How To Make My Wife Love Me

he title is deceiving. I admit that. You can’t “get” anyone to love you. How that occurs is a mystery. (And, we’ll end this post in mystery.)

But, I wanted you to find and read the post if you need the help.

I wrote this post almost 5 years ago now and titled it . It continues to be a heavily searched post. I think it’s because so many men are asking the same question. They’ve lost their wife’s heart and don’t know how to get her back. They want to know how to “get my wife to love me again.”

I decided to repost this, with a few alterations, because apparently there is a huge need. And so yes, if you stumbled here looking for answers-that’s my intent, but please know this is not a perfect post. It won’t apply to everyone. It won’t be an “end all” to your situation. It is simply designed to gear your heart in a healthier direction, so you can better concentrate on repairing your marriage.

As I refresh this post, it’s early one Saturday morning and I have just had this same conversation with another man. He doesn’t know me. He found me online, but he is desperate. Through some bad decisions, he has injured his wife and she isn’t sure she wants the marriage to work anymore so he went searching for answers.

I told him as I’ve said so many times before, this type of help is hard to give over the Internet. Generalized posts can only help so much. His wife is unique; unlike any other woman.

I have learned, however, that there are some commonalities in these situations. In working with marriages in distress, I’ve discovered that most men have injured their wife emotionally at some level and many times don’t even know it.

A man seldom understands (this man included) how different a woman is from a man. Of course, we understand some of the physical differences, but women are usually more in tune with their emotions than men are. When life happens to them, typically their initial and dominant reaction is to respond emotionally. When someone hurts a woman’s feelings, for example, even though the information they receive may be false, they have a harder time working through the feelings associated with the emotional injury.

The heart, speaking in terms of the seat of our emotions, was created much like other parts of the body. When a finger is broken the body is designed to instantly start to heal and protect itself from further injury. The same is true of the heart. When a person’s heart is injured, it goes into a self-protective mode to keep it from further injury. Over time, after years of injury, the heart becomes almost calloused, refusing to allow anyone to injure the heart again. A woman who has had years of emotional injury doesn’t have much heart left to give, but especially to the one who has done the most injury.

When a sudden dangerous blow to the woman’s heart is delivered, such as when she finds out the man had an affair, the already injured heart breaks — and completely closes off from being hurt anymore.

Most men enjoy trying to “fix” problems, but men cannot fix their wife’s heart. And that’s the advice most men want me to give when they contact me. Emotions are not repaired as easily as one could fix a leaking faucet or program a computer. There’s no program. No system. No script. There’s not an “app” for that.

So what is a man to do if he feels his wife’s heart is injured? How do you heal a broken heart?

Of course, Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor. He can come in, erase all the pain and make the heart brand new. Most of the time however, at least in my experience, He lets us wrestle with life’s heartache while we learn to better love one another.

In the former post I list these as “steps”. That was probably a poor choice of words. A better word might be suggestions. They are written simply as suggestions if a man wants to encourage the healing of his wife’s heart. These are good suggestions even if the man simply wants to improve his marriage relationship.

 

Here are my suggestions:

Seek God – I added this one to the previous post. It should have been in the first one, but honestly, I saw it as almost an unspoken understanding. It’s certainly what most men tell me they are doing at this point. Like the man mentioned above told me, he had never been much of a “church guy”, but now he desperately wants God to heal his marriage. Whatever draws you closer to God is a good thing — and will make you a better man, regardless of what happens with your marriage. Use this time to develop and strengthen your relationship with God. It starts, as all relationships with God begin, through a recognition of who Christ is and your belief in Him. Start there and grow.

Practice Patience – The first thing men need to do is to recognize that restoring a broken heart will not happen overnight. Emotions heal very slowly. Steps should begin to restore an injured heart or to rebuild the marriage, but men should not expect too much too soon.

