How [Not] to Talk to Your Wife

My father once told me, “I love you kids, but if I have to make a choice between you and your mother, I’ll choose her every time.”

Here I am sixty-nine years old, and his words are still firmly a part of me. I can hear my father saying this to me like it was yesterday, even though I was a freshman in college at the time.

This story came to mind because I recently heard a husband denigrate his wife in front of her kids.?

My first reaction was to protect the wife. She didn’t deserve this kind of emotional abuse. She is a good woman who works hard to serve and protect her husband and children. She isn’t perfect, but she always tries to do what is right and best for her family.

My second thought was, “How are the kids being affected by their dad putting their mother down like this?”

Reflecting on my childhood, my dad spoke kindly to my mom, and he always spoke kindly about my mom. He loved her and respected her.?

His words impacted me. I just never gave it much thought. But now I have. Here is how I believe my father’s communication with my mom affected me.

1. It helped me choose a good woman to marry.
2. It showed me how to treat her.
3. It demonstrated how to talk to her.
4. It demonstrated how to talk about her to others.
5. It modeled for my children a healthy marriage relationship.

It helped me choose a good woman to marry.

I was twenty-two when I met Kathy. Like most young men, I had two criteria for the “right” woman. I had to find her attractive, and she had to be fun. Kathy met these criteria, and I learned later, much more. And the more is even more important than the original criteria. It is the more that has kept our marriage together for forty-five years.?

She was and is a woman I have always been proud of. She is a woman I find easy to talk about in glowing terms. She is my wife, and I am grateful to God that He put us together for life. Kathy is a great wife and a devoted and loving mom to our kids. And now she is a fantastic grandmother.?

But how did I get so lucky? I think it had to do with the way my dad talked about my mom. His narrative became a part of my unconscious thought. I believe I knew innately to choose the “right” woman for me. It had to be a woman I would speak highly of. A wife I would be proud of.?

It showed me how to treat her.

I’ve said some ugly things to Kathy. But the moment I said them, I knew I was wrong. I regretted it immediately. It broke my heart to see her countenance fall. I hurt her, and this hurt me.?

At a marriage talk I heard over twenty-five years ago, the speaker said, “If you want to know how a man treats his wife, just look at her face and how she carries herself.”?

He was so right. I never looked at a married couple the same again. If the wife carried a self-confident smile on her face when we met, I knew. If she had a sense of sadness and reclusiveness about her, I knew.

It demonstrated how to talk to her.

When I confess to God those things I said to Kathy that hurt her feelings, I also quickly ask God for the words to say that will lift her.?

Because of how my father spoke about my mother, I know how to talk to my wife. My father modeled for me how words between a husband and wife matter. I saw my mother light up when my father complimented her or spoke with kindness toward her. I also saw her reaction when he didn’t, when he would say something ugly and self-serving and storm out of the house. I was there after he left. I experienced my mother’s sadness.

This collection of childhood experiences showed me how to speak to my wife. It all plays in my subconscious mind. It is a movie I’ve watched and a movie I emulate.

It demonstrated how to talk about my wife to others.

A sales motivational speaker once said, “If you want to be married to a princess, then treat your wife like a princess.” He was so right.

But this also includes how I talk about Kathy.?

The other day I found myself at dinner with a close friend. He’s known Kathy and me for over forty years. I told him, “I sometimes wonder why Kathy stuck it out with me so long. I can be moody and self-consumed, even outright selfish. But she is so understanding and patient with me. And through it all, she is always happy and sees the positive side of life and people.”?

This is one of the reasons I am crazy in love with Kathy. What’s not to love??

All this said, I have had my moments. I’ve been with other men who start getting down on their wives for whatever reason. It always feels to me like a gossip session. Like there is something sinful about talking about our wives this way. Every man I’ve ever known that did this always does it in a whisper. He knows it is wrong to speak this way about his wife. I know it is, too. Even if it means not fitting in with the guys at the time, it just ain’t right.

It modeled for my children a healthy marriage relationship

I was humbled years ago when my high school daughter told me, “My friends like to come to our house because they say they want to have a marriage like you and mom have.”

I honestly was floored by this. Then I was proud and excited that we were judged this way by the harshest critics on earth, high school girls.?

This was an honest observation from these young women. They went to a lot of their girlfriend’s houses. They experienced lots of married couples, moms, and dads. The only way they could judge the quality of the relationship was by how these couples spoke to each other, how these married couples spoke about each other.?

I didn’t realize it then, but I do now. I was, and I still am, a role model. First, it was for my kids and now for my grandchildren. People are watching and listening.

The Word of God is clear for a successful marriage in Ephesians 5:33, “So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”