One Simple Way to Improve Your Marriage

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If I told you one simple thing you could do to improve your marriage, would you do it?

As a boy growing up in Peoria, Illinois, I would often ride my bike up and down the street. I can recall one couple I would see often as I rode by. He’d be working under his car in the driveway and she’d be out there sitting on a stool, smoking a cigarette, doing her nails, or just chewing gum. There was no other woman around. He was under the car, and she was saying nothing while he worked.

I believe this woman discovered a simple way to improve her marriage.

For some reason, I always remembered that couple. In fact, years later as I thought about them, I realized something. Many couples on our block divorced, but this couple never did. Somehow, she understood that just sitting there with him and saying nothing while he worked was a positive thing. She bonded with him even though they weren’t talking.

She shares her heart face-to-face.

Have you noticed that men and women do friendship differently? Typically (and I realize there are always exceptions to the general rule), female friendship involves face-to-face talking and sharing. Best girlfriends share their hearts, dreams and frustrations with one another. Although they enjoy doing activities together, it is the close heart-to-heart sharing that binds them together as “best friends.”

He shares activities shoulder-to-shoulder.

Male friendship, however, generally involves activity or watching an activity shoulder to shoulder, without much talking (other than some commentary). Guys hang with other guys that enjoy the same types of activities or hobbies – anything from sports to computers to working on their cars. They are comfortable sitting shoulder-to-shoulder watching TV without talking…or working side-by-side at their favorite hobby. It is the activity that binds them together as “best buds” more than the conversation.

During dating, they put their best foot forward.

Generally, when a guy and girl is dating, they put their best foot forward and do whatever the other enjoys doing, as a way to get to know one another and even impress one another. A guy is willing to sit and talk face-to-face as he gets to know a girl, especially because she is attentively hanging on to his every word! And a girl is more than happy to watch her guy tinker on his car, just as a way to be close to him. Attending activities together and even going for walks hand in hand is all part of dating – and it works. They fall in love!

He’s preoccupied. She’s too busy.

But after marriage, things tend to get more complicated. The busyness of life creeps in and things become mundane. A husband can be preoccupied and quieter than when they were dating. And a wife is often too busy to sit and watch her lover tinker on the car or computer. Gradually, they drift apart…each irritated with the other for not taking the time to meet their need for face-to-face or shoulder-to-shoulder time.

Who goes first?

When a husband moves first and takes time to talk face-to-face with his wife, his wife is more motivated to be shoulder-to-shoulder with him without talking. Conversely, if a wife moves first and chooses to be shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband without talking, her husband is more motivated to be close and talk face-to-face with her.

Who goes first? The more mature one in the relationship. Ouch.

Get some of the spark back!

This isn’t a magic bullet and it’s not going to work instantly. The deeper the distrust in the marriage, the longer it takes. But eventually what goes around comes around, and just doing this one simple thing can put some of the spark back in your marriage!

Will you look for ways to be the mature one in your relationship this week?

Men, will you seek to meet your wife’s need for face-to-face time? Women, will you take the time to sit quietly with your husband at an activity of his choice…without talking?

I believe if you do this one simple thing, it will improve your marriage!

Emerson

For more information on simple ways to improve your marriage, go to Love & Respect, Part Two: The Energizing Cycle.

Two Simple Things That Speak Romance to Her

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Men, you may not be as romantic as your wife (you sleep during the movie Sleepless in Seattle), but you are a man of honor, and a man of honor discerns the desires in the heart of his wife.

Let me recommend two things that feed the romance for her: she needs predictable face to face time with you and she wants periodic surprises.

Yes, I know for most men it isn’t romantic to sit and focus eye to eye with your wife while she shares her feelings (burdens), especially if you have heard it before.  However, the best way to energize your wife, and even turn her on, is to give her your full, undivided attention when she talks to you. For example, set aside some time each evening for this. Sarah and I used to sit for 15 minutes each evening while she shared her day with me.  She connected with me this way. I realized that Sarah had a need that I did not have, but I concluded that was ok.  I was happy to meet that need and she respected me for it!

   

Because you need less emotional connection does not mean your wife should feel as you feel.  One way to picture your marriage is with a line that has the word Involvement at one end and the word Independence at the other. In the typical marriage relationship, she leans more toward the “involvement” side (to connect!) and he leans more toward the “Independence” side.  I am talking about the bell curve here.  But here’s the deal. Men, when you get too independent (especially when you stonewall), she does not feel close to you and begins to feel you don’t love her.  As a man of honor are you willing to step toward her and give her more of your heart and involvement, even if it appears she talks in ways that feel too negative and complaining to you?  Truth is, you are the Christ-figure and she is casting her burden on you.  When you act in this honorable way, she will feel fond feelings of admiration for you. Can you give her this gift?

