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I entered marriage confident and naive about how much work it takes to love a husband well. Before marriage, we’d survived arguments, walked through in-depth marriage counseling, and navigated a long-distance relationship. We had this thing figured out.
Until we moved to Alabama for a nine-month school, and we had to learn how to “do life” with no support system nearby. Learning how to love well got real when he had to study and I struggled with depression . . .
. . . when we needed to squeeze a big television into a teeny-tiny car, and we each had our own idea for accomplishing that,
. . . when we had issues to discuss and weren’t sure how to do that effectively.
6 Lessons Learned on the Journey to Love a Husband Well
Perspective Helps
1. Learn your spouse’s love language and show love in that way. If you’re not sure what this is, read the book, The Five Love Languages, by Dr. Gary Chapman.
The five love languages we speak and receive love in are:
Acts of service
Physical touch (not only sexual)
Quality time
Words of Affirmation
Gifts
Learning to “speak” your husband’s love language can deepen your relationship as you love him in ways he understands. Sometimes, this requires us to think and act outside our comfort zone.
2. Respect your husband. What does respect look like to your man? Learn what speaks respect and what shows disrespect. Then do what helps him feel respected.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T = L-O-V-E
When we’re not in a good place with our husband, or if he’s making hurtful choices that negatively impact us, we’re still called to respect him. To say, “I’ll respect him when he deserves it.” attaches strings to your relationship. It’s the equivalent of him saying, “I’ll love her when she deserves it.” Ouch.
When we said, “I do,” we said yes to loving sacrificially…both when it’s easy to love and when we are so hurt we don’t know how to love him well. Love is a choice we must make every day.
Extra Thought:
Please don’t hear me saying you must respect and love blindly. Love speaks and listens to truth. There may be times when a wife must seek counsel on how to best handle things her husband is doing that impact their relationship, family, lives. Even when we don’t like our spouse, we can choose to love him.
Love is a choice we must make every day. #tellhisstory #lovingwell Click To Tweet
3. The most important thing we can do is pray for our husbands. We know their struggles at home, at work, and sometimes in their hearts. Wives understand their husbands’ strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else. We can either play judge and jury in our thoughts, or we can be their encourager through prayer and our words.
And, if you aren’t already, begin a habit of praying with your husband daily. This action knits hearts together in a deeper way.
Communication Helps
4. Ask questions and listen to the answer. Whether you ask, “How was your day?” Or “What do you think about ______?” or something else, we women need to become better at listening more and talking less.
My husband taught me early on how important it was to him that I not interrupt when he was sharing his thoughts. Staying quiet rather than jumping in with my response/comment/completing his sentence (I was usually wrong when I did this!) speaks love to him. When I listen and then respond, he feels respected and valued. Plus, when we do this for our husbands, we become a safe place for him.
5. Don’t expect our husbands to read our minds. Early in our relationship, my husband said, “I don’t read minds.” I learned to convey my thoughts, needs, and wants. Hinting at what we want or need usually leads to our disappointment and frustration.
Loving a husband well includes communicating clearly. Forcing our men to guess what we want places a lot of pressure on them. Though they’ll do their best to meet our needs, if we’re disappointed by their attempt, they feel like they’ve failed us.
Loving a husband well includes communicating clearly. Forcing our men to guess what we want places a lot of pressure on them. #tellhisstory #lovingwell Click To Tweet6. Make our husbands our priority. When Hubs wants to chat, I close my laptop and focus my attention on him. If I continue working on something while he’s trying to talk with me, I miss what he’s saying. And I send the message that whatever I’m working on is more important than him.
There are times when I ask for a minute or two to wrap up a thought, but then I’m all his.
To Love A Husband Well
I know some of these steps may require a perspective shift. Hubs and I survived our first year (and the twenty-four since then) by talking. To love a husband well requires intentional choosing to make him our second most important priority in our lives, second to Jesus.
And yes, we did get that big ole television into our teeny tiny car . . . we did it his way.
