The other day I gave you the 10 Reasons Why a Husband Isn’t Loving His Wife with Christ-Like Love, and many of the reasons I listed had the underlying premise that a husband was learning his wife’s needs. Well today I want to share with you how you can respectfully communicate your needs to your man so it’ll be easier for him to love you the way he is commanded by God to do so.
When I was newly married I desired so much to fulfill the commands by God to be a respectful and submissive wife to my husband. But because I didn’t have a Godly role model emulating what that looked like, I was a little unsure of how to go about this path.
So, early on in our marriage when my Beloved and I would have our disagreements I really didn’t know how to handle them in a Godly way and here’s why…
My natural reaction is to yell and slam doors and to make sure I win the fight at all cost! (I was a contentious woman with a capital “C”!) Seeing how I came from a home filled with rage, I pretty much emulated that same behavior before I gave my heart to the Lord. But now I was a born-again Believer and I knew that those old, contentious ways were not pleasing to my Father. So, when the disagreements would ensue in our marriage I did my best to maintain self-control and not respond like I did when I lived in darkness.
So instead of lashing out at my husband, I swung in the opposite direction and I stuffed my feelings thinking this was the Biblical approach to being submissive and respectful to my husband. Which it is not! I quickly learned that taking this approach was not best for my marriage or for my walk with the Lord. Stuffing feelings just leads to bitterness and it breaks the oneness of our marital relationship. In a nutshell, when I didn’t share how I was feeling with my husband, it led me to feeling disconnected from him. And if I felt disconnected then it was easier for me to put my walls up and not let him in. Which would eventually lead to anger, a cold heart, and a platonic marital relationship. By the way, none of these things bring glory to the Lord.
Since being contentious didn’t glorify the Lord nor did stuffing my feelings, I knew I needed to learn a new approach to communicating my needs to my husband.
Being that I didn’t really know what to do, I just decided to share my heart, (kinda like I did when my man and I were dating/engaged.) When I came to my husband with a spirit of vulnerability and humility (which is extremely hard to do!), I’m naturally softer, kinder, gracious, and respectful when I speak to him. He always likes this, by the way, and it allows him to deal with me in a gentler way.
The act of sharing your heart makes it easier for a husband to dwell with you with understanding and not be harsh towards you.*
So what does sharing your heart look like, you might ask?
Share with him…
Your feelings.
Your concerns.
Your limitations.
Your fears.
What you’re struggling with.
What you’re trying to overcome.
What you’re capable of doing and not doing.
What you need his support in.
What you need his help with.
And where you need him to protect you.
She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. Prov. 31:26
It’s best to share your heart with your husband at a time when you’re not in an argument. 🙂 By communicating your needs beforehand, this will help the two of you to figure out your standards and expectations in your marriage. And when the disagreements ensue, it’ll be easier to combat the selfishness or the misunderstandings that are surfacing between the two of you.
Just an fyi: you can also use a similar list from the one I wrote and ask your man to share his heart with you so you can better meet his needs. In fact, you can take this list out on a date one night and have a discussion surrounding this topic. I highly recommend it!
*Note: I realize that some wives have been respectful and submissive towards their husbands and they have shared their heart countless times with their husbands, yet their men are still harsh, unloving, uncaring, demanding, and they dismiss the wife’s feelings. First, I can’t even begin to tell you how many emails I receive by wives who are in your exact same situation, so please know that you are not alone. Second, next up in this series my husband will be addressing this issue in marriage!
Other posts in this series:
1. 8 Earmarks of a Christian Husband
2. 10 Reasons Why a Husband Isn’t Loving His Wife with Christ-Like Love
3. What Does the Bible Say About Abuse in Marriage?
Live a poured out life for Christ,
Jolene Engle
Always enjoy reading your posts as they are such an encouragement to new and seasoned believers alike. God is pouring into my heart right now people and words to make it easier for me to submit and show love/respect towards my husband. So I appreciate you being a proponent of that and giving me valuable knowledge to acomplish my goal.
I am like you in so many ways Jolene. I grew up always in a fight or screaming match, trying to be right and so I carried it into my adult life. I then also thought I needed to quash my feelings in order to be respectful. My husband is quite a closed book and I really need to follow my instincts and prod him to share his heart with me. See I became withdrawn because whenever I shared my vulnerable heart with him (In all the ways you have mentioned above) this glazed unimpressed look would come over his face, like I was forcing him to be my therapist. His family do not communicate very well especially about their feelings. After a while I told him I would rather prod and poke him to the point of an argument than sit in silence not sharing with him. Even if he has to yell his feeling in frustration at me, that was better than not knowing. My Therapist gave me some great tips to help in this area. Firstly he gave me permission, he said “If you go off on this self help journey of growth and faith, and don’t share it with your man, he will be left behind and it will get even harder and distance will develop between you.” He also said to use small sentences and try to stick to one topic at a time (Apparently men have a hard time keeping up with the mass of knots we women tend to connect everything together with, they like everything to be in it’s own separate box) Then he said to try this one simple phrase.
“I need you to pay attention to me,. It is good for me, and it is good for us” then let him think it over. It’s not that he ignored me, we have great laugh together and spend a lot of time together, it was just when the conversation got a bit too deep and heavy for him that he would pull away. Well it wasn’t that long ago that I tried these tips, but I have noticed small increments of improvement and I will keep at it and let you know. Another Great post as usual! I read all the time on email, just rarely get time to comment. Good on you for keeping with it after all the persecution you received. Many blessings await you!
Sounds like the two of you are figuring it out! Keep sharing your heart, Water bearer, it’ll yield good for your marriage! And of course, as you said, a little bit at a time is how most men can receive it.
This morning I was praying that God would help me with the bitterness that I was feeling towards my husband. I ended up at your site! I am so grateful I found it. Thank you for posting all of the helpful, practical and biblical ways I can love my husband in the midst of pain. It is hard to keep your heart soft and vulnerable with your husband when you haven’t been loved with the love of Christ. I have so needed this encouragement because I do not want to have bitterness in my heart, life or marriage!! I know that I am far from perfect myself, but as a Christian I need to forgive my husband just like Christ has forgiven me. While it is not always easy to forgive, I know that I am commanded to do so. What is harder to do is to overcome feelings of bitterness at the root level. I thought I dealt with it but it rears its ugly head again. Thank you for the encouragement and it is so helpful that I know I am not alone in these struggles!
I just found your site in tears after yet another argument by text. Thank you for your ministry, I hope it will help us. <3
This is such great wisdom. My husband and I have only been married for about years and I find myself swinging back and forth between these two extremes of being argumentative and harsh and just trying to stuff my feelings inside and feeling withdraw from him. I need to find respectful ways to express my feelings to him but it is very difficult for me to talk about my feelings without getting upset. Even when I manage to talk and share with him in a calm and respectful way, it often backfires because he then feels the pressure to fix whatever is upsetting me or challenging me. I know it stresses him out when I’m stressed out. I don’t want to add to his stress but I want us to communicate and be able to help each other.
We share the same concerns. I need to know how to resolve them.
But what if your husband doesn’t communicate regularly. As far as him, his sister and father dont have healthy communication habits, so of course this is something he’s already used to.doing.
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