How would you summarize these statements made by women as to why they were divorcing their husbands?
- My husband is no longer my friend.
- The only time he pays attention to me is when he wants sex.
- He is never there for me, emotionally, when I need him most.
- I hurt all the time because I feel alone and abandoned.
- We’re like ships passing in the night—he goes his way and I go mine.
- My husband has become a stranger to me. I don’t even know who he is anymore.
What these wives were starving for was emotional intimacy—being connected to their husbands at the level of the heart. Scripture makes it clear in addressing husbands that this is a primary need of a wife. No wonder these marriages failed. This episode examines the need of the heart of a wife to feel connected to her best friend and lover.
In 1 Peter 3:7, Peter commands, Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. “Your wife’s first need” says Peter, "is for you to understand her, which means discovering what is going on in her heart." Literally this text says, dwell-together according to knowledge. Dwelling together refers to sharing everyday life. The Greek word indicates a relationship between the knower and what is known that progresses deeper into understanding. Peter seems to recognize what psychologists have discovered—that one of the deepest of all human needs is to feel understood. Peter says, “Husbands, as you dwell together with your woman, she needs you to UNDERSTAND her, which means finding out what is going on inside her heart.”
This feminine longing for emotional intimacy is apparent in numerous texts of Scripture. In the great love poem, Song of Songs, the bride says, His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend (5:16). The reason her sexual desires are tied to her friendship with her beloved is that this has always been the design of marriage. A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:24-25). This text on the creation of marriage reveals its design.There are 2 ACTIONS in verse 24 that accomplish the GOAL given in verse 25. The ACTIONS are 1) the joining of lives, “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,” 2) the joining of bodies, “they shall become one flesh.” The GOAL is emotional and sexual intimacy: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. As husband and wife join their lives, they share their ideas (mind), their decisions (will) and feelings (emotions). This union of hearts, minds, and wills is then celebrated by the joining of bodies in sex. Marriage is given as the one safe arena where husband and wife are naked, body and soul—laid bare and vulnerable to each other. God’s goal for marriage is the regular, naked, joining of souls and bodies, drinking in the experience loving intimacy. To reach God’s intimacy goal for marriage, couples must proactively pursue both conversation, which connects two souls and love-making, which connects two bodies. What the divorced women were missing was the regular connecting of two naked HEARTS.
An astonishing number of men, including ME, entered marriage clueless about this fundamental dimension of marriage—connecting two naked hearts, i.e. emotional intimacy. Oh, how I wish I had understood it. And so does my wife!! Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoker, in their book, Every Woman’s Desire, cite strong evidence that most husbands are clueless about this need in their mates:
- 84% of women feel they don’t have emotional intimacy (oneness) in their marriages.
- 83% of women feel that their husbands don’t even know the basic needs of a woman for emotional intimacy (oneness) or how to provide it.
- A large majority of female divorcees say that their married years were the loneliest years of their lives.
SHARPENING OUR PICTURE OF EMOTIONAL INTIMACY
Christian Counselor Barbara Rosberg explains this need. "The word, 'intimacy' comes from a Latin word that means 'innermost.' What this translates into for those of us in the marriage relationship is a vulnerable sharing of our inner thoughts, feelings, spirit, and true self. Both men and women need to feel secure in this sharing and confident of their spouse’s support. This support is achieved through listening, empathy, prayer, or reassurance" (The Five Love Needs of Men and Women).
Emotional intimacy to a wife means feeling so thoroughly loved and accepted that she easily and constantly shares with her lover what is going on in her heart. Barbara Rosberg’s husband, Gary, also a Christian counselor comments, “No matter how many times I hear couples lament their differences in the counseling room, or at conferences, it is the same story. Men spell intimacy S-E-X, and women spell it T-A-L-K” (The Five Love Needs of Men and Women). To a wife, the emotional intimacy she craves is having her husband be her best friend—who loves to talk with her about everything—because that is what best friends do. Rosberg describes a wife’s yearning for heart-to-heart connection: “Melody’s idea of intimacy is sitting on the love seat with Dan, a couple of cappuccinos beside them, a roaring fire in front of them, no kids around them, and plenty of time for a good, long, heart to heart talk” (Ibid). Emotional intimacy for a wife is having a constant feeling of closeness to her husband, feeling connected, feeling emotionally one with him. This yearning makes it very difficult for her to live with a husband 1) who never opens up about what’s going on inside him, 2) is not committed to understanding what is going on in her heart, or 3) has failed as their spiritual leader to work together to resolve conflicts, which build walls.
3 OBSTACLES TO EMOTIONAL INTIMACY
1. Failure to understand this primary need in our wife because it is NOT a primary need that we feel as men. As James Dobson has said, “A man can be contented with a kind of business partnership in marriage, provided sexual privileges are part of the arrangement…However, this kind of surface relationship drives his wife utterly wild with frustration. She must have something more meaningful” (What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women). Unlike the men in Barbara and Gary Rosberg’s extensive survey of marital needs, the wives ranked emotional intimacy their second highest need, only below “unconditional love.” So, this need in our wives is real. But men do not default to understanding it.
