The Not So Excellent Wife
Do you try to make your man feel loved, but it doesn’t seem to work? He doesn’t act like he loves you back. He’s distant and doesn’t want to spend time with you.
Have you ever considered your man’s behavior towards you as “feedback?” And his “feedback” is telling you he doesn’t appreciate your love. How can you make him feel loved?
He may be responding to you because of the way he thinks you’re treating him.
What makes you feel loved and what makes him feel loved are different.
If you treat him in ways he perceives as loving, you get positive feedback. He talks to you. He wants to spend time with you. He wants to do nice things for you.
If you’re getting negative feedback, you may need to re-evaluate
If you treat him in ways he perceives as unloving, you’ll get negative feedback.
He’d rather watch TV than spend time with you. He works late or stays out with his friends. He avoids you.
What does a man perceive as unloving or bad?
Disrespect.
When your man feels disrespected, he feels unloved.
He may respond defensively. Or in anger. If he feels that way often enough, eventually he’ll begin to pull away from you.
If your husband would rather do almost anything other than hang out with you, he could feel disrespected. And you might not even know.
Respect is like oxygen to men. They need it to thrive.
Are you thinking, “I don’t disrespect my husband, but he acts like a creep“?
You may be disrespecting him without realizing it.
Early in my marriage, my disrespectful behavior came across in the form of “help.” I’d ask him to do something then tell him how to do it. I’d tell him ways that could be easier or more efficient.
To him that translated as: You don’t know what you’re doing.
Sometimes disrespect isn’t always obvious to women.
8 Ways You May Be Communicating Disrespect
Here are a few ways you could be communicating disrespect:
- Offer help or a better way of doing something
- Undermine his decisions
- Instruct him how to do something you’ve asked him to do
- Fail to acknowledge him when he comes home from work
- Mother him
- Make him feel stupid by challenging his decisions
The next time your husband responds to you in a way you don’t like, consider it feedback. Ask yourself if you could’ve disrespected him unintentionally.
When you respect your husband, he’ll almost always respond in a loving way. Any man met with constant disrespect will either emotionally shut down in a relationship or seek respect somewhere else.
Need skills to build intimacy?
- Get on the waitlist for my next group coaching session–Change Your Mind; Change Your Marriage.
- Visit my website, like my Facebook page and join my private Facebook group.
- Check out my FREE resources and download How to Be A Wife No Man Will Ever Want to Leave.
- Apply for private coaching with Sheila.
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Also known as the Not So Excellent Wife, Sheila Qualls understands how tiring a tough marriage can be.
She went from the brink of divorce to having a thriving marriage by translating timeless truths into practical skills. She’s helped women just like you turn their men into the husbands they want.
After 33 years of marriage, she’s a coach and a speaker whose passion is to equip women to break relationship-stifling habits and do marriage God’s way. And you don’t have to be a doormat to do it.
She and her husband Kendall live in Minnesota with their five children and their Black Lab, Largo.
In addition to coaching, Sheila is a member of the MOPS Speaker Network. Her work has been featured on the MOPS Blog, The Upper Room, Grown and Flown, Scary Mommy, Beliefnet, Candidly Christian, Crosswalk.com, The Mighty and on various other sites on the Internet.
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