To be fair, a wife has certain emotional needs. If her husband doesn’t meet them, she’s tempted to walk out.
Hear the Voice of the Bridegroom: Concerning Holy Matrimony
Bill Taylor >>> To be fair, a wife has certain emotional needs. If her husband doesn’t meet them, she’s tempted to walk out. Everyone knows about weeds so everyone sees how God punished Adam after the fall. This explains how God’s punishments of Eve have affected everyone, including men:
THINK ABOUT EVE’S LIFE IN THE GARDEN
She didn’t need a house – it never rained (Gen. 2:6[88]). They were naked; she didn’t need clothes (Gen. 2:25[89]). She could always find fruit to eat (Gen. 3:2[90]). Adam didn’t provide food, clothing, or shelter, God did that.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked
; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons
. Genesis 3:7
The first thing they did after their eyes were opened was worry about clothes. Our multi-billion dollar fashion industry works because women care so much about clothes.
God made Eve not only to keep Adam from being alone, but to help him:
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18 Did Eve help Adam by working with him to sew the fig leaves? Or did they sew alone?
A wife’s need to help her husband wasn’t punishment; her strong desire to help was built into her from the beginning. After the fall, God’s punishments of Eve explain how women would get along with men. God told Eve what would happen to her and to her daughters, generation after generation:
Unto the woman he [God] said, I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
Greatly Multiply thy Sorrow Through Sensitive Emotions
Most women have more sensitive emotions than men do. Being sensitive helps women learn how to please husbands, but God multiplies sorrow to women because their feelings are easily hurt. The Bible says:
Every wise woman buildeth her house: Proverbs 14:1a
A woman’s emotions are the cement that builds her house. There’s no logical reason for a wife to pour her life into serving her family, women do this on emotion. Men, would you like to be married to you? Could you do what your wife does? How can women do what they do? Women build homes and churches through love and emotion, but they can’t unless they’re free to express their emotions and are appreciated for it.
God punished Eve by giving women a strong emotional desire to please men (1 Cor. 7:34[91]). Husbands rule through praise: women do more of what’s praised if they aren’t criticized. If all they get is criticism, they’ll do more of what’s criticized the most. God gave women strong emotions on purpose, it was not an accident:
a prudent wife is from the LORD
. Proverbs 19:14b
“Prudence” means thinking ahead; the way a woman’s mind works, that is, her prudence, is of the Lord. God made women think the way they do on purpose. The mixture of logic and emotion God gives a woman makes her want to serve her family and build her home while showing us how God’s love works, page 33.
Be wise. Keep your words to your wife healthful for her. Just before our wedding, my wife asked that I never fuss at her. “I want to love you very much,” she said. “The more I love you, the more criticism hurts. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.” That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and delicate.” I don’t want to make it hard for her to love me, so I watch what I say.
God multiplied conception. How many babies would a woman need to populate the earth if nobody died?
Thy Desire shall be to thy Husband
A woman desires to belong to a man whom she can please by making him happy with her drive to be with him (Song 1:2[92], 8:2-3[93],) just as a man desires to have a woman belong to him (Song 7:10[94]). Although Eve wanted to be with Adam enough to be OK with Adam claiming her and naming her when he saw her (Gen. 2:23[95]), God increased women’s desire to be with a man as part of His punishment of Eve. Men should treat their wives as precious, undeserved gifts from God who made women want to be with men, but not all men do. Warning!Keep thy heart
with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
A woman must never let herself fall in love or even get emotionally involved with a man until after he marries her. She’ll fall in love after he takes her to wife. 90% of how a marriage goes is determined by how a man values his wife, but 90% of her value to him is determined by how she values herself before they marry. A woman sets her price by what she does. If her price is a few dinners, she isn’t worth much. Her price should be his promise to commit his life to caring for her until death by marrying her before she gives herself to him.
