren’t women in the United States more grateful? They live the most privileged, healthy, choice-filled lives in the history of the world, and yet they continually fantasize and yearn for “more.” They want it all. They want a great career and a close-knit family. Here’s the truth. You can’t have it all. You have to make sacrifices. Life is about tradeoffs—no one has everything. And the myth that some women “have it all”? It’s a lie.
I suspect women in the workplace are finally figuring out what men have known for a long time—you can’t have everything. The only thing that is equal in every person is the amount of time they have in a day. If you are going to be highly successful in your career, it will require you to work longer and harder than your peers. That means you will be forced to take time away from your family. You can’t expect to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and still attend every concert and game your children perform in. If you place a higher importance on being Mother or Father of the Year, your work will suffer. Not only that, but you will take time away from your marriage relationship in order to fulfill whatever personal goals you and your spouse place more importance upon. The challenge each person (and every couple) has to make is how to effectively balance all areas of their lives.
When our children were toddlers, I took the plunge, went out on my own, and started an environmental engineering firm. My wife and I agreed that while I would work hard (especially in the early years) I would also balance the amount of time I spent at work in order to have a healthy relationship with my kids and with each other. That meant that my company was not going to grow as big as it might have and we would not have as much money as it may have been possible to earn. That company provided us a decent living for sixteen years before I became a full-time writer and speaker. I never got wealthy (which might have been an attractive goal to me), but I did spend an ample amount of time with my family. It required both my wife and I recognizing our goals and then realizing the consequences of those choices. Had we not voiced those expectations openly with each other, it would have been easy to get sidetracked with individual goals and dreams that might have been destructive to our family. It would have been unfair for me to agree to our pact and then go off and try to grow the business into a large company. Likewise, it would have been unfair for my wife to agree to this commitment, then later become discontented with the amount of money I earned.
Women today are under a great amount of stress (much of it self-induced). Research shows that women hold on to stress longer and that the effects of stress are more extreme for women than men. Women release more chemicals, with these hormones staying in their body longer than they do in men’s.3
Raising a family, working at a job, and maintaining a healthy marriage are all stressful activities, especially when trying to accomplish all three at once. And yet many younger women today, either by choice or necessity, find themselves in the workplace. Many of them, even though having chosen to have a career, appear to hold some amount of resentment toward their husbands that they still have to work—especially after children come along.
Other women might be unhappy because they don’t get to have a glamorous career and are stuck at home with babies and toddlers and crave adult conversation. Either way, many women seem to harbor at least some amount of discontent or even resentment about their lives.
What Women Need
You don’t need a man, you need a champion.
—Felipe in Eat, Pray, Love
A woman’s biggest fear is being rejected and abandoned. She fears she will be rejected as not being beautiful enough. And she fears if she is accepted, she will be abandoned as not having been worthy enough.
It’s been my observation that women need two kinds of love—commitment love and romantic love. She needs to know that a man will be there for her and never desert her. For a woman, “emotional security” and closeness are far more important than financial security.
The other kind of love a woman needs is a tender, soul-stirring, and to her a life-giving love that is rooted in her need to give her love to and be loved by a man. This need is often intense in women and requires continual reassurance and affirmation from her lover. It requires giving her nonsexual physical affection and telling her that she is loved and is beautiful. Women seem to need this kind of love to a greater degree than men. Men don’t appear to be as harmed by lack of “intimate” love as a woman. Women who don’t get loved often become unhappy and frustrated, their countenance withering.
One way to meet her needs is to study her and know what makes her tick. Then we can begin to help her in ways that are meaningful to her. For instance, my wife is a sensate. She relates to things through her physical senses. She is extremely in touch with her body. She is a physical being and relates to others through touch and her auditory and olfactory senses. She likes to have her fingers and toes in loamy soil and loves gardening. She intuits emotions and problems through her body, heart, and soul—not so much her mind. She is very sensual and responsive to touch. She likes rocks, plants, birds, and flora and fauna of all kinds. Her favorite things to do include crabbing, canning food, picking mushrooms, gardening, and gold mining, all of which are forms of reaping or harvesting from the earth. Coming from a background of poverty, she finds this partially satisfies her need to have “things” (food stocks) but also serves to connect her to the earth. My goal is to make sure that I provide opportunities for her to meet these needs whenever possible, as it provides her with peace and satisfaction. For example, she went gold mining in central Oregon this past summer with a friend of hers. While that is not something I was excited to accompany her on, I wholeheartedly supported her leaving for two weeks to do something she so enjoyed.
