Healthy relationships take work and a willingness to learn and grow. For men this can be a very challenging thing. Most men tend to struggle in relationships because we don’t realize some of the mistakes we are making. Marriage is the closest relationship we have and as men we need to make some big changes in order to have happy, healthy marriages. Just a quick word to the guys reading this. Most guys work hard at improving themselves in their work life. We study, practice, and learn from more experienced people in order to become better at our jobs. We do the same thing with our hobbies. Why should it be any different when it comes to the most important relationship in our lives.
So here are 5 mistakes that I have made along with most men. Now there are probably a lot more mistakes that the ladies reading this can come up with, but that would feel like nagging and most guys would tune that out quickly. Here are the top 5 things guys can work on to quickly improve their relationship with their wives:
- Loving Our Wives Conditionally – This is hard to admit for most guys, because we like to think that we love our wives unconditionally. The reality is that most men have conditions for their love. If she performs in the way we like, we express love to her. When she cleans the house, takes care of the children, cook the food, and run the household then we are happy and love her. However when things don’t go like we think it should we tend to get angry, frustrated, disappointed and withhold love. When she does not show us the respect we think we should have we don’t love her the way we should.
- Thinking Her Definition Of Intimacy Is The Same As Ours – When men think about intimacy we usually think sex. This is not the case for our wives. It’s about an emotional connection, being able to talk about the important stuff going on in her life. She see’s intimacy as a deep emotional connection, when we take the time to really focus on her and listen without trying to fix things. For most women the emotional intimacy and the physical intimacy are very much connected. For men we tend to keep them separate.
- Not Encouraging Our Wives Enough – Many wives do a ton of things that go unnoticed. Running a household, caring for children, preparing food, planning schedules, paying bills working outside the home, volunteering at school or church. Most of us husbands take all this for granted and don’t thank and encourage our wives nearly enough. We can’t say it often enough. When we take the time to notice all the things she does and thank her specifically for them, it sends a message to her that she is valuable, important and treasured.
- Not knowing her Love Language – There are five love languages that express love to the people in our lives. In marriage this is a vital part of developing a close healthy relationship. Most of us guys don’t even think about how to express love to our wives let alone understanding what her love language is. We usually speak our own love language to our wives, which may not be her top love language. So here are the five areas: Words of Affirmation/Encouragement, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Acts of Service & Physical Touch. When we take the time to find out which of those are more meaningful to our wives we send a message that we care and want to love her better. When we actually do it on a regular basis our marriage will improve dramatically. Remember actions speak louder than words. To learn more about the Five Love Languages read the book by that title by author Gary Chapman.
- Not Building Spiritual Intimacy With Our Wives – If we want our marriages to go from good to great, then we need to bring the spiritual element into our marriages. Most of us men don’t ever connect with our wives on a spiritual level. This adds a whole new dimension of intimacy that is missing in most marriages. When we as men take the lead on spiritual stuff, it sends a message to our wives that we desire to grow with them. Being on the same page spiritually brings peace & strength to the relationship. Couples that are spiritually active together rarely get divorced. This would include things like church attendance, small group participation, praying together, praying for each other daily, doing devotions together, having spiritual conversations attending seminars or classes together, praying with and for your children. When we take the initiative to lead our families spiritually amazing transformation starts to happen. This all starts with us making a commitment to grow spiritually ourselves. We cannot force this on our wives, but we can start with ourselves.
Well guys, I hope this was a helpful start in making adjustments or changes in your marriage relationship. My next post will be on 5 Mistakes Women make in marriage.