He Shall Rule Over Thee
Eve wanted to be independent instead of following God’s perfect leadership (Gen. 3:6[96]). God make her so that she would desire that her imperfect, sinful husband would rule her instead of God. He made her depend on her husband for food. Marriage should bring a wife joy (Song 8:2-3[97]), but she can’t make him any happier than he makes her (Ecc. 9:9[98]). How happy does he want to be?
You’ve heard my wife’s simple “5 times” rule for keeping husbands happy. There’s no simple way for a man to keep his wife happy because women differ much more from each other than men do. Men and women have the same need for belonging, but they express it differently. Men know what they want.
You want your wife to open her body to you. She wants you to open your heart to her. You want to put yourself into her body. She wants to put herself, that is, her words, her thoughts, her feelings, into your heart.
You leave your seed inside her body where it affects her mood and can give her a baby. She wants to leave her essence, her being, in your heart where it affects your thinking about her, how you treat her, and how you relate to everyone else. People can see if you belong to each other by looking at you or hearing you.
Husband and wife should be “one flesh” as Adam and Eve were before God separated Eve from Adam’s body (Mk. 10:8[99]). A woman at work tried to attract me. “I was angry when you didn’t even notice,” she told me. “Then I realized, ‘Oh, he belongs to his wife’ so I went after someone else.” I’m careful to have women in my office meet my wife so they’ll know I belong thoroughly to her.
A woman read some of our material. “I was angry at how much you knew about me,” she said. “Then I realized you’re clueless, your wife told you how women think.” I had to listen and understand what my wife said in my heart so I could write about it. God gave me a drive to write about marriage. I’m clueless about the emotional side of marriage, so my wife has to help me. Although helping me takes a lot of her time, she likes my wanting her help and appreciating her help. People who know me at all know that a lot of what’s in our books came from her. Having her works praise her is one of the rewards of being a virtuous wife (Pr. 31:31[100]) but that works only because I want her help, ask for it, and make sure she has time to help me.
You need hours and days of back-and-forth talk or you can’t be one as Jesus expects (Mt. 19:5-6[101]).
A wife wants her husband to open his heart to her as often as he takes her and more. That’s how he gets knowledge of her as God expects (1 Pe. 3:7[102]). If he opens his heart as sincerely, as deeply, as patiently, as often, and as gladly as he expects her to open herself to him, she’ll know he belongs to her. Belonging to each other as taught in the Song (2:16[103], 6:3[104]) gives them both a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
Women open their hearts to each other all the time and don’t understand how scary it is for men. 1 Cor. 11:9[105] says that women are made for men. Men aren’t taught how scary it is for women to belong to men.
WHAT DOES GOD EXPECT OF WOMEN?
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, I Timothy 5:14a
My wife had done enough babysitting to know that a job puts great strain on women. They have neither the emotional energy nor the time to raise their children. God expects a mother to give her children 3 gifts:
The first gift is putting your life on the line to give your child life. Death in childbirth is less common than it was but still happens. A pregnant woman walks the valley of the shadow of death out of love for her child.
Jesus created us knowing Adam would sin and that He would have to die to give us salvation. Mothers illustrate His love for us by wanting children enough to risk their lives; fathers should uphold, praise, and help.
The second gift is a husband with a strong emotional, financial, and duty-bound tie to your child. Although a man may have some vague knowledge of the birds and the bees in his head, down in his heart where it counts, a man doesn’t really believe he has anything to do with making babies. Your baby is clearly yours – you had it last – but what has your baby to do with him?
Remember the old saying – “The time my father got me, his mind was not on me.” What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all? The only way to give your child a father is to belong to him thoroughly before you get pregnant. If you require him to commit himself by marrying you before you give yourself and then convince him that you belong to him by encouraging him to have you, your child will also belong to him.
The third gift is the gift of a mother. Having risked your life to give your child life, having given up your independence by belonging to your husband, God expects you to give up your career and dedicate your life to nourishing and cherishing your family. Women with jobs have neither time nor emotional energy to be mothers. They can’t teach their sons how to be Biblical husbands or their daughters to be Biblical wives.