*****I need to add that I am not a counselor. I am sharing from a layman’s perspective. I didn’t cover this in the post, but for women who are in abusive situations, here are a couple of resources:
What constitutes abuse? Click here for relationship expert Leslie Vernick’s clear-cut guidance on what constitutes physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, financial, and spiritual abuse. And you can find help at The National Domestic Violence Hotline here
What about you? What would you add to this list to love a husband well? How do you choose to love when you’re hurting?
P.S. The winner of the Amazon gift card is Lisa B! Thank you to everyone who took time to give me input on this space. I appreciate you! Lisa, I’ll be in touch with you soon.
This week, I’m linking up with Grace and Truth, Anita Ojeda, #Instaencouragements, and Let’s Have Coffee. Come join and read more encouraging posts!
One idea I finally learned was when to obey the Spirit’s prompting of keeping my mouth shut. Often words or actions come out in a time of “tiredness” and we have a choice of responding either with a reproach or just not speaking and letting the moment pass. I finally discovered the latter had a much preferable ending. After 54 years of marriage, I’m still learning.:)
Mom, you and Dad are an inspiration to us. And you’re right. Tiredness definitely impacts how we say and do things. We do have a choice. You are so wise!
These are great reminders of how to love our husbands! I especially like and need to work more on really listening without interrupting with my own thoughts!! Hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day with your husband.
Kathy, thank you for stopping by! I imagine most of us women need to be continually working on listening. 🙂 Thanks for sharing a bit of your heart here. :). I hope you and your husband have a great Valentine’s Day too.
What I know now and what I knew then! Soooo much! Your list is fantastic – you had me at love languages! LOL – I want to add Don and Katie Fortune’s book “Discover Your Spouse’s GIfts – which talks about how the gifts communicate – WOW – it made a huge difference in understand his needs and my needs in areas of communication. The second thing that made a huge difference was realizing it was God’s job to fix the broken places in my soul, not my husband’s. I so agree about the importance of respecting your husband that you discuss. If you don’t think the guy you’re marrying is The Bee’s Knees – then you don’t need to marry him! Mine is The Bee’s Knees!
Maryleigh, my Hubs and I read the love languages book early in our marriage, and it really opened our eyes—both to how we each received love and to how the other received love. It’s been invaluable for me in remembering and choosing to love my Bees Knees man well.
Thanks for sharing about Discover Your Spouse’s Gifts. I haven’t heard of this book, so I’ll check it out. And YES to looking only to God to fix our broken places. Our husbands are husbands not our saviors. Such a great point to add to the conversation! Thanks for sharing your wisdom here!
Such cute pictures of couples! You chose well.
After 45 years of marriage, I can attest to the truthfulness of your post. I did wince when you talked about closing your laptop when your husband wanted to talk. I need to work on that myself.
I love your emphasis on respect. The book Love and Respect was a game changer for me and my marriage. I even gifted it to my step son and daughter in law when they got married.
Lauren, Love and Respect taught me a lot too. I’m thankful for the words of those who are far wiser than me. I learn from them! What a great idea to give the book to your step-son and daughter-in-law!
I love your wise insight, Jeanne! Thank you. And I really appreciate it that you included those links for those who have abusive husbands. So thoughtful and kind of you to think of others who may not have loving husbands. Love and blessings to you!
Trudy, thank you for your encouraging words. I’m so thankful for friends and readers who help me to better understand topics, concepts, and beliefs. Love and blessings back to you, my friend!
Such an insightful post this week before Valentine’s Day, Jeanne! I can especially relate to the process of learning not to interrupt, not to think what we know our husband is going to say before he says it, not to keep our nose in our computer when he has something to tell us. Truth be told, after almost 27 years, I’m still learning all this! Another thing I’m learning (it hasn’t been easy, for sure), is that the way people express love can change from season of life to season of life. Comparing now to how it used to be is tempting, but not very helpful! Happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours, my friend.
Lois, my husband helped me to see early on that interruptions were very disrespectful to him. When we’re in the heat of an argument, we’ve both had to step back and breathe and focus on listening first.
I so appreciate the wisdom you shared about how love languages can change from season to season in our lives. I hadn’t thought about that before. Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, sweet friend!
39 years in and I oft times think “I’ve got this…” and then, BAM!!!!
