Why Do Some Wives Not Hear the Heart of Their Husbands?

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking once said that women are the most intriguing mystery he ever came upon during his lifetime. Thirteenth-century poet Rumi agreed, writing, “A woman is a mystery to guide a wise and open man.”

One area in which most women decide to not be mysterious, however, is when her husband hurts her feelings. Instead of becoming a puzzle to solve, she typically says outright, “You hurt my feelings and we need to talk.” She even may tear up and cry a bit. For many marriages, this is quite common.

But when a husband feels his wife has hurt his feelings, he won't cry. He won’t tell her, “You hurt my feelings and we need to talk.” Instead, he feels attacked, leading him to become defensive, like the husband of this lady who wrote me:

For years we had struggled with communication. I would say something and my husband would put up a defense shield saying I was attacking him. There were times that I did lash out at him, and then there were other times that I honestly didn't know what I had said wrong. In fact, there were many times that I didn't know what I had even said. Reading Love and Respect has given me a whole new perspective on everything. I thought it read a bit like an owner's manual. Oh, that's why he does that or says that. He must interpret what I'm saying as being disrespectful. It has changed the way I talk and listen to my husband.

Everyone gets angry from time to time, including husbands and wives—toward each other. When a wife is hurt by something her husband said or did, she will likely tell him why. “You hurt my feelings. That felt unloving.” But the man will actually be the mysterious one for a change when he is hurt by his wife. He usually won’t tell her what she did or said that got him all miffed. Instead he puts up a defense shield, like the husband above, leaving his wife to determine why on her own.

It is here most wives, viewing the situation through their pink lenses, lose sight of the why. She defaults to reassuring him of her love. She loves him, she has never stopped loving him, so she tells him that she still loves him. Now that she has reassured him of her love for him, she can’t help but wonder why he is still so upset. It is a genuine mystery to this goodwilled wife.

The answer is that it has nothing to do with her love. He knows she loves him. She loves pretty much everyone, including him. He has never doubted that. And short of her actually saying to him, “I do not love you anymore,” he will probably always be confident of her love. Her love for him is not what he is doubting at this moment.

His defensive shield is a result of him feeling attacked at the core of his manhood. He hears this message from his wife: “You are inadequate as a man and I don't respect you. You have failed again to be good enough for me."

Of course, she does not decode any of this since she doesn't process the world as he does, for he is viewing the situation through his blue lenses. But his pink wife is asking, what does respect have to do with this? She had no intentions of being disrespectful, though she recognizes that he feels she said things the wrong way, as the wife above recognized. Even so, to her his anger is unjustified and the real problem is that he is now hurting her feelings by claiming she is attacking him.

It is here that most conversations swing back toward the wife's feelings, especially when he displays anger. Now she needs to talk to him about how he has hurt her feelings. If he says that he is miffed over her disrespect, some wives push back, "There you go again. This is all about you and being respected. Well, I don't feel respect for you during such moments. You don't deserve respect when you fail to be sensitive, caring, and loving. You are insecure, defensive, and angry. No, I don't feel respect for you at those moments." The culture has given her license to say these things. Respect must be earned, many teach today.

Needless to say, dialogue like this kills most conversations with men. For a wife to say this to her husband is comparable to a husband telling her, "Love you? No one can love you. You are a whining, complaining, negative person." At the core of her being, she is crushed. As a result, the culture rushes to her rescue by claiming this man is verbally abusive.

Over time, a man who doesn’t feel comfortable expressing to his wife that what she is doing or saying is causing him to feel disrespected simply becomes quieter and quieter, eventually giving up altogether. Both become totally confused. He is feeling disrespected. She is feeling unloved. And neither is attempting to fill the other’s oxygen tank anymore.

Fortunately, the strong and independent woman who wrote me was not fearful, nor did she claim victimhood. Instead, she said, "He must interpret what I'm saying as being disrespectful. It has changed the way I talk and listen to my husband.

When a wife asks herself prior to talking, "Is that which I am about to say going to sound respectful or disrespectful to my husband?" she can defuse a potentially painful misunderstanding. If she doesn't have an answer to that question, she need only say, "Help me hear as I voice my feelings. I in no way intend to be disrespectful. Please let me know if this sounds disrespectful. But what you just said hurt my feelings. How can I tell you this without you feeling I am using this as an opportunity to send you a message that I don't like you instead of a message that says, 'I need your strength and love'?"

Just hearing his wife say that she respects him too much to risk sounding disrespectful will energize this mysterious man in ways perhaps even he didn’t know was possible. Because her respect for him will have touched him at the core of who he is as a man.