Love and Respect (29 page)

HOW CAN “DOING NOTHING” BUILD A RELATIONSHIP?

When your husband says, “Hey, honey, come in here and watch Discovery Channel with me,” what happens? You come in and sit down and he, indeed, does watch Discovery Channel, possibly commenting now and then about “the size of those elk” or “look at the teeth on that crocodile.” But most of the time he’s fully absorbed in what he’s doing: watching TV. If you are a typical wife, you will sit there thinking,
I’ve got laundry to fold, I have to make dinner, the kids’ lunches for tomorrow still aren’t packed . . .
Eventually, you will get up and walk away because you need to do all those things, and, besides, you and your husband aren’t really “doing anything” anyway. He’s just watching TV with you sitting there beside him. You’re not communicating, so how could this be building the relationship?

As a wife “you should look not only to your own interests” but also to your husband’s shoulder-to-shoulder interests (Philippians 2:4 NIV).

But wives continue to report that that is exactly what happens. One wife decided to go deer hunting with her husband, who uses the bow and arrow. She helped him set up the blind, and they both sat there for hours waiting for a deer to happen by. They saw nothing, they shot at nothing, and they said nothing. Finally, they took down the blind and headed back to the car. To this point she had said not one word the entire time. As they were walking down the trail, her husband turned to her and said, “This was awesome!”

Another wife, despite her reservations about doing something so “kooky,” decided to join her husband in his workshop and watch him as he completed one of his projects. She sat down, said nothing, and simply watched. He looked over at her and sort of grinned, and she just grinned back. A few minutes later, he looked at her again and smiled, and she smiled back. This went on for some forty-five minutes. Finally, he said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep it up!”

Why do men like this shoulder-to-shoulder silence from their wives? I really don’t know, but I have to admit it is different. Remember, you’re pink; he’s blue. If you interpret the world through pink and pink alone, you miss something, just as he misses something if he sees and hears strictly through blue. You need to be lovers, of course, but you also need to be shoulder-to-shoulder friends. (To compare the needs of “pink” and “blue,” see appendix C.)

Does Scripture speak of this need for both love and friendship? In Song of Solomon, where the main theme is passionate, ache-all-over-love, the Lord takes time in chapter 5 to say to the couple: “Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers” (v. 1). Then later, in the same chapter, as the wife recounts how fine and dazzling her husband is (“outstanding among ten thousand,” v. 10), she completes her litany of praise by saying, “This is my beloved and this is my
friend
” (v. 16; italics mine).

The New Testament also makes provision for friendship in a marriage relationship. The Greek word
phileo
refers to brotherly or friendship love. In Titus 2:3–4, Paul says older women (who have been “around the block” and are aware of what a husband is like) should teach the younger women to
phileo
their husbands—that is, to be friendly to them.

FOR A WHILE THERE, SARAH WASN’T FRIENDLY

In an earlier chapter I mentioned that I’ve often asked husbands if their wives loved them, and they quickly reply, “Yes, of course.” But when I ask them if their wives
like
them, often the answer is, “No” or, “I’m not sure.” I empathize because there was a time in my own marriage when I felt much the same way.

As Sarah will readily admit, she recalls this time of tension between us and realizes that she had grown very negative, trying to change everyone to conform to her standards, particularly of neatness. She complained about every crumb on the counter, every shoe on the floor, every wet towel left on a bed, every candy wrapper that missed the wastebasket. She was trying to help all of us, especially me and my two sons, to realize we would be happier if we were neater and more organized. Frankly, it wasn’t working too well.

It so happened that Sarah decided to take a trip to another city to see her mother, and she took along our daughter, Joy. I stayed home with our two sons, Jonathan and David. A week went by, and Sarah and Joy returned from their trip. When I picked them up at the airport, her first question was, “Well, how was your time?”

I replied, “Oh, it was good.”

“Did you miss me?” she wanted to know.

