When I married my husband I remember how disillusioned I was regarding what love toward a husband looked like.
From what I’ve read over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that many wives are unsure of what it means to love their husbands.
I thought love was about feelings but learned that love from a husbands perspective, has a lot less to do with feelings and more to do with actions.
Love from a husbands perspective, has a lot less to do with feelings and more to do with actions. (Tweet This)
For many husbands love from a wife is demonstrated by respect.
Honesty plays a big part in how we respect our husbands. For this reason I set a standard of being honest in both the big and little issues concerning my husband.
For instance, if I lie to him about sneaking onions into the meal when I know he does not like them, that is just as disrespectful as if I lie to him about the cost of something I bought.
Both lies boil down to deception.
Some say that “lying is an effort to exercise power over others” and that “deceiving someone becomes a kind of perverse victory, a way to win through stealth and trickery”.
There may be a tiny voice inside telling us that we are getting over on your husband, but it is very dangerous for us to flirt with this form of disrespect.
The loving thing for us to do is to honor and respect our husband by being honest in all things.
This is love.
Love can also be demonstrated in the way we speak to our husbands.
This includes our speech in public and private. I monitor what I say and how I say things to my husband. I am careful not to mock him or make him the butt of jokes.
I have learned the beneficial lesson of not to criticizing or bickering with him in front of others especially our children. As a wife we should strive to build our husbands up with words of encouragement.
We should speak words to and about our husbands that inspire them to become better men.
Every husband has his faults but I have learned that an encouraging word will speak life to your spouse and influence him to become the man you’ve always dreamed of.
If you are not sure what love looks like to your husband just ask him.
You can begin by giving a sheet of paper that says;
I feel loved when you___________________________________.
Let him know that you are desiring to be more loving toward him and that it would help you had a clear idea of what it means for him.
Take your sheet with his answer and make copies.
Hang it on your bathroom mirror and put it in your Homemaking Binder. Use the list to motivate yourself to be the women of his dreams.
This is a great reminder, thank you! It’s something I’ve been working on for quite some time, but I seem to have been forgetting it lately. I can point to at least once today when I DID criticize my husband, and I think he takes it worse from me because he’s not at all used to it.
I think he’d laugh at me if I handed him a piece of paper asking what helps him feel loved, but he has other ways of telling me. Turns out, he knows exactly how I want to be loved, and tries extra-hard when I love him in the ways he wants. When I wash dishes (which he usually does), he sneaks up behind me to give me a big hug and a kiss on the neck. When I mow the yard, he’ll come out and sit with me to admire it. The affection and closeness are what shows love to me, and he doles it out all the more when I can show love for him in the way he wants and understands. In contrast, my first husband thought love was handing a paycheck over, and couldn’t understand why I didn’t place the same value on it that he did.
While I believe my marriage is strong and we are both happy, I can’t help but consider myself the “weak link” in it. Either way, I can certainly only work on my own thoughts and actions and leave him to his, so I love these posts for some great reminders on how I can improve :).
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I am a Christian in much need of growing, and evrytime I get on fb, I always see a post from you, and every single time it inspires me. Thank you for you thoughtful words of encouragment through God! I often feel insecure and unworthy, and lately I have felt very insecure in my relationship with my boyfriend of 7 years (off and on!). Tonight I read many of your blog posts and it helps me to feel enlightened and encouraged and to want to do and be better. Can I please ask you for some prayer and guidance. Thank you 🙂
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Thanks for sharing! I needed to be reminded of this!
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
January 26th, 2013 at
You’re welcome Rebecca. I’d love to pray for you or answer any specific question you may have. Let me know if you need anything.
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Thank you for this I sometimes forget that he sees things in a different light than I do as a woman. I am encouraged by a hug or a Kiss as where he is encouraged by a freshly mopped floor and a neatly made bed.
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
December 3rd, 2012 at
Hi @Maureen Carlson,
You are absolutely right. I am very intentional about understand how my husband wants to be loved. Trying to offer him the love I expect does not work because that does not = LOVE to him. Marriage can be as great as we are willing to make it. SO glad you could relate to this post.
