#Wives are mysterious creatures.
We don’t mean to be, but for all our talking we frequently bury our real thoughts and feelings under a mound of trivial chatter delivered in undecipherable code. Other days our emotions overwhelm us and we know they complicate and even derail the conversation when you try to get to the bottom of the tears and upset.
This must make you crazy, right?

I teach Christian wives how to love their husbands.
After a Study or Seminar I always try to give time for questions and I can tell you the same questions come up over and over.
It’s the stuff that makes wives crazy.
These are the issues that sap our energy making us distracted.
They are the fears and hurts that cause us to snap at you or turn a cold shoulder, when responding to you would probably diminish our anxieties and help us feel loved.

Knowing your wife is not the same as loving your wife.
Her happiness and by extension your own happiness is to a large measure dependent on how well you know your wife. And how wisely you apply that knowledge.
You can love her, have deep affection and attachment to her, but not really know her, not understand what’s driving her behavior.

The Bible urges you to live with your wife according to knowledge.

You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman, as to the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life; that your prayers may not be hindered.
1 Peter 3:7 (World English Bible)

It’s a tall order and you won’t be successful on accident.
Fulfilling this directive is going to require all of your skills of analysis and implementation.
Do you ever feel like your job description and related duties as a husband could have been more clearly defined before you said I do?

I’m going to share my super secret research results with you.
If your wife is withdrawn or hostile you may find the root of it in one of these three ‘crazy makers’.
It could be a million other things (I’m sorry, we’re just that variable), but if you really care to know your wife and have a happier marriage please consider these prayerfully.

Here’s the short list of the things that make wives crazy.

1. Fearing you don’t value our partnership in life.
If you make unilateral decisions you make us peripheral and that tells us you don’t value our input or care about our feelings. Career decisions, finances, and leisure activities are not your sole purview. Add parenting decisions to that list too.

2. Selfishness in the guise of headship.
A Christian #husband leads responsibly, but never out of a sense of entitlement. It’s about service to his wife and family not dominance over them.
What’s your leadership style? Who is your role model?
Selfishness can show up in small everyday ways and these add up over time to a disconnect that often surfaces in the bedroom.
I’ve never known a wife who found toothpaste globs in the sink or dirty underwear on the floor a turn on.
And selfishness in bed is the biggest turn off of all. Lovemaking is designated as a couples event.

3. Feeling you don’t appreciate what we do or like who we are as people.
Men aren’t the only ones who desire respect. I’ll never forget one woman who said she didn’t know why her husband even wanted to have relations with her since he made it clear he didn’t think much of her as a person. That kind of hurt leaves a deep scar and chokes off a wife’s ability to freely respond physically. It can be the small slights like cutting us off in conversation or a big ticket item like ridiculing us in front of others. If you prefer the company of others over your wife or you ogle other women then don’t be surprised at the result.

We women know we’re too driven by emotion and need more reassurance than is probably reasonable to expect. But as much as I hate to admit it, we are responders.
You have to ask yourself honestly if any of your wife’s crazy has your fingerprints on it.

Several years ago at a wedding I listened to the ‘father of the bride’ share some advice with his new son-in-law about marriage maintenance. The Bible passage was not at all what you might expect, but it was inspired, truly inspired.

I went by the field of the lazy man,
And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding;
And there it was, all overgrown with thorns;
Its surface was covered with nettles;
Its stone wall was broken down.
When I saw it, I considered it well;
I looked on it and received instruction:
A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest;
So shall your poverty come like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.
Proverbs 24:30-34

Poverty and need in marriage are the result of neglect.
Deferred maintenance.
Apathy.
Carelessness and laziness.
Don’t think I’m saying all of the burden for a happy marriage rests on your shoulders.
I spent the entire month of October writing blog posts about being a ‘good wife’. Today was your turn in the spotlight.

Now it’s your turn.
What confuses and confounds you most about wives?
What super power do you use when your wife’s sanity is dangling by a thread?
What advice did or will you give your son on his wedding day?

If you haven’t seen this you’ll want to.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg&w=560&h=315]

You might also take comfort in the scientific research that confirms men have trouble understanding women. so if it’s any consolation, it’s not just you personally.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/men-dont-understand-women_n_3093763.html