You must be content to live on what your husband earns, encourage him in his career, and mother your children. Proverbs 31 was written to men. 31:1 shows that King Lemuel’s mother taught him how to nourish, cherish, and bless his future wife. This teaching is mostly by example and it takes more time and energy than career women can supply.
By the grace of God, a very few single mothers are able to raise children successfully, but this is rare.
WHAT DO WOMEN DESIRE FROM HUSBANDS?
When we married, my wife’s job paid her expenses. Taking her to wife on our wedding night gave her a powerful feeling of belonging to me and depending on me. Losing independence was the most frightening experience of her life even though she knew that God wanted her to bear children and guide a house.
Two years later, she quit her job because our work schedules didn’t fit. Giving up her paycheck and depending on me was nearly as frightening as belonging to me even though God tells women to do it.
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread (Gen. 3:19[106]).” God gave no way for Eve to eat. As Naomi told her daughters goodbye when sending them back to their families to find husbands, she prayed:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest
, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
When wives depend on husbands for food, knowing that her relationship to her husband is strong and that he’s glad to feed and clothe her is important to a wife – she and her children could starve if he leaves.
A friend told me his dog growled when a puppy ate from his dish. “Kids are OK,” he said, “if they don’t eat off my dish.” When I told my wife, she said, “No! I want me and our children to eat off your plate.”
People see her eat off my plate. Women have said, “I wish my husband would let me eat off his plate.”
It’s hard to overstate how important it is for a wife to be certain that her husband values her and is pleased with her. She has to know him well in order to be sure that what she does will make him happy.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
“According to knowledge” doesn’t mean to obey her, it means knowing her needs, preferences, thoughts, and feelings and think about her when making decisions. If a woman prefers vanilla and her husband always brings home chocolate, does he love her? Will she feel loved? The only way a man can get this knowledge is though hours and days of open-hearted conversation. This is scary for men, but there’s a reward – the better your wife knows you, the more easily she can please you.
Father her Children
Pr. 30:16[107] states that an empty womb is never satisfied. A woman desires children. Having been given children, she desires that their father want to stick with her and enjoy helping her raise them (Eph. 6:4[108]).
Naomi wanted Ruth and Orpah to have food, clothing, and shelter but she also wanted them to find comfort, rest, contentment, and security in constant reminders that their husbands valued and appreciated them as taught in the Song. A woman desires that her husband like feeding, clothing, and housing her and her children and that he delight in opening his heart to her and praising her for her help (Pr. 31:31[109]).
Watching any couple shows whether she’s resting in her husband. Many women get this instead:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
: Eat and drink
, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee
. Proverbs 23:7
A man can say he loves a woman and feed her without giving his heart. God has the same problem:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me
. Matthew 15:8 see also Isaiah 29:13[110], Mark 7:6[111]
Naomi wanted each daughter to find a husband who poured his heart into nourishing and cherishing. God isn’t the only one who appreciates a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7[112]) – wives appreciate cheerful giving.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me
; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
Your wife took on the yoke of pleasing you when you took her to wife. Do you make it easy for her to learn of you? That’s a major reason she wants you to open your heart – learning of you lightens her yoke.
She Wants to Learn of You
Our church had a split; we needed new leadership. I was pondering my qualifications for church office.
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. I Timothy 3:12
“Wife,” I asked, “do I qualify, I don’t rule you, I hardly ever tell you what to do?”
“Yes,” she said, “you rule me utterly. Your ways aren’t natural to me, but we’ve talked enough that I know how you want things done. Just about everything I do, I know how you want it done and I do it your way.”
She served me out of love as Christ died for sinners out of love. Learning of me so she had confidence that I’d be pleased made my yoke easier and my burden lighter as learning what Christ expects of us makes His yoke easy and His burden light. I’d talked with her enough that she could follow me but not enough to realize how my ways ruled her. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was any other way than my way. That’s another reason for a man to talk enough for his wife to learn more about him.
We found cases where my way was a lot harder and wasn’t worth her extra work. Changing back to her ways lightened my yoke as she learned more of me. She’d always accepted my rule, but because I didn’t realize how much I was ruling her, my yoke wasn’t as light as it should have been.