If I didn’t understand her, I might be inclined to try to meet needs for her based on what I like, such as going to the gym (which she hates).
Beyond that, women crave security. I was talking with my young adult daughter the other day about what kind of man she might want to look for when considering marriage. She’s been asking me a lot of questions lately about love and what kind of man is a good man. One of the things I talked about was looking for someone who has some financial acumen. Not so much someone who is wealthy or wants to become wealthy as much as someone who has good money management skills. As I told her, most people (her mother and myself included) get married and buy the most expensive house their paychecks allow them to finance. They then spend years struggling. Since financial difficulties are the highest contributing factor in divorce, it would seem more prudent to buy a home within your means and practice saving for future needs and difficulties (which always arise). This would remove a huge amount of stress from a relationship and allow a young couple to grow together without that heavy burden.
One of the things I regret most was getting married and immediately buying a brand-new, very expensive car. This pattern of money mismanagement seemed to follow us for years in our marriage, placing a great deal of stress on our relationship. Since then we have tried to be good stewards of the financial blessings the Lord has bestowed upon us, practicing paying off debt, saving for major expenditures (instead of financing them), and maintaining a savings account (and of course tithing regularly). These steps, in and of themselves, have improved the quality of our marriage.
The choices we have made in the past often impact our future relationships. For instance, a spouse who engages in a one-night stand runs the risk of becoming pregnant with that person. That individual may or may not be stable and healthy, but the child ensures that they will be linked together for the rest of their lives. We know one couple who found themselves in that circumstance, and because a child resulted from that one-night stand, the couple has been forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees and hundreds of hours of emotional turmoil trying to keep this chaotic person from ruining their new family. The truth is, that person will be a specter haunting their lives probably until the day they die.
Every woman dreams of her man in terms of the ideal but marries the real.
—Edwin Louis Cole
Men (especially young men) ask me the same question: “Will I ever understand my wife? ”My answer is, “No—don’t be silly.” If men throughout history have not understood their women, why should we be any different? I frequently have to just shake my head as my wife does or says something that seems illogical and unexplainable to me. But that’s okay. We don’t necessarily have to understand someone to love them. In fact, not understanding our women creates a certain mystique that keeps the magic alive in our relationships. As confounding as I sometimes find my wife, it would be a pretty boring existence to live my life surrounded by a bunch of people who think, act, and behave much like I do in every situation. At the very least, my wife perplexes me frequently enough to keep me on my toes and keep life interesting. Generally, when she’s most unpredictable, it’s a sign that her needs are not being met.
Some women (and possibly even some men—although I suspect they wouldn’t care) would think the following example is manipulation, but here’s an email I received regarding one woman’s rather simple solution to getting her needs met:
I just finished reading “The Five Love Languages”by Dr. Gary Chapman. I’ve determined that my hubby’s love language and my love language are light years apart. Mine is “Acts of Service”and his is “Physical Touch.” As you can imagine from my upbringing (fatherless and non-emotional mother equaled years of bitterness and resentment towards men) we did not show affection, so this physical touch one is difficult for me.
Anyway, I came up with a genius idea that became a win/win situation for us! Oh you’re gonna love this! So my husband had a week vacation left at work he needed to use or lose before the end of the year. So two weeks ago he took a week off from work and told me he would “work on a few things around the house while he was home. ”I was GIDDY with excitement, not that my husband was going to be home with me for a week, but because he was going to fix stuff!! Sooooooo, I made a “Honey Do” List for him that consisted of about 23 items. I placed an asterisk by about 10 of them and handed him the list. I told him that I wanted him to work off this list and the ones with stars next to them were ones that I really wanted done. So for every starred item he completed (subject to my inspection of course) he could get a “favor” of his choice from me. :-)
Can I just tell you I have NEVER seen this man work so efficiently before!! He was working his fingers to the bone, and collecting his favors along the way!!! At one point he had done so much from the list, he had favors banked!!! So the week flew by, I got a TON of stuff fixed around the house that I had been stewing over for months, and he got his “release” that you men apparently need and need often . . . lol. We had an amazing week together and we were both in such a great mood. I told my girlfriend about my genius idea and she told her hubby about it. She texted me a few days later and said “My husband is begging me for a honey do list!!”