Love Her – This is by far their greatest need. Most wives have their love need unmet. The standard for our love is perfection, since a man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5), so a man will actually never love his wife enough, without the help of Christ. The wife knows, however, when the husband’s attention is somewhere else. Most men sacrifice their marriage for their careers or other interests. A wife’s love need is there every day. A wife needs to know that she is second only to God in her husband’s affections. I have found that for my love for Cheryl to grow-I need Christ’s help. I pray for this often.

Romance Her – A woman has a need for romance. Most wives had a fairy tale idea of marriage when they were growing up. They realize early in marriage this isn’t reality, but their need for occasional romance remains. Men rarely know how to do this. A man should be genuine, but should recognize and value the uniqueness of his wife and find ways to give her romance. I gave my wife a “romantic” trip to New York City for Christmas one year. We were going to dance, walk through Central Park and just enjoy each other. It didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned it, but I earned huge points in the romance category with my wife.

Value Words – When a man comes home and says “This house is a mess”, being a mostly factual being, that’s probably all he meant. He looked around, made a physical observation and stated a factual conclusion. The wife, however, probably did not receive the information that way. The wife most likely hears lots of negative information, such as, “You have done nothing all day”, or maybe even, “I don’t like you.” That sounds impossible to most guy’s rational minds, but with emotions receiving information anything could be heard, whether that was the intended response or not. Men need to learn how to be gentle with their wives and the words they use. One question I ask men, “Would you let another man talk to your wife the way you talk to her?”

Communicate on Her Terms – Women communicate best heart to heart…not head to head. A man should allow his wife to see his true heart. This is difficult for a man to do, but he should be willing to be vulnerable with her. Men may need to ask their wives to help them learn how to say things to her. Men cannot talk to their wives as they would their guy friends. It’s rare for men to get very “deep” in their conversations with other men, especially when it involves emotions. Women require understanding, compassion, openness and honesty in communication.

Give Consistent Assurance – Trust is an important need for a woman in relationships. The wife needs to know that her husband is going to be faithful. Men should not take offense, for example, when their wife asks details about their schedule or the activities of their day. The wife desires to be a partner in her husband’s life and these details help her provide trust and security in the relationship. A man should also tell his wife frequently that he loves her. She needs this consistent assurance. As long as nothing major happens, most men can live with a “we said it once and meant it” attitude. This is not enough for the wiring of most women.

Encourage Truth – Ultimately life cannot be lived strictly by emotions. We need truth. Emotions are often unreliable. A woman who feels unloved may be very much loved by her family, but she fails to feel that truth because of years of emotional abuse or just because she’s emotionally having a bad day. Men should gently, but consistently speak truth in love, reminding his wife of her worth, her beauty, and her place in his life. Husbands have this ability better than anyone in the heart of their wife. Over time — truth, when given with love, can play a part in healing damaged emotions.

Be Consistent – The heart is damaged over years and years of injury. Sadly many women have deep and tragic heart wounds, but much of this injury will have been unintentionally delivered and small in terms of the magnitude of the incident. Years of emotional injury builds up in the heart until the heart becomes closed. The erasing of the pain will happen just as it was developed…a little bit at a time. The husband cannot try this for a week and then stop. Protecting a woman’s heart must become a lifestyle.

I remember once talking with a man whose wife was experiencing deep depression. As I talked with this man it became apparent that, though probably unknowingly, he had been damaging his wife’s heart for years. He couldn’t seem to understand why his wife was so emotional; “Everything seems to upset her”, he said. The man told me he had tried to help her through her problems and that everything they had going against them he could “fix” if she would let him. I am not sure I could have ever convinced this man that his attempts at “repair” were probably one of the chief causes of his wife’s broken heart.

Most men tell me they don’t know how to be who their wife needs them to be or wants them to be. And, most men don’t, anymore than our wives know how to be the wife we need. I believe if we want to grow strong marriages we will both, husbands and wives, have to keep learning. It’s never too late to begin! Ephesians 5 calls it a mystery, but the best marriages work through the hard work, to get to the greater gain. Great marriages are worth it.