Another way a woman feels loved is by little surprises. To her, it means that you are thinking about her…and that means you love her. Men, do whatever you need to do to remind yourself of this simple principle! Set a reminder on your phone to surprise your wife with a text that simply says “I love you”…or pick up a rose on the way home from work…or give her a call and tell her you’re picking up dinner. The surprises can be as simple as that…they need not be complicated or expensive or take weeks of planning.

So, be predictable and be unpredictable!  Give her predictable time face to face and surprise her behind her back.

~Emerson

MEN, NOW IT’S YOUR TURN - TRY SOME ‘FACE TO FACE’ TIME!

In my last blog, I encouraged women to study male friendship and to reach out to their husbands through “shoulder to shoulder” activity. I hope some of you men reading this were happy recipients of some quieter moments with your wives!

Husbands, if you are like most men, you feel far more uncomfortable with conversations at an intimate level than your wife does. Most women live with words and emotions that can overwhelm you. You might feel like the guy who said to me, “My wife is always prying. I feel like she has these giant claws, you know the kind they use to open up automobiles to rescue people inside, and she is meddling to get inside me. I need my space. I need my independence.”

Maybe I can help.

If a husband will adjust his blue sunglasses and blue hearing aids, he will understand that his wife has a need to feel close and connect face to face in a way that he does not.

I learned about this female need for face-to-face connection from my daughter, Joy, when she was just four years old. One evening I put her to bed, and I lay there with her for a few moments to help her get to sleep. The room was pitch black, and Joy was talking as usual—little Miss Motor-Mouth. Neither of us could see the other in the darkness.

As she was talking, suddenly she said, “Daddy, look at me!” Then her little hands reached over and grabbed my face, forcing me to look toward her. Already at this age, even in the dark, she sensed that Daddy wasn’t looking, and if he wasn’t looking, then he wasn’t listening! I cannot recall my sons, Jonathan and David, ever grabbing my face like that and demanding, “Look at me!”

This connectivity is what women look for in any relationship, and especially marriage. When she married you, she thought you would be like her best girlfriend — you would figuratively sit with her to talk eye to eye. But that probably didn’t happen. With many husbands, it seldom or never happens.

Before you take a guilt trip, realize that no man can meet all the emotional needs of a woman. At the same time, perhaps you can start to try to meet some of your wife’s needs by forgoing your tall, cool one, your newspaper, your SportsCenter. You can understand what she is doing when she moves toward you, which she normally will do. That’s why she follows you around in the evening (or did when you were first married). It’s her way of showing you she loves you.

One way to picture your marriage is with a line that has the word Involvement at one end and the word Independence at the other, as shown below:

Involvement______________________________Independence
In the typical marriage relationship, she leans more toward the “Involvement” side while he leans more toward the “Independence” side. When you get too independent (especially when you stonewall), she does not feel close to you and begins to feel you don’t love her. When she doesn’t give you the space you need, you begin to feel that she’s trying to get too involved and doesn’t respect you. The line illustrates the tension that exists between your basic needs for involvement and independence. Tension is not bad; it is simply there. In fact, it is a necessary part of your relationship. A degree of tension in a marriage is actually one of the things that makes the relationship good.

The tension between involvement and independence is another illustration of the difference between pink and blue. As a man, you will probably not be able to be as involved with your wife as much as she may like. I am not asking men to become women who sit at tiny tables at cappuccino shops and sip coffee as they share life face to face. You are a man, and your wife loves you for being a man, not a woman. She
doesn’t expect you to become feminine, just like her girlfriend. But when you move toward her, when you show her you want to connect in even small ways, watch what happens. This will motivate her. It will energize her—and it will keep your marriage off the Crazy Cycle and on the Energizing Cycle.

So remember that she wants to connect…she needs to connect. For your wife, face-to-face time is heart-to-heart time. What she tends to look for is your desire to “dwell” with her for a short period to discover where her heart is. If she senses you authentically want to connect, this can do more for her than a one-hour discussion. A few moments of face-to-face each day can save you from those intense emotional “discussions” you tend to dread.

WOMEN, TRY SOME “SHOULDER TO SHOULDER” TIME!

Women often express, "I dream of my husband and me having an emotional connection. I want to know his heart and feelings, and for him to know mine. I want him to listen to me and understand me. I have tried to discuss my needs with him but he doesn’t seem to get it, and I can see him getting discouraged when I surface this issue with him.”

Maybe I can offer some thoughts.

Study male friendship. Look at how men interact with each other and then look at how women interact with each other. Women get together and talk about their heart issues and relationships. They get together for that purpose. Men, on the other hand, get together to do or watch some activity. As these men do shoulder to shoulder activities with a good friend, they relax and feel comfortable to talk about the deeper issues confronting them. They do not do this with every man with whom they do shoulder to shoulder activities, but only those with whom they experience a special camaraderie and trust.

