Many wives are discovering the power of shoulder-to-shoulder activities with their husbands without talking. Marital heresy? Nope. This is gospel truth. It energizes most husbands.

JUST LIKE WHEN WE WERE DATING

A wife writes, “It’s true. I sat outside and watched my husband work on the car. He loved it and was so friendly and happy that I was sitting there. I hardly said a word. I used to do this all the time when we were dating, but haven’t for years.”

IT’S MADE MY MARRIAGE BETTER

Another gal e-mails: “My husband and I have been married for 22 years. I almost didn’t take the (Love & Respect) class because I already have a good marriage. I’m glad I did because it made my marriage even better. I followed (the) assignments like . . . doing side-by-side activities with him. I didn’t do it to change my husband but both the children and I noticed changes. He started acting the way he did when we were first married ... When all these changes in him started, our kids would say ‘what did you do to Dad?’ We are closer than we have ever been and I thought we were close before I took the class ... I plan to continue this as a lifestyle forever.”

HER HUSBAND LOVED THE APPROACH

A woman leading a Love & Respect class reported to me about one wife, “She has totally changed her approach to her husband. One night she sat outside on the bench with her husband and didn’t talk . . . He couldn’t believe it. They just sat shoulder-to-shoulder . . . He went back to work the next day beaming. He told all the other firemen at the station what an incredible wife he had and what she had done that so greatly blessed him. Apparently, the other men were envious.”

BLASPHEMOUS?

To most women these stories sound sacrilegious. This irreverently violates the way intimates experience holy communication and connection. What if the roles were reversed? Can you picture a wife invigorated by her husband sitting silently in the kitchen watching her fix the kids’ school lunches? To some, face-to-face without talking meets the definition of senseless and useless. The number one complaint among most wives is, “He won’t talk to me.” So how can she glory in his mute manner? Muteness equals marital mutiny. Silence is not golden.

WOMEN WITH WOMEN

Watch women with each other as they gather in a room. Unless they are Trappistine Nuns under a vow of silence (and it has to be a vow!), they talk. They cannot not talk. Yes, some are less talkative but all talk. This is not a sexist portrayal but a beautiful description of women giving the report to build rapport, as the linguist and researcher Deborah Tannen reveals in her writings about women. Women “tend and befriend.” Women nurture and care. Louann Brizendine in her book The Female Brain on p. 8 says “The female brain has tremendous unique aptitudes—outstanding verbal agility, the ability to connect deeply in friendship, a nearly psychic capacity to read faces and tone of voice for emotions and states of mind, and the ability to defuse conflict. All of this is hardwired into the brains of women.” Apply this to her marriage and she wants to talk to her husband face to face. She needs to determine what he feels and thinks by how he sounds and looks. She intends to resolve any conflict in order to maintain their intimate connection.

UNDERSTANDING CORTISOL

Chemically there is a male and female difference. Stress commonly leads to the amygdala activating chemicals such as serotonin or cortisol, which trigger emotional responses, particularly free-floating anxiety. Cortisol takes around one hour to subside in a male and up to twelve hours in a female. The release of cortisol is linked to perceived threats or actual conflicts.

Think about the implication of this: These anxious emotions can last twelve times longer in the female. It explains why women keep rehearsing the marital tension and why many men exclaim, “You hang onto things too long. You need to drop it and move on like I do.”

But God hard-wired her differently. She is not wrong, just different. She needs more time to process what she feels. This is a reason women seek emotional support from other women, and why they have a BFF with whom they share everything. They need to talk through their stresses that revolve around the relationships they nurture. Burdened about these things, women fear and worry. Men are different.

MEN WITH MEN 

Unless they are in crisis, best of male buddies do not get together to just talk about feelings and relationships. Those emotions passed earlier in a sixty-minute period of time. Talking about it again only reignites the unpleasantries. He’d rather drop it and forget it. He’d rather move on. He needs to disengage, to do something frivolous. Harry doesn’t call George and ask, “Hey, can we get together tonight and talk face to face about our emotions? My cortisol is working overtime.” Granted, women do not say it this way either but hear me out.

Whereas most women feel energized after talking heart to heart about their stressful burdens, most men feel energized after doing something with a friend. Men gather to do something shoulder to shoulder. They go hunting, play basketball, or watch football. They watch, do, or discuss some activity. From this side-by-side process they eventually address matters heart to heart, given this is a back-to-back friendship. Men need to feel the other guy “has my back.” There needs to be mutual confidence and respect. Best of male friends became best of buddies because they pursued a goal together, working alongside each other. They entered an adventure and their confidence grew in each other’s reliability. Eventually, they felt like brothers. A group of such men are referred to as “a band of brothers.” These men will talk about their inner lives but that comes after their friendship develops and deepens. Heart-to-heart conversations take place after significant side-to-side endeavors.

Please take a moment and view the video titled “Shoulder-to-Shoulder Communication