Here are some more insights for wives about what husbands need and why. This is the second of two.

How Wives Can Help Husbands Grow - Part 2
 
By Gary Chapman 
   
Meeting the Need for Love
 
Love is a two way street. If a wife wants to enhance her husband's ability to give her emotional love, perhaps her greatest influence will be in loving him. In my book, The Five Love Languages, I talk about the importance of discovering your husband's primary "love language" - the thing that really makes him feel loved: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, physical touch, or acts of service. Once you discover it, pour it on.
 
Husbands are drawn to wives who are meeting their emotional need for love.
 
Can you do it, even if he is not loving you? God did. He loved us when we were unlovely.
 
"But that's God. I'm me." I know, but you are God's child and He can empower you to love an unlovely spouse. I've seen it many times. A wife must first choose to speak her husband's love language even though she doesn't feel loved by him. He usually warms up and in time begins expressing love in her love language.
 
Can emotional love be re-born in a marriage? You bet. But someone must begin the process. Why not you? 
 
Listen to His Defensiveness
 
You can learn a great deal about how to influence your husband by observing his defensiveness. Defensiveness reveals the inner self.
 
A wife says, "Why does my husband get so defensive? All I have to do is mention that the grass needs mowing and he goes ballistic." This husband is revealing his self-esteem hot spot. Some experience in his past has tied his sense of self worth to mowing the grass. Your mention of the grass translates, "She thinks I'm not doing my job. I work like crazy, and now she is on my case about the grass." He sees it as a negative statement about his worth.
 
I know you didn't mean it that way. That's why I suggest you observe his defensiveness, so that you can learn what is going on inside of him.
 
We won't know these emotional hot spots until we touch one. It would be a good idea to make a list of all your husband's defensive reactions. Note what you said and did and how he responded.
 
This insight will help you discover another way to discuss the topic that will be less threatening to his self-esteem. 
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Today's content has been written by Dr. Gary Chapman and is based on his book The Family You've Always Wanted. Published by Moody Publishers, copyright 2008.