2. Failure to grasp God’s purpose for marriage. Our joint mission as marriage partners is to fill each other’s hearts with unconditional love by regularly sharing our naked hearts through careful conversation and regularly sharing naked bodies in sex. For men, sharing naked bodies is easy. Heart revealing conversation is much more difficult. It requires being a safe harbor, where our wife knows she will still be treasured even when she shares shameful things. It means, risking her rejection by pushing ourselves to reveal what is going on inside of us. It requires manning up to deal with issues that come between us. Most of all, it requires a relentless refusal to be content with just a business relationship with sexual privileges. “Marriage,” says God, “is about being naked and unashamed—wanting to know her heart, letting her know mine—and still loving each other unconditionally, day in and day out." The first condition for obeying Peter’s command to live with our wives in an understanding way is the desire for, the seeking after, the willing of that understanding.
3. The collection of walls we have built for self-protection in a fallen world. Adam and Eve did not need to be clothed before sin entered the world. But when it did, they were ashamed of their nakedness. On the surface this looks like they have a hang-up with their physical bodies. But that is not the case. After the fall God gave us the gift of feeling uneasy when naked in front of another, even our doctor. This feeling of wanting to be covered is a protective mechanism. Nakedness of heart, soul, and body make us most vulnerable to harm. We fear being judged, criticized, ridiculed, disrespected, or gossiped about. So, marriage partners bring into marriage protective walls around their true inner selves, some healthy, some unhealthy. But the very walls we need to protect ourselves also isolate us from one another. How do we replace the walls with picture windows into each other’s souls?
A. TO ACHIEVE UNDERSTANDING WE MUST COURAGEOUSLY EXPRESS OURSELVES.
Why does such expression require courage? Christian psychologist, Paul Tournier identifies two fears that must be overcome to let others know what is really going on inside. He writes,
1. “First, there is the fear of being judged, the fear of criticism. This is a universal fear, and far greater than we generally suppose. Moreover, it is from our wife, our best friend, from the very people that we admire and love the most, that we fear critical judgement the most. This is precisely because their love and admiration mean so much to us” (Ibid). One of the realities of God-designed gender differences is that when we do express ourselves in marriage, few mates really accept the fact that their differently gendered partner behaves in a profoundly different way than themselves. In fact, there can be a subtle frustration with the opposite sex. As Tournier explains, "The 'I cannot understand' really means that my husband is different than me, that he thinks, feels, and acts in quite a quite different manner than I. So, the husband feels judged, condemned, criticized. All of us fear this for no one is satisfied with himself. We are especially sensitive to blame for shortcomings which we ourselves find stupid, and which we have never been able to correct in spite of our sincere efforts (Ibid).
2. The second fear that needs to be overcome to open our hearts and feel understood is that of receiving advice. Here is an example of a husband who replies too readily to the problems his wife confides in him, and who wants to give her good advice. "She may be in conflict with a work associate who gives hurting looks or also utters cutting words to her in the elevator. “Don’t take it seriously,” he quickly replies; “of what importance is all that? You are too sensitive!” The wife then feels misunderstood by her husband. She even feels that he sides with the work associate—instead of sticking up for her. Thus, she becomes in fact even more sensitive to daily affronts. Nor can she feel free to unburden herself by talking about it to her husband" (Ibid).
3. A third reason we must be courageous about expressing ourselves is that to connect with our wives, we must talk about our feelings. “What?” you might say. “TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS? That is what her girlfriends are for.” I realize that talking about our feelings is hard for most men. Praise God, He made us this way. As strong leaders of our homes, and churches we don’t worry about how we feel—we just do it! But here is something to consider about honoring your wife’s feelings. You would crawl across hot burning coals for your woman—so why not endure the pain of talking about our feelings FOR HER. After all, it was God who commanded us to live with her in an understanding way—and that cuts both ways, understanding her heart and letting her into ours. Most men don’t even have a vocabulary for feelings. Besides, we only have four: horny, hungry, angry, and horny again. Since our emotional vocabulary is so limited, Christian counselor Doug Weiss in his book, Intimacy: A 100 Day Guide to Lasting Relationships compiled a list of hundreds of feelings in the back of his book so husbands could point to the word and grunt! Well, sort of. He challenges husbands and wives to put 20 minutes of daily “couch time” into their schedule to share their day. But that’s not the toughest part. The tough part is sharing two feelings they experience that day. Here is a list of common feelings to enrich your feelings vocabulary with your lover and soul mate. (Here is the link to his book).
