All men want all the time, every minute of the day, is sex, right? Wrong. So, what is it, then? According to Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, in his book, Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires/The Respect He Desperately Needs, (Thomas Nelson, 2004), "Cracking the communication code between husband and wife involves understanding one thing: that unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It's the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find."
So, that said, what are wives supposed to do? How are they supposed to do it? What if their men don't deserve it? What if, what it, what if, won't get wives the love they need. It begins with taking the words: "I'm right", "my way or the high way", "you first", out of the marriage vocabulary. As Dr. Eggerichs explains: "When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband." Disrespect equals no love, equals a crazy, merry-go-round of conflicts and no resolutions. So, now what? Here are some tips:
Stop the Crazy Cycle
Spouses need to first realize they are in a crazy cycle. Next, they need to stop it, step back and begin to understand new ways to meet each others' basic needs for love and respect. Men need unconditional respect, not contempt. Wives need unconditional love. When wives show respect for their husbands it should not be based on any conditions, according to Dr. Eggerichs. By the wife showing unconditional respect, the husband can learn to show unconditional love.
No One's Perfect – Not Even Husbands
Yeah, he leaves wet towels on the floor, doesn't clean his dirty dishes, tosses his dental floss in the toilet, but, if wives can overlook their husbands' flaws, often they will see something worth noticing. Does he go to work everyday to take care of the family? Does he feed the dog, or take the kids to school?
Know that husbands forget sometimes, don't do things exactly as their wives would like them to do it. They don't do this to be mean. They just don't think the same way their wives do. Giving them the benefit-of-the-doubt can also mean giving them the respect they need. Don't allow the "little foxes" to eat away and erode the good things he does. In fact, wives who give husbands the respect they so crave in the form of compliments and affirmations, score big on feeling loved back.
Wives Need to be Giving and Understanding
Couples who have the happiest, healthiest of marriages tend to focus on the other person's needs, first. The words, "what have you done for me lately?" are not in their vocabulary. It is about pleasing the other person.
For wives, to "crack this code," it's a matter of having the "courting attitude." Remember, when the main thing ever was how to please him? Husbands need to be "built up" by their wives. Brag on him in front of his kids and friends. Wives should show their husbands kindness even when they think they don't seem to deserve it. If the husband is not a cold stone of a man, he will return the kindness with unconditional love. He will "want" to do it.
So, don't stand by and wait. Wives need to realize they can get that unconditional love they want, when they show unconditional respect to their husbands. Stop the "me first," crazy cycle, realize husbands are not perfect, overlook flaws, be a "good-finder," and that unconditional love will most likely follow.
Anne Mount - Anne Mount is an award-winning journalist. a Literary Guild author, poet, and a screenwriter (most articles and books having been ...
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