I couldn’t lie, so I said, “You know, we had a wonderful time. We just ate where we wanted to eat. We made forts when we wanted to make forts. We made the beds when we wanted to make the beds.”

A husband can be his wife’s friend “of her youth”but later be rejected as his wife “[ignores] the covenant she made before God” (Proverbs 2:17 NIV).

Sarah got my message. She realized that we had made the beds for the first time that week just before coming to the airport. And she also realized that we hadn’t really missed her that much. Oh, we still loved her as wife and mother, but we hadn’t missed all the badgering and criticizing.

Right there Sarah made a choice that she would like me and our sons despite our sloppiness. She realized we had gotten married because we liked each other. We were
friends
, and she knew she needed to be friendly as well as loving.

WIVES, BE PATIENT WITH “JUST SIT BY ME”

The wife who wants to show her husband that she likes him—that she is his friend—will be patient with his strange request to “just come out here and be with me. Watch what I am doing, or just watch TV with me, but let’s not talk.” When the husband calls the wife in to “just sit by him,” he is working on their relationship in a significant way—not significant to her, perhaps, but extremely significant, nonetheless. This is the way a husband communicates. Males prefer shoulder-to-shoulder communication instead of face-to-face communication, and this can occur in the simplest of ways. For example, during our first year of marriage, Sarah and I were in our apartment. I was reading, and she was on the couch. She said, “Shouldn’t we be talking?”

I replied, “I’m content just being with you.”

Research studies confirm the male preference for shoulder-to-shoulder communication with little or no talking. In one study, researchers performed a series of tests on males and females from four age groups: second graders, sixth graders, tenth graders, and twenty-five- year-olds. Instructions for each pair of females and each pair of males were exactly the same: enter a room, sit down on two chairs, and talk, if you wish.

As the test proceeded, every pair of females, no matter what their ages, reacted the same way. They turned their chairs toward each other, or at least they turned toward each other, so they could be face to face, lean forward, and talk. The males reacted differently. They did not turn toward each other in any way. They sat side by side, shoulder to shoulder, looking straight ahead except for an occasional glance at each other.

The shoulder-to-shoulder wife sees new meaning in “won without a word” (1 Peter 3:1).

Because the females turned toward each other or literally turned their chairs to face one another for direct, face-to-face contact, the researchers assumed they would have the most intimate conversations. Actually, the most open and transparent of all the pairs, male or female, were the tenth-grade boys.
¹
This does not surprise me. My observation is that men grow close by doing activities together, shoulder to shoulder. Over time, these common experiences and mutual interests result in a sense of bonding. There is little negativity and few complaints. They don’t focus on their relationship, and they rarely talk about how they feel toward each other. As they become friends, one thing is certain—each is there for the other.

Many men can recall being a “blood brother” with his boyhood friend. Two drops of blood blended together symbolized the “forever” bond. The commitment was to be shoulder to shoulder, fighting to the death, if need be. Little girls do not enter this kind of dream world, but little boys do. They build their forts and are ready to do battle and die together. Even now, as I write this, I feel the depth of emotion that every little boy has felt about his “blood brothers.”

So what’s my point? One day, the little boy grows up, becomes a man, and meets a special young woman. He proposes, and they marry. In his maleness, he assumes the two of them will be together, shoulder to shoulder, just as he has been with his male friends throughout his life. His request is simple: “Hey, let’s go do something together.” Early on, his wife may cooperate. She is a real friend. However, three children and a ton of laundry later, there are so many more important things to do than fly fish or hang out. Besides, when they do have time to be together, she needs to talk. To her, talking is the way to connect. Being together and never talking, that is absurd!

In most marriages, then, there is a real difference in basic needs. As we saw in chapter 9, she wants to talk, to be close. But in this chapter we see that the natural bent of the male is to be shoulder to shoulder with a lot less talking. Obviously, there must be some give and take at this point as there should be in so many other areas of marriage. Just as sometimes he must make the effort to be with you face to face, you must also make the effort to be with him shoulder to shoulder. When he calls you to be with him and you just do it, with little or no talking, you will see the energy flow into him.

