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Do you need your wife more than she needs you? Or does she need you more than you need her? Which of you gains more from the marriage? Which of you would be worse off if the marriage ended?
Of course, your answers are totally subjective, and your wife might not agree with you. However, how you each feel about this can have a profound effect on your marriage.
- If you feel you gain much more, or need her significantly more than she needs you, you could feel unsettled. You might fear she will leave you without any reason to have such a fear. You might fear she will figure out she is getting the short end of the stick in your marriage and change. You could worry she will see you for who you really are and not want to be with you any more. These fears will eat at you, and keep you from relaxing and being yourself with her. These fears can even become self-fulfilling as you subconsciously push her away. Alternately, you might choose to leave her to keep from being hurt by her leave you. Or, your fear could keep you from getting close, so when the end comes you won’t be completely devastated.
- If your wife feels she gains far more, that she needs you much more than you need her, she could have any of the fears listed above, and might do one or more of the things I suggested.
- If you feel she gains more, that you need her less than she needs you, resentment might come in. You might slack off, figuring doing half of what you could and should do is still giving her more than you receive. You might communicate your dissatisfaction to your wife in some way, causing her to become guarded and thus less able to give you the things you want and need. She might decide she can never succeed and just stop trying all together.
- If she feels you gain more, that you need her more than she needs you, she might feel the things above, and you might react as I said.
So, what do you do if any of the above seem true to you? What if one or both of you perceive a significant imbalance in your relationship? How do you avoid the problems that can cause?
If you’re the one who is doing or being more, you can choose to see it differently. See what you are doing as an act of love. See it as what is right to do, not some benevolent gift bestowed on your unworthy spouse. Work to give even more, realising you are blessed to be able to do so. Express that attitude to your wife in both your words and your actions. “I’m glad I’m in a place where I can do this for you, where I can give to you, where I can bless you.” Make it clear she’s not a burden, but rather it is a joy to do things for her because you love her. (If that is not exactly true yet, then work on it!)
If you think she is doing and being more, I suggest you have an honest talk with her about it. Share your heart, and your concerns, and then listen for her heart. Accept what she says as truth, no matter how hard that may be. Ask her if there is one thing she most wants or needs from you, and if it’s at all possible to do something about it, do it. Realise God calls us to love and sacrifice, and that He blesses us when we do those things. If she is being godly by doing more for you than you can currently do for her, it means God will bless and strengthen her.
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[This post first appeared May 27, 2012.]
Image Credit: © Martin Bergsma| stock.adobe.com
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“You might communicate your dissatisfaction to your wife in some way, causing her to become guarded and thus less able to give you the things you want and need. She might decide she can never succeed and just stop trying all together.”
This is kind of flipped for us. I don’t think she isn’t doing things, though. It’s more that she generally sticks to things SHE thinks are needed and that she thinks I should appreciate while not doing things I actually would love for her to do. Most of the things she does are things that aren’t very high on my priority list right now. They might rise closer to where she thinks they should be if they didn’t take the place of the things I truly want but I struggle to properly appreciate them with the way things stand. And, no, they aren’t all sexual in nature. While that certainly does appear on the list, it is a fairly small part of what I would naturally and easily appreciate. Which is perhaps the main thing I am driving at, while I try very hard to show due appreciation for the things she actually does, there are other things that I would just naturally appreciate from the heart and I believe she would feel the heartfelt appreciation immediately. She certainly seems to recognize that my efforts at showing appreciation now are a struggle and therefore clearly doesn’t feel as appreciated as I am trying to convey.
I do see her efforts and I appreciate that she is making the effort. Truly I do. I have seen many wives who didn’t seem to bother and I am thankful that my wife does. I regret that I get stuck on the fact that everything she does for me is high on her own personal priority list while low on mine. I do actively try to keep in mind that it counts more that she is actually trying.
And before someone starts throwing things at me as an ungrateful husband, yes, I have suggested different things that I would really appreciate and made it clear that they are far more important to me than some of the other things she wears herself out doing. I have also tried to help out where I can with those things that are clearly very important to her and I continue to help with them as much and often as I can.
Part of the issue is that she also enjoys receiving some of the things I would love to receive from her and will ask for them and express disappointment when I stop. Yet asking for her to reciprocate in kind is like asking her to cut off a finger or two.
So, I struggle to keep from becoming guarded or just give up trying. Because her efforts are all aimed at her own desires, rather than mine, I truly do tend to feel like things are very unbalanced. But I give the situation to God whenever I find myself struggling again, and I try to leave it with Him.