The Sex & Conversation Series, Part 1: One Simple Sentence That Will Delight Your Wife

“Tell me all about it.”

There it is; the magic bullet of a phrase that made my friend so incredibly happy. That turned her husband of 35 years into a hero – and turned her into the equivalent of a twentysomething young woman delightedly gushing over such a great guy. When my friend mentioned the difficult co-worker, and her attempts to navigate such a tricky conversation, her husband simply said, “Tell me all about it.” Here is what makes that such an incredibly powerful sentence for a wife to hear. We know from our research for For Men Only that most women greatly benefit from talking over their successes, joys, challenges, and fears with their husbands—in fact, they don’t just want that, they need it. Saying “Tell me all about it” goes far beyond a willingness to receive your wife’s words if she wants to share them: It invites her to share. For a woman, that invitation is priceless. It says that you’re not just going to patiently or grudgingly sit through the conversation, waiting for it to be over, with what she suspects is a silent sigh or inner eye roll. As long as you are ready to follow through and actually listen as she “tells all about it,” your invitation demonstrates that you actively care about what is going on in her life and in her heart. In fact, guys, the closest equivalent to what she feels when you actively invite her to share verbally might be what you feel if she actively approaches you sexually. As one man told me, “Usually I feel like my wife is willing to have sex with me, which is fine. . . but what I really want is for her to want me. When she initiates, that’s what it says to me. She wants to connect. She truly cares. It’s a salve to my soul.” So men, if you think about how loved you feel when your wife initiates sex, that may help you understand the deep delight she feels when you say you want to hear from her. Then the key is to follow through by listening to her story and inviting her to share all her feelings, rather than giving in to the temptation to cut her short by “solving the problem.” By inviting her to share her story and her feelings you are solving the problem!