What Your Wife Really Wants

This one's for the men -- the husbands.  

What does your wife really want in marriage?  The same thing all wives want -- Oneness.  She wants an intimate emotional relationship with you.  She wants to be emotionally close -- really close. 

Unfortunately we men tend to stink at this.  Pastor Tommy Nelson said, "Many husbands are close by their wives, but they are not close to them.  Men think they are close because they are close in proximity."  Your wife needs more than proximity.  She needs emotional intimacy. 

Psychiatrist Pierre Mornell was in practice for 38 years.  He wrote a famous book called Passive Men, Wild Women in 1979 that is still highly relevant today.  Consider his words.  

The reason women are angry in marriage is because of their husband's passivity.  Their job gets all their energy, but their house gets nothing; their marriage gets nothing.  

Over the last few years I have seen in my office an increasing number of couples who share a common denominator. The man is active, articulate, energetic and usually successful in his work. But he is inactive, inarticulate, lethargic and withdrawn at home. In his relationship to his wife he is passive. And his passivity drives her crazy. . . .

Of the wives I've seen in therapy none are actually crazed or disarranged, but a great many are certainly angry, vexed, and confused. They're also highly intelligent, talented women of all ages who have become super unhappy in their marriages. No doubt that's why I see them in my office.

The husbands are also highly intelligent, extremely likable, and, at least on an economic level, making it. They work hard in their business and professional lives. They're excellent providers. (They almost have to be good providers to maintain our astronomical standard of living.) But, as I said, active as they may be at work—they seem incredibly passive at home. They are increasingly impotent, literally and figuratively, with their wives. And they silently retreat behind newspapers, magazines, television, and highballs in the home. Or they perhaps not-so-silently retreat into affairs, weeknight appointments, and weekend arrangements outside the house.

Pastor Charles Swindoll noticed the same problem.

The husband says, in a dozen different ways, "I'm tired . . . just leave me alone." Frustrated, the wife thinks, "I need more from you . . . give me something I'm not getting." She makes requests; he ignores them. She gets louder; he retreats further. She adds pressure; he lapses into sullen silence. He ultimately withdraws; she goes "wild." The scenario is repeated in various themes and with different words in every corner of the globe. I doubt that there are many neighborhoods where such marital skirmishes are missing.

Men, your wife is longing for oneness with you.  And there's only one way to meet that need.  Communication.  But not just any communication.  There are three levels of communication.  1) Cliche'.  2) Sharing information.  3) Sharing feelings.  To meet your wife's need for oneness you have to go beyond cliche, beyond sharing information, and actually share your feelings.  Share your desires, your dreams, your goals, your frustrations, your pains, your fears, your worries, your disappointments.  Share it all.  Everything!  The more that you share, the closer your wife will lean in and give herself to you.  She'll be happy, and in the end, isn't that what you really want more than anything else?