EMOTIONS SCARE MEN
Women share their hearts all the time in helping other women bear the burdens of husbands, children, and guiding houses (1 Tim. 5:14[113]). They find it hard to understand that it’s as frightening for a man to open his heart as his wife desires as for a woman to open her body as her husband desires or to follow him and depend on him as God desires. A man’s emotions are as powerful as a woman’s. Japanese say “One hair of a woman’s head pulls more strongly than ten yoke of oxen.” Chinese say that a man in love rides a wild horse.
Emotions scare a man, and he must realize that his physical drives can scare his wife as much as her drive for emotional talk frightens him. Although he may declare his love to her, he may not admit his love to himself. Having created Peter, Jesus knew how Peter felt. Peter saw Jesus weep and grieve over the cities of Israel (Mt. 11:23[114], 23:37[115], Lk. 10:15[116], 13:34[117]). Peter did not want the sorrow of loving people and seeing them fall away so he hid his emotions from himself.
John 21:15-19 tells how Jesus asked three times whether Peter loved him. Peter finally admitted to filios, brotherly love. Did Jesus’ questions make Peter love Him? No, Peter already loved Jesus – he wept bitterly when he betrayed Jesus (Mt. 26:75[118]) – but he didn’t want to feel love, knowing how love can lead to sorrow.
If a man won’t admit to himself that he loves his wife, he can’t convince her that he loves her and she won’t be able to comfort him as he expects. Opening herself to him makes her more sensitive to his feelings about her. If she knows he values her skills, feelings, thoughts, and everything else about her, feeling loved more strongly makes her happy. She won’t mind being humbled and will rejoice in his delight in her. If she doesn’t think he’s pleased with her, she won’t want to be more sensitive to that.
A woman has a thousand thousand ways to avoid her husband’s desire, but the fault is often his. She can’t make him any happier than he makes her. A man finds happiness in marriage by convincing his wife that he loves her and that he’s truly happy to care for her and be with her. Words are cheap; love requires action.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth
. I John 3:18
Serving your wife as Jesus commands (Mk. 9:35[119], 10:42-45[120]) shows love. That makes her happy which makes him happy. The Song of Songs starts with the wife praising her husband for getting physical with her:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
She likes getting physical because he appreciates her. Husbands and wives want to please each other:
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife
. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband
. I Corinthians 7:32-34
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man
. I Corinthians 11:8-9
I talked to a woman who’d heard the word “Bible” but didn’t know anything about it. I told her it said a lot about men and women. She asked what, so I told her that the Word of God taught that women were made for men. She went blank for 30 seconds, then said, very slowly, “Yes, we are made for men.” More silence. She said, “And there’s not a thing we can do about it.” I said she had to take care which man she belonged to.
Women are made for men (Gen. 2:18[121]), so a wife generally cares more about pleasing her husband than he cares about pleasing her. Scripture warns 5 times (Pr. 19:13 b[122], 21:9[123], 19[124], 25:24[125], 27:15[126]) that an unhappy wife is a hardship; some say, “If mamma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
This is not criticism of how God made women; it’s a warning to men. A man can command a woman, but he can’t make her like it. There is no joy this side of heaven for a man anything close to having a woman like belonging to him, so keeping a wife happy about choosing to belong to him is worth a lot of work.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones
. Proverbs 17:22
Men, don’t dry your wife’s bones. Can you give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she wants to please you? She can’t please you if she doesn’t know what you want. The only way she can be confident of pleasing you is for you to open your heart often enough for her to learn your ways in detail.
When a woman finds she can’t please her husband no matter how she tries, we often see death in her eyes, even in photos. Men, if you want to be happy in marriage, be happy with your wife and convince her that you’re happy with her. That makes her happy. There’s no joy this side of Heaven greater than having your wife like belong to you, but convincing her can be difficult because women are so different. Learning how to praise your wife so that she feels appreciated is part of opening your heart to her.