Susan, I may have grinned big when I read this. Like you, God has to remind me, sometimes, that I so do NOT have it all figured out. 😉
These are all great points, Jeanne. Placing God first in a marriage is key for a successful marriage. Unfortunately my ex-husband and I did not have that key. If we did, I believe we may have worked out! And I learned (through divorce) how important it is to have a good support system around you during your marriage, as when it is not there for you it can cause breakage. I think I will write a post about what my divorce taught me about a godly marriage!
Lynn, thanks for your insights. No matter what our life situation, having a support system around us makes a huge difference when we walk through painful seasons. I’m especially glad you had one when you walked through your divorce. I love your idea of writing a post about lessons learned!
Jeanne, we enter marriage thinking love will be so easy. I discovered a lot about myself that wasn’t so lovable in our early years. We both brought in assumptions and expectations we didn’t know we had. Thankfully, I have a very patient and loving husband and a wonderful Savior who uses all these to polish and perfect. We recently celebrated 42 years of marriage. So very grateful for my man!
Debbie, we do enter marriage thinking loving will be easy. Like you, I discovered a lot of traits that rubbed my husband the wrong way in our early years. And even today, but hopefully with much less frequency. Those expectations I brought in really messed with me. Like you, I’m so grateful for a patient, gracious husband and a loving, faithful Savior who love me well and help me be conformed into Jesus’ image. Congratulations on forty-two years! That’s fabulous!
Jeanne, You had me laughing at paragraph one. I wonder how many of us don’t go into marriage thinking this is a piece of cake and I’ve got it under control? I certainly did. I thought you hit some key points here. Knowing their love language (so important), not making them read our minds. And the point about not doing something when they are talking. Oh my, it is hard not to, but my husband gets sidetracked and can’t focus if I am doing something else. So I guess it is not just him. He has a twin.
Theresa, I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who went into marriage thinking it would be easy. Silly us. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 🙂 My husband feels hurt if I am working on something else when he’s trying to talk. I feel the same way when he does this. So, we’ve learned to focus on the other when they want to talk. And your twin comment made me smile.
Great list, Jeanne. I like to add one qualifier to the 5 love languages book. I think it’s very useful to help us understand our spouses better. But often I’ve seen one spouse of the other (usually us ladies) grab on to our own love language tightly and expect (even demand) that our spouses love us exactly how we want to be loved instead of looking at their hearts when they do something to show love another way. The Bible doesn’t tell us it’s OK to demand to be loved (to say nothing of a specific way) any more than husbands are to demand they be respected. It’s what we’re to give to the other one. We can communicate what we like in the right way and at the right time but it’s easy to become ungrateful when we think their attempts fall short of what we want.
Thanks for your list and sharing some of your testimony.
Donna, you bring up a good point. We do need to be careful about not demanding our spouses “speak love” to us in our language. I love your point about looking at the heart behind how our spouses love us and not just what/how well they show love. I so appreciate your insights. Thanks for sharing them!
Thanks for these good suggestions from your years of experience loving a husband well. Respect and communication is so important. I had to learn that all over again this year when we were thrown together all day every day by the pandemic. I, too had to learn to close my laptop and PAY ATTENTION!
Laurie, I suspect many of us had to relearn respect and communicating with so much “together time” because of the pandemic. Paying attention to our husbands (and to our kids, for those whose children still live at home) makes a lot of difference in the relationship.
Amen! Being open and up-front isn’t a bad thing! I don’t like it when my husband wants me to read his mind, so why should I make him do the same?
Agreed, Jessica. Reading minds should be left to Daniel and Jesus. 🙂 I like your perspective here.
Although I am a widow now, I so agree with every single point here. I spent 25 years with Kenneth and we learned how beautiful marriage could be when we marry the one chosen by God. Then…we listen to God as we walk the walk of marriage. I knew I had done it all wrong in my first marriage so had fears, but Kenneth and Christ were always there. Christ still it in my walk and Kenneth is in my heart.
Linda, thank you for your encouragement. I’m so glad you had twenty-five years with your Kenneth. I couldn’t agree more. When both spouses keep God at the center of our relationship, listening to Him and obeying Him, He can do amazing things. Thank you for your transparency in sharing a bit of your heart here.
