6 Deeply Meaningful Ways A Good Husband Makes His Wife Feels Loved
When a woman truly feels loved, your life will be even better because of it.
Getty Images Many men are totally at a loss about how to make their wives feel authentically and deeply loved. Sometimes, they have no idea what to do and desperately seek to find an answer to the question that eludes them. After all, they really do love their wives.
But every man has it in him to make his wife feel completely loved. They just might need some guidance from someone who knows.
Here are 6 meaningful ways men can make their wives feel loved.
1. Listen to her.
When your wife talks, do you listen to her? Do you truly hear what she's saying? And, most importantly, does she know it?
Women and men share very differently. Women spend 24/7, so to speak, talking to their girlfriends, sharing their feelings, hopes, and dreams. Most men spend maybe 1 out of 365 days talking to their friends about their feelings. As a result, their listening skills are rusty.
For some women, trying to tell their husbands, sometimes for years, how important it is to her that they be honest with his family about time spent with them, feels like pulling teeth. She wants to make their primary family first, his family second. And every time, he may say, "Sure," but nothing changes.
Why? He's hearing her words but not really listening because he's heard them before. He knows what she wants but also knows that his mother wants something different, and if he just ignores the whole situation, it will go away.
He's not really listening and his wife knows it. And what happens when a husband doesn’t really listen to his wife? She feels like he doesn’t love her.
2. Don't try to fix her.
One of the biggest issues that can arise in relationships is the difference in needs of women and men when it comes to dealing with things. When women are faced with struggles, part of how they deal with them is processing the emotions around the issue. For men, the inclination is to brainstorm a fix.
Unfortunately, if a man tries to fix a problem while a woman is still processing the emotions, things can get messy. You need to practice empathy. Empathy is defined as "the ability to understand and share the experience of another."
Instead of trying to fix her problem, try just understanding where she's at and acknowledge how frustrating and anger-producing it is. That's what she wants: For you to accept and understand where she is in the moment and to empathize.
3. Do what you say you're going to do.
Are you one of those guys who doesn’t always do what you say you are going to do, even if you genuinely want to? Do you tell your wife that you'll be home at 6 even if you know you aren’t going to be home until 8 because you don’t want to make her mad? Or that you will go pick up the kids after school, even though chances are good that you will have to work?
Wives may experience this situation: A husband promised he would stop on the way home from work to look at the new windows the couple is going to install. And he didn’t. Why? He knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it, but he didn’t tell his wife because he didn’t want to anger her.
In turn, a wife may take her husband’s actions to mean that he didn’t love her because, if he did, he would have done what he said he would do
Photo: Ekaterina Nt / Pexels
Often, for many men, their intentions are good, but they don’t do what they say they're going to do because they're worried that, if they speak the truth, they say they can’t do something, they will hurt or upset their woman. In fact, the opposite is true.
Men who don’t do what they say they're going to do actually hurt their women more and definitely won’t make them feel loved. So, make sure you do what you say you're going to do. Allow your wife to feel confident that she can rely on you to always be there for her.
4. Use your words.
Many women wish their husbands would "use their words" more often. They wish their men would tell them that they look nice when they're dressed up, that their success at work is remarkable, their golf game was dead-on, and the dinner they cooked was tasty.
Earned compliments such as these make a woman feel good about themselves. Knowing that someone they love is noticing their successes means the world to them and makes them feel secure with themselves.
It makes women happy when men verbalize their appreciation for the things that their women consistently do for them.
When a wife always supports her man when he needs to work late, but he doesn't thank her for doing so, it makes her feel like she doesn't matter. A wife may also make an effort to look nice whenever she sees her man so he knows he was worth the effort, yet he may never seem to notice.
All of the things these women do is all for love, and their men fail to verbalize their appreciation of those efforts. So many men say, "I don’t need to tell her I appreciate her. She knows."
While your wife might know that you appreciate her, she still wants to hear you say it. She wants to know that you see what she does out of love for you and that you recognize how special it is.
5. Treat her like a woman.
This can be tricky in this modern day of women being equal to men — women can and should expect equal treatment both in the workplace and in the world. That being said, women do still like to be treated like ladies who are desired, respected, admired, and appreciated.
In many marriages, as the years go by, men and women can start treating each other more like business partners than romantic partners. Life, kids, careers, families — these all interfere with husbands seeing their wives as women, women who should be admired and loved.
And there's nothing that a wife wants more than to be treated like a woman.
So, what are some examples of this? How about opening a car door for your wife, buying her that special scent that she likes, telling her how fabulous she looks, or taking her out on a special romantic date? How about rubbing her feet, bringing her flowers, or doing something to help out around the house "just because"?
6. Don’t try to 'protect' her.
Treating someone like the woman you love is one thing, but treating them like they are weak is another.
Many men don’t share something with their wives because they're "trying to protect them." They tell those little white lies, lies that seem inconsequentially but have real repercussions.
White lies might be meant to "protect" your partner but, in reality, they will only serve to make her trust you less, to feel less loved. And when she trusts you less, marriages can fall apart.
Photo: Thirdman / Pexels
Being honest about everything, big and small, is the key to a healthy relationship and a big part of what a woman needs to feel loved. Making every effort to be honest, always, will help your woman love and trust you even more.
Flowers and foot rubs are certainly one thing, but deeply meaningful symbols of your love are the type that help couples stay together and stay in love.
All of these things will make your wife feel loved in a meaningful way. And when you can do these things, the flowers and foot rubs will be the cherry on top.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, and Psych Central, among many others.