Many men are afraid to open their hearts for fear of being hurt or vexed:
And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death
; Judges 16:16
Emotions scare men. He may declare his love, but may not admit his love to himself. God says he can:
The heart
of her husband
doth safely trust in her
, Proverbs 31:11a
After His disciples went fishing instead of starting the church[127], Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” three times (Jn. 21:15-17). Having created Peter, Jesus knew Peter wouldn’t want to admit his love because Peter had seen Jesus’ sorrow when Jews refused Him and went to Hell (Mt. 23:37[128]). Jesus didn’t make Peter love Jesus, but changing and admitting it to himself made him willing to spread the gospel.
For if there be first
a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. II Corinthians 8:12
If a man won’t change to admit his love for his wife to himself, he can’t convince her. Being willing to love her and happy to learn how to nourish her will make her happy in finding rest in belonging to him.
Gen. 24:67 “Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent…” A woman desires a place to live and much else. Few men understand their wives many needs; few women have the words to explain. Discuss these Bible verses about a woman’s many needs on page 37 to see what she thinks.
Women see the Bible differently from men; her view helps open the mind of God. My wife saw David and Goliath as a story in human relations! She saw David’s older brother criticize him for coming to the battle before asking why. He didn’t know David’s father had sent him. He’d seen Samuel anoint David to be King and trashed him anyway! He trashed his future king! How dumb can you get? I hadn’t seen that. She helped me see Ruth as a romance story: poverty-stricken widow goes to a strange land to find God, works hard, shows virtue, marries a rich man, and is in Jesus’ line. Her 6 rules for finding rest in marriage[129] still work.
MEN DON’T KNOW WHY WIVES CAN’T GIVE COMFORT
Few men know that the Bible says four times De. 21:14, 22:9 and Ez. 22:10-11 that a man “has humbled” a woman by taking her. We now know that opening herself triggers hormones that change her brain.
God wants children to have fathers. God arranged that a woman wants to cling to the man who takes her. Humbling herself by clinging to her husband and serving him gladly helps her children have a father. The hormones of humbling make her more sensitive to how he feels about her. If he’s pleased with her, feeling that more strongly comforts her as she sees how much he delights in her. If she has doubts about his love or feels criticized, being more sensitive to negative feelings will make her not to want to give herself. A woman has a thousand ways to avoid her husband’s desire, but it’s generally because she doubts his love for her. She won’t want to feel dependent on a man who refuses to belong to her. Such insecurities fuel many fights.
Opening herself to her husband takes a great deal of emotional energy, and opening his heart to his wife takes a lot of emotional energy. The Marriage Arch[130] shows how to recharge each other’s emotional batteries. A man wants his wife to yearn to receive his seed; she wants him to yearn to receive her speech.
Gen. 24:67 “and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” Isaac didn’t just say he loved Rebekah, he convinced her that he loved her, and then he was comforted. Having a man think he’s told her of his love means nothing, has he convinced her? When we give the Gospel, we’ll tell a sinner that God loves the world. That’s true, but it does the sinner no good unless there’s conviction that God loves him or her. A man thinking he’s told his wife of his love, or fed her, or bought her a house, doesn’t convince her.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
: Eat and drink
, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee
. Proverbs 23:7
A man can say he loves a woman and provide generously for her without giving his heart. My college roommate who was best man at my wedding had a serious heart attack. I spent hours in the waiting room with his wife and daughter. His wife was really angry –“How can he just die and leave me all alone?”
It seemed that she was tied to him, but when I told stories of what he and I had done in college, some of the jobs he’d had, and talked of his goals and ambitions, it was evident that he’d told her nothing of his past or where he was going. She had no idea what he was doing. How could she help him? She was frustrated.
His heart recovered a bit. Life went on, but his wife died suddenly in a car accident. He was devastated even though their relationship had been pretty empty and pretty rocky. A month or so later, my wife and I had coffee with him and his daughter. My wife asked, “Did she know how much you loved her?”