So much good wisdom here! I think it’s so important to love well. And to celebrate marriage!
Rebecca, I agree, loving well is a key to keeping relationships vibrant. And celebrating marriage is a good thing.
Like you, I was most young and naive when we got married. I am so grateful for the husband the Lord gave me. God used him, and my children, to grow me up in Him. It is an ongoing and constant process – one that amazes me continually.
Joanne, I am with you, so thankful for the husband the Lord gave me. He has definitely challenged me to draw closer to Jesus, as have my sons. I am still in that ongoing process you described too. 🙂
I believe the intention of this blog is good but there is some very dangerous advice here. Not all is bad. The author is trying to help. I get that. Learning to love is hard. Learning to love God’s way is harder. But if you want to know how to respect your husband, seek God and His Word. As someone who was married to an abusive man, his definition of respect probably would have killed me. How many times did I hear (advice from Christians), “you’re not submitting enough, just submit more.”
If you have a godly spouse, the advice might be good. If you’re living in your own personal hell, do it God’s way. No matter if it’s a godly spouse or not, always ALWAYS seek God first.
Remember who Abigail put first and how God rewarded her.
First of all, I am glad you felt safe enough to share your thoughts here. You are always welcome to be yourself here. And I am sorry you found yourself in an abusive marriage. No woman should ever have to endure that. You bring up an interesting point that I didn’t think to cover in this post: defining respect. It sounds like the way your husband “defined” respect was not respect at all.
And, there is a difference between submitting in a godly situation and becoming a victim to a person who is abusive. As you know, these are two very different situations. I am not advocating for a woman to place herself in a dangerous situation. There are times when we need to evaluate if what a husband is asking is in line with God’s word or not. If it isn’t, obviously, we shouldn’t go along with it. As you stated, God’s word needs to be the ultimate authority in a marriage, in our hearts, and in guiding decisions and relationships. There are times when a woman has done what lines up with God’s word, and her husband doesn’t respect that.
I am sorry this post did not convey more clearly that a woman should not be coerced into staying in an abusive relationship. My intention was not to say that all women should always stay in a situation where they are being abused. It was geared toward relationships where there is friction (we are all human) but there is also a level of respect and love between husband and wife. I appreciate you reading and your feedback.
You may already be aware of these resources, but I’ll share them here, and I’m adding them to the bottom of my post for others who may be in the situation you are/were in. What constitutes abuse? Click here for relationship expert Leslie Vernick’s clear-cut guidance on what constitutes physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, financial and spiritual abuse. And you can find help at The National Domestic Violence Hotline here
I very much agree with your explanation, Jeanne.
Good morning, Jeanne! This is so good! We’re almost at #45 and still learning how to do life together well. Retirement and the pandemic have been challenging teachers …
😉
“Learning how to do life together well.” I like that, Linda. I feel like we are doing the same thing, especially with the changes the pandemic has forced upon us.
We are 30 years into this adventure, and I can testify to the accuracy of your thinking herr!
Michele, congratulations on thirty years. 🙂 What a legacy you are leaving your sons and their families! Thanks for your kind words.
Very good points, Jeanne. I’ve learned many of the same things over 41 years of marriage. But I need to be reminded at times–it’s all too easy to fall into a pattern and take things–and him–for granted.
Barbara, I suspect most of us need reminding from time to time about valuing our marriages and our relationships. I’ve definitely been guilty of taking my husband for granted, and I’ve had to work to make some changes in my interactions with him show him love in ways he understands.
My dear, if you would love me well,
please love, then, who I am,
an escapee from cancer’s hell
whose journey on the lam
is fueled by dreaful puns and jokes
and bad-taste making merry;
even at church taking pokes
like ‘greased pig in the sanctuary’,
a jest to turn elders aghast
as porker wiggles down the pews
while the young ‘uns have a blast;
now, doesn’t that dispel the blues?
And if the service needs more life,
you can mud-wrestle the pastor’s wife…
Andrew, you made me smile. Thank you for that. I’m praying for you and Barb.