Alone, apathetic, angry, annoyed, anxious, attractive, attacked, badgered, beaten, betrayed, belittled, blamed, bruised, burdened, cautious, calloused, cheated, confident, confused, content, comfortable, crabby, cranky, crazy, critical, criticized, cuddly, crushed, curious, deceived, defensive, demeaned, depressed, demoralized, deprived, deserted, desirable, despair, dirty, disgusted, despondent, dread, dispirited, distrusted, disturbed, doubtful, eager, disenchanted, ecstatic, empty, excited, exposed, foolish, free, enthusiastic, forgiven, forgotten, frightened, frustrated, furious, grateful, embarrassed, grouchy, grumpy, harried, helpless, hesitant, hopeful, hopeless, horrified, hurt, humiliated, innocent, isolated, inspired, insignificant, irritated, isolated, jealous, lonely, lustful, miserable, mystified, nervous, panicked, paralyzed, pleased, powerless, pressured, overwhelmed, put down, puzzled, refreshed, relieved, repulsed, relaxed, rejuvenated, resentful, restless, sad, safe, satiated, satisfied, out of control, scorned,selfish, sexy, shattered, shocked, sorry, understood, starved, thrilled, tired, torn, trapped, suffocated, wiped out, ugly, uncertain, special, unaware, unsafe, upset, unappreciated, undesirable, useless, valued, vulnerable, wary, wonderful, whipped, worried.
Knowing how glorious God's design of woman is, your wife probably can experience all of these feelings at the same time! Building intimacy means connecting at the level of the emotions.
B. TO ACHIEVE UNDERSTANDING WE MUST LISTEN EMPATHETICALLY (5 Principles for Empathetic Listening)
1. Pay attention. There is no substitute for locking our thoughts and mind onto what she is talking about. Tornier tells husbands how different their wives are from them, “A woman thinks in detail. Details interest her more than general ideas. She has a need to tell all the days happenings, once she is with her husband… To him all this appears very small and dull. When the wife senses that her husband no longer is listening to her, she feels terribly alone” (Ibid).
2. Practice shutupping. Therapist, Emma McAdam observes, “In general, people ask too many questions under the guise of listening." (Therapy In a Nutshell Video Series). Interrupting with questions makes the other person feel like she is being interrogated. Or worse—it puts you in control of the conversation and guessing about what is going on inside her instead of letting her continue to talk about what is going on inside of herself! Good husbanding IS about being interested in her day and asking about it. But once she starts to answer, my job is SHUTUPPING.
3. Use body language that shows you are engaged with what she is sharing. If she starts to cry or well-up always move physically towards her and perhaps show the kind of touch, hand on shoulder, or hug that fits the moment. Lock your eyes to hers.
4. Listen solely with the goal of understanding what she is trying to communicate. Listen for the deeper meaning behind the words, especially her FEELINGS. Tournier continues. "Through speech men express ideas and communicate information. Women speak in order to express feelings, emotions." I discovered this truth as a pastor when I called one of the moms in our congregation who had four kids. I casually asked, “Kathy, How are ya doing?” She answered, “Well I’ve got four nooses up on our porch. I’m about to hang all four of my kids.” After I got off the phone, I asked my wife, “Do I need to worry about what Kathy said?” Sandy laughed and said, “Honey, Kathy was just telling you how she FEELS. That’s what women do!”
It is essential to point out that we must be listening for the sole purpose of helping our mate share her feelings so she can lay bare her heart and still be cherished. There is a place for giving advice and problem solving if they are sought. But realize that problem solving and giving advice feel like you are discounting their feelings or trying to change them instead of giving her the gift of understanding and cherishing the vulnerable inner self, she has just revealed.
5. Occasionally mirror back to her what you think she just said, especially looking for her feelings. You may say, “I think you’re saying ABC and she may say “No, that’s not it at all.” That’s okay. The goal is to cause your bride to feel like you are trying to understand what she is feeling because you cherish her. Here are a few phrases to you can use to summarize what you think she was trying to communicate:
- “So, from your point of view….”
- “It sounds like you’re feeling….”
- “You believe….”
- “It seems like….”
- “What I guess you’re feeling is….”
Let me close with these final words from Paul Tournier’s classic, To Understand Each Other, which I’ve repeatedly quoted in this article, “No one can develop freely in this world and find a full life without feeling understood by at least one person. Misunderstood, he loses his self-confidence, he loses his faith in life or even in God. He is blocked and he regresses.” Perhaps that is why Peter commanded husbands, Job #1 is give your wife the gift of feeling understood—that you know and love her heart. Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way.
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- How would you explain to a husband that for his wife emotional intimacy is so important that if she isn’t feeling emotionally connected to his heart if would be like you never getting to have sex?
- Describe what emotional intimacy is to a wife?
- What are the most practical things you learned about building emotional intimacy into your relationship with your wife?