He said she’d known, but when he spoke of being sorry that they’d had a quarrel before his wife drove off to her meeting and died on the way back, his daughter exploded, “She didn’t know! You never told either of us you loved us!” He thought providing for them proved it. He was surprised to find that it didn’t.
Another attack killed him a few months later, 35 years to the day after he was best man at our wedding. The call came during our anniversary dinner. As his executor was cleaning out his house, we bought the bookcases he and I had made before he’d married. His daughter had lived with them her entire life but had never been told he’d made them. He was typical of what some women call “island men.” It’s like they live off on a remote island all by themselves without any emotional connection with anyone else.
I understand the Apostle Peter’s desire not to admit his love for Jesus. He wanted no part of the sorrow Jesus had felt. I not only had the sorrow of losing my friend, I had the sorrow of knowing he’s probably gone to Hell and the sorrow of knowing the sorrow he put on his wife and daughter because they didn’t feel loved.
I knew why he didn’t open himself to them, however. It was so scary for me to open my heart to my wife after we were married that I remember vividly the moment I realized just what opening myself to her would mean. I did this by faith; it was years before I began to see just how important this was to her. My friend wasn’t a Christian, he didn’t know God, so he didn’t know that God expected him to trust his wife.
Seed and Speech are a Man’s and Woman’s Form of Communication
Women communicate heart to heart; men communicate belly to belly. It’s a sacrifice for a man to talk as much as his wife needs. It’s a sacrifice to meet a husband’s needs. She thinks he wants to do the same old thing over and over. He thinks that she wants to talk about the same old thing over and over. God expects a man to open his heart to his wife often enough and thoroughly enough that they learn each other’s needs:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge
, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered
. I Peter 3:7
If a man fails to honor his wife by listening to her enough to know how best to nourish and cherish her, his prayers are blocked. This can take a lot of talk. Just before our wedding, my fiancé told me she was really looking forward to being married. I was too. I thought we were on the same page, but she went on. “I like talking to you. Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.”
We were not on the same page. We weren’t in the same chapter. We were in totally different volumes! That’s more talk than a man can imagine, she was expecting hours per day! We’d talked a lot while dating because we couldn’t do anything else. I thought once we were married, it would be a done deal and we wouldn’t have to talk about it any more. The Holy Spirit led her to tell me that talking to her a lot more than I could imagine was an important part of our marriage covenant from her point of view.
That’s probably the only reason I was willing to open my heart to her after we were married.
I had no idea how vital this was. A woman can’t follow or obey unless she knows what he wants. She can’t do what he wants unless he opens his heart to her so that she knows him well enough to know what he wants. Then she can be sure he’ll be happy with her, which makes her happy and helps her understand his praise.
A wife’s need for talk isn’t fulfilled until she’s OK. A man’s need to be physical isn’t fulfilled until he’s OK.
God made women think very differently from men (Pr. 19:14b[131]). It takes hours and hours of talk before a man can understand what a woman is saying or for her to understand him well enough to be sure of pleasing him. If I hadn’t promised to talk to her, I’d probably have been too impatient to talk enough for her to feel that I valued her mind. If I hadn’t appreciated her thoughts, she wouldn’t have been able to help me write about marriage. A happy wife makes her husband as happy as he made her; making my wife feel appreciated makes her happy and her help benefits me greatly. This draws us together and makes us one in Christ.
Opening my heart was scary, but Pr. 31:11 says “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.” God wanted me to know that it was OK to open myself to her. The Bible teaches women to call their husbands “Lord.” It helped that she’d call me “Sir” as the spirit moved her. That gave me confidence that she respected me even when I made mistakes. That made it easier for me to open my heart and show my love for her.
I wrote a letter, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman; for God so loved me that He gave me you.” If a man can look his wife in the eye, tell her that, mean it, and live it, the marriage will most likely work.
If you want to be happy in marriage, be happy enough to convince your wife that you’re happy with her.
To continue reading more of this article (CLICK HERE)>>> Marriage Under Threat: Hear the Voice of the Bridegroom Concerning Holy Matrimony (successful-marriage.blogspot.com)
Recent Comments