I know some experts (myself included) have said that women shouldn’t use sex for bribery or as a way to manipulate men, but I have to say I can’t find anything wrong with her strategy. I ran it by a couple of my male friends and they thought it was a creative idea as well and daydreamed about getting a honey-do list from their wives. I’m not sure it qualifies as manipulation if you are in on it.
Other times, as men, we have to be intuitive about our wives’ needs. Many women won’t complain about or even mention the things that are most important to them. They might complain about other things though, and a man who knows his wife will understand that this is her way of trying to get a need met. Mostly, I suspect a woman just wants a man who appreciates her and puts her interests ahead of his own.
When I married my wife, I gave her a small (tiny) chip of a diamond ring because that was all I could afford. My plan was to get her a nicer one a few years later. However, like with most things, life got in the way and thirty-one years later I still had not gotten her the big rock I had promised her. She never complained or even mentioned it, but I could see her over the years admiring other women’s rings.
Finally this past year I received some financial blessings and I decided to get serious about fulfilling my unspoken promise. I saved a good chunk of money and started doing my homework. Because of the economic downturn, many people have apparently had to sell their nice rings. I was able to purchase a nice diamond ring for about half the appraisal price in a jewelry store.
Seeing the joy and excitement on my wife’s face was very satisfying. I felt good that she finally had a token of my love that was worthy of her status as a highly favored wife. But the truth is, it was just as fulfilling for me. I had finally completed a commitment I had made years before and given my wife something she deserved.
Now not only does she not have to be “ashamed” (even if she would never admit it) when other women are showing off their rings, but I’m happy in the fact that it makes her feel good that I desire to lavish her with gifts and that I am a man of my word (although rather belatedly).
Guys, keep an eye on what your wife’s needs might be. Likely when she is frustrated, snappy, and even angry, it’s because she has a need that is not being fulfilled. If you understand your wife and what her needs are, you’ll find it much easier to help her get those needs met. That will ensure that you live a happy and contented existence.
Does He Really Love Me?
One of the most important lessons I learned after I accepted Christ into my heart at forty years of age was this—you cannot truly love someone else when you don’t love yourself. Accepting God’s gift of forgiveness and unconditional love allowed me to forgive myself and to begin liking myself—which then slowly grew into loving myself as the person God had created me to be. Before that, the wounds from childhood and life’s experiences kept me so bitter and hurt that I had a protective shell around my heart. I didn’t like who I was and so didn’t really like many other people either. It kept me from loving and being truly intimate with my wife and children.
I’m sure not all men suffer from this, but I do think many of us have an illness—the disease of self-loathing. Probably most men, to some degree, feel either incompetent or inadequate in various areas of life. Men hate that feeling. We might not admit it out loud—or even to ourselves. But secretly it makes us feel insecure and lose confidence. And when those kinds of feelings surface, we react in anger, defensiveness, and irritation. Those feelings then open the door so the Evil One can whisper destructive words in our ear such as, “You’re a loser. Who do you think you are? You’ll never accomplish anything. You can’t do this. You’re no good.” Those words echo in our chests, robbing us of our courage, strength, and vitality. Stealing the courage to love our wives unashamedly and with our whole heart, not holding anything back. Draining our strength to lead our family in areas we don’t feel adequate.
Do you crave respect from your wife? Do you want her to admire you? How strong are those secret feelings? That’s how strong her feelings are of wanting you to love her. She needs to know you love her and only have eyes for her. Not looking at other women may be as difficult for a man as it is for a woman to give unconditional respect to a man—yet both are fundamental needs for the other.