With your man, try spending time just "being together" without an agenda to talk or interact. Yes, I know that appears to be a waste of time. If you can’t talk face to face, sitting shoulder to shoulder watching a football game seems silly. However, that's thinking about your relationship with your pink brain. There's nothing wrong with your pink brain. God made you this way and it is good in his sight. God also made your husband to think about things with his blue brain! If you want your husband to experience a sense of bonding with you, you have to give him shoulder to shoulder time. For some reason, when you do this authentically, your husband opens up various compartments to you. That does not mean spend 15 minutes with him and then turn to him and say “Talk to me.” This is not some formula to get him to meet your emotional needs. This is a way of respecting who he is as an end in itself, but a byproduct is that when he feels more confident about your friendship -- that you like him -- he typically shares more of what's going on inside of him.

If you pressure your husband to talk face to face and he feels the nature of the conversation is negative or critical, he loses energy to respond. Why? You never used to be this way. Think back to when you were dating. He saw you as someone fun to be with, and someone who liked him for who he was. He saw you as a positive, friendly person rather than a woman who had expectations of him to perform in a certain way in order to make her happy.

So, do you just put a sock in your mouth and watch football with him and never talk? No, you reach across the aisle and do the shoulder to shoulder activities. See it as something that fills his respect tank, and when you fill his respect tank, he turns to you and says something from his heart. And, he’ll listen to your heart. If you look around at those couples that really enjoy each other, I predict this wife gets this. She has made a decision to give her husband shoulder to shoulder time, and at some point (never as quickly as she wants) her husband turns to her face to face and talks. He might even ask, “So how are you feeling?” It is actually kinda simple once you understand the blue brain.

CRYING OUT FOR LOVE DISRESPECTFULLY

A wife writes to tell me her marriage is falling apart. In not a few cases, this happens because the husband does not understand his wife's heart. But he does not understand her heart and need for love because she misses his heart and need for respect. For example, a husband feels respected when his wife spends time with him shoulder to shoulder. But if she wants face to face time talking in order to feel loved and therefore denounces with great disrespect his request for shoulder to shoulder time, this husband won't understand his wife's heart. He won't hear her cry for love. Her disrespect deafens him to her cry.

I wrote this wife saying, "In both Motivating Your Man God's Way (Applying One Word.) and Love and Respect I talk about the importance of shoulder to shoulder friendship. This refers to spending time with someone just 'being together' without an agenda to talk or interact. Most men enjoy shoulder to shoulder time more than women. It is a way that they 'bond' or feel close to a buddy. This is why guys get together to watch sports on TV while having very little conversation other than comments on the game. Or, they enjoy having their wife or friend simply in the same room while they work. Again, not to talk, but to just 'be there.' For women, this is difficult to understand because a woman feels connected and close as a result of verbal communication, or even physical touch. Her needs are different than his."

Immediately this wife wrote back. "Shoulder to shoulder... wow, that was one of the horrible places that I spouted off to (my husband). I told him that I didn't like to go to the movies with him, or just sit and watch TV with him, it was fine but I wanted to have face to face time to interact not side by side! I had told him that I wanted to connect and he kept telling me that we were connecting. Talk about speaking two different languages. And, on our 20th anniversary I was so hoping for a 'connection' but of course I was thinking in my female way, so at dinner that night I told him... 'I wish you desired me as much as you desire that steak.' OH my goodness! That was so completely the wrong thing to say and that night he couldn't even finish his meal and after we got home he told me he was just done and that he just could not go on any more. I ended up spending the night at a friend's house. It took a few months before he was finally able to say that he might like to try again. But, he was really tired of all the junk. I think you are so right when you say that the man can't even put words to what it is that he needs! As I write this I'm just in amazement as to how he has actually put up with me for so long! Your statement of 'Since your husband has grown very bitter towards you, my guess is that he is reacting to what he perceives as your rejection and contempt towards him' is right on the money! You are so right."

I love this wife's heart. She is so tender and teachable, and I believe God will honor her. All she wanted was her husband's love. But she makes an innocent mistake that we all make, including Sarah and me. For example, Sarah learned that if she cries out for my love in a disrespectful manner or in a way that attacks my needs as stupid - like shoulder to shoulder time together without talking - I will pull back and disconnect. The same holds true on the other side. I have learned that if I request respect in a way that feels unloving or in a way that attacks Sarah's needs as stupid - like talking face to face for over an hour - she will feel crushed and want to talk even more because we have issues.

We cannot appeal to our spouse to meet our need for love/respect while stomping on our spouse's need for love/respect. We cannot poke a spouse in both eyes with great force and then say "Look at me. See my hurt."

Copyright by Emerson