SPEND TIME TOGETHER, STAY TOGETHER

Is putting up with this strange male quirk worth it? I can remember that as a boy growing up in Peoria, Illinois, I would often ride my bike up and down the street. I can recall one couple I would see often as I rode by. He’d be working under his car in the driveway and she’d be out there sitting on a stool, smoking a cigarette, doing her nails, or just chewing gum. There was no other woman around. He was under the car, and she was saying nothing while he worked.

For some reason, I always remembered that couple. In fact, years later as I thought about them, I realized something. Many couples on our block divorced, but this couple never did. Somehow, she understood that just sitting there with him and saying nothing while he worked was a positive thing. She bonded with him even though they weren’t talking.

If just sitting with your husband, shoulder to shoulder, without talking still seems a bit odd, read the following excerpts from typical letters we receive all the time:

He likes to have me around on Saturday, just sort of hanging around while he works around the house, either helping or chatting, the side-by-side thing. I have begun to do this and he LOVES it! He actually shares more on what he is thinking these days. . . . This does not come naturally, yet . . . I end up benefiting also by having a spouse who feels loved by being respected [and] he is much more loving.

When you talked about “shoulder-to-shoulder,” I knew exactly what you were talking about. My husband just finally came out and told me that sometimes all he wanted me to do was just sit with him. He’s accepted the fact that there are times when I will be correcting papers as I sit (a teacher’s work is never done!), and I have learned that if I’m getting up to check the laundry or do something else, all I have to do is tell him. As long as he knows what I am doing and that I will be back, it’s OKAY.

I have counseled many couples who have not had a good heart-to-heart exchange for decades. What can a wife do? Try seeing his need for shoulder-to-shoulder friendship. If he has closed you off and gone quiet, the way to draw him out is by simply being with him during some activity. Don’t talk; just be with him. Do this over a twelve-week period and watch what happens. I can almost guarantee he’ll start talking. Will he necessarily look at you face to face? Probably not. Will he talk for a long time at first? Probably not. Will
you
be energized by this? Probably not. Will
he
be energized by this? Yes!

In marriage timing is everything: “a time to be silent and a time to speak”

(Ecclesiastes 3:7).

Trust me. Your husband has a need you do not have, and that need is met in a way that feels unnatural to you. But as you are just being with him, shoulder to shoulder, his fondness for you will grow inexplicably. It really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but the simple truth is he just needs you to be there.

YOUR HUSBAND WILL FEEL YOU VALUE HIS SHOULDER-TO-SHOULDER FRIENDSHIP WHEN . . .

• you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

• you respond to his invitation to engage in recreational activities together or you come along to watch him (you don’t have to go every time, but just now and then will energize him more than you realize).

• you enable him to open up and talk to you as you do things shoulder to shoulder.

• you encourage him to spend time alone, which energizes him to reconnect with you later.

• you don’t denounce his shoulder-to-shoulder activities with his male friends to get him to spend more face-to-face time with you. Respect his friendships, and he will be more likely to want you to join him shoulder to shoulder at other times.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SEXUALITY—APPRECIATE HIS
DESIRE FOR SEXUAL INTIMACY

T
he doctor and his wife did not have a happy marriage. They were on a Crazy Cycle, and it centered on her ultimatum, which she had laid down several years before. She would not respond to him sexually until he met her emotional needs. She wanted emotional release, she wanted him to talk to her face to face, and until he met her emotional needs, she wouldn’t respond to him sexually. After all, that’s what love was all about, wasn’t it?

Then, through a series of events, the Lord spoke to her and said, “Who is supposed to be the mature one here? He is a new believer and you’ve been in Christ for many years.” She got the message. She decided to minister to her husband sexually, not because she particularly wanted to, but because she wanted to do it as unto Jesus Christ. She didn’t have that need for sex. It wasn’t within her, but she realized that this was her husband’s need, and the Lord had spoken to her about meeting his need first.