Words are powerful to a woman. Your wife needs to hear the words that you love her. She needs to hear them frequently and in a variety of ways. Besides telling her, flowers and notes show her you are thinking about her when she is not around. That spells love to a woman.
I often end up going to bed later than my wife as I get home late or write late into the night. Even though I’m not the best example of telling my wife I love her during the day, I always crawl into bed, kiss her near her eye, and whisper in her ear, “I love you, sweetheart.” Even though half asleep, she often smiles and snuggles in, secure and content in her knowledge of my love for her.
A big way that a woman feels loved is through the faithfulness of her partner. The biggest betrayal a woman can suffer is for her husband to be unfaithful with another woman. Because a woman derives so much of her self-esteem through her relationships (not through accomplishments, like men do), unfaithfulness is tantamount to telling her she is worthless. Men are the more competitive gender of the species, but the area in which women do compete against each other is with their mates. One woman taking another woman’s man is a huge insult to her personage. It humiliates her by striking at the heart of her essence—her relationships. Remember, women develop self-esteem through their relationships. Having successful relationships is to a woman like accomplishing great achievements is to a man. Unfortunately women often turn this anger of betrayal against themselves, not the offending party. They internalize betrayal, believing the reason must be because they were not worthy, instead of attributing it to a man’s weakness of character or another woman’s vindictiveness. This self-blaming soon turns into self-loathing, which results in depression, bitterness, and anger.
But betrayal doesn’t have to involve infidelity. You can betray your wife by watching porn and using it as a substitute to get your sexual needs met. Or you can betray her by throwing your life into your work. When you married her, you made a promise to “honor and cherish” her. Revolving your entire life around your job is not very honoring and it certainly doesn’t make her feel cherished.
Why Meeting Her Needs Is Important
Women have different needs than men, and some of them might seem trivial to the opposite sex. For example, to my mind, my wife (and daughter) seems to be overly sensitive toward spiders, gory movies, and bathroom odors—things that don’t bother me all that much, but that’s just the way the women in my house roll. So I try to eliminate all those things as much as possible so they don’t bother her.
One thing to keep in mind is that we are able to give to others out of our own abundance. I know, that sounds like psychobabble. But my point is that it is hard to give to others and meet their needs when we have needs ourselves—when our own emotional bank account is empty or even overdrawn. In several of my previous books for women, I often tell them that if they want their needs met, they must make sure they meet their husband’s needs first (a very unpopular idea). To some degree women seem to have been created to be able to set aside their needs momentarily in order to meet the needs of others. It is probably part of their nurturing nature that they have been given this gift. They do it with their children all the time. However, even God has not given women an inexhaustible capacity of this aptitude. And the unfortunate part of this is when a woman crashes, everyone around her suffers mightily.
Therefore it behooves us as men that if we want to have our needs met, we make an effort to meet our wives’ needs first. That requires us to first of all make the effort to understand what her needs are. Then we must take steps to proactively address them, before she even knows they are an issue—just as in the workplace, a smart manager does not wait until something breaks or a problem occurs before they address it.
In the boiler room of the Navy ship I was stationed on, we had a program called Planned Preventative Maintenance (the fact that I can even remember that after thirty years is a testament to the value of that program). This was where on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis we worked on all the pumps, boilers, evaporators, and other machinery of the fire and engine rooms. We repacked valves, replaced parts, cleaned equipment, painted deck plates, and rebuilt motors before they needed it. I remember as a young sailor thinking, Why in the world are we wasting time fixing something before it breaks? But after several years I understood the wisdom in applying preventative maintenance to items that our lives depended upon. Equipment stayed in perfect operating order so that during a crisis or an emergency we were prepared and able to deal with the problem in an efficient manner. To ignore the operating status of a pressure relief valve on a 1,200-pound boiler until it was put to the test during an emergency would put the lives of everyone on board the ship at risk. If it failed, it could explode and sink the ship, potentially killing all on board.
Our relationships are even more important. Why take the chance on having the pressure build up in your marriage until it explodes, killing the relationship and your entire family?
Intimacy-Building Tips for Fulfilling a Woman’s Needs