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This is great
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
October 21st, 2012 at
@Shan,
So glad you enjoyed it.
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Thank you so much for this article. It makes me feel so much joy to know that other women are putting their husband’s feelings first. God will only bless a marriage based on truth and love.
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
August 30th, 2012 at
@DAWN,
I know how much of a challenge it can be to love a spouse from God’s perspective. Gods perspective suggests a lot of selflessness even with no guarantee that it will be reciprocated. The thing is, if you are married to a God fearing man (which is something that should be determined before marriage) there’s nothing to fear. There’s only room for faith in Gods promises. It can be hard sharing this with friends and family. Sometimes they’ll look at it as foolish. But God often uses the foolish things of the world to confuse the wise. (1 Cor. 1:27) Many of the women who visit this site and connect on my Facebook page are working to respect, love and honor God by respecting, loving and honoring their husbands.
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Pray for him and ask God to show you how to love him. Ask God to soften his heart to you and that God would fill you with supernatural love for him. I am no expert but God knows what ‘s going on in your husbands heart better than anyone .
Blessings
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
August 30th, 2012 at
@Lucy Mayers,
Great advice. Prayer changes things. If not the person someone is praying for it can change the person doing the praying.
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Thanks for this article. But what do you do when he does not respond no matter what you do even asking the questions so you can improve. My marriage is not good at all and I don’t know what else to do. He does not love me and don’t want to get help to save the marriage. So now what???????
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
October 18th, 2012 at
@Jacqui Baptiste, I suggest studying Gods word to learn how you are to respond to your husband. Also make sure that you are right with Gid concerning your behavior as a wife. Seek God for direction and pray for restoration of your marriage.
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I love this piece! You are an awesome daily reminder of the kind of wife I want to be and mother to my son.
As someone who is super Type-A and a LOT demanding {working on that too} I need to have Proverbs 31 in my life everyday in order to remind myself what GOD wants of me as a wife & mother.
I think tomorrow morning I’m going to fluff my husband’s towel in the dryer like you did the other day. I baked him chocolate chip cookies today while my son napped 🙂
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at
@Stephanie @ The Brunette Foodie,
He’ll love your thoughtfulness. There’s nothing like a hot towel as soon as you get out of the shower. I’m glad to know that I am encouraging women to focus on their marriages, families and most of all God’s word.
Have a wonderful evening and let’s talk again soon Stephanie. 🙂
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Thank God for this article. I am new to your site. Connected looking for coupons and stayed an avid reader because of your advice on marriage. Your prospectives on how to be the “God kind of wife” inspire me. My marriage was in deep trouble because of my prospective and wrong expectations. I prayed and asked God for guidance. He led me to your site. Definitely not a coincidence. Today my marriage is stronger and headed in the right direction again because I changed my posture towards my husband based on this article. Thank God for you! I would love to help you further your mission in any way I can. Let me know how I can help.
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The Proverbs Wife Reply:
May 17th, 2010 at
Hi Shelly,
Thank you for commenting. We are all on the same journey– trying our best to line up our actions with Gods word. I am so glad that you are growing and that your marriage is growing stronger. It’s always an inspiration to hear that God is answering prayers and changing lives.
Your sister in Christ, Saidah
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Ladies, man NEED respect!. My husband would often say to me “you don’t respect me”. I had no idea what he meant. However, I was quick to point his faults and failures in a desperate effort to get him to react and change on those areas i felt his was failing.As a result, my husband was discouraged and upset with me, and I just couldnt figure out why. It wasn’t until a family member was complainting to her husband in front of me about how he was this and that… that i woke up from my comma and realized how devastating this behavior can be on a marriage. Both my husband and I have made a conscious decision to speak to each other in love, never raise our voice to each other specially infront of the children and NEVER NEVER NEVER criticized or put down each other in front of others. we need to always be aware of our husband’s need to be respected and our need to be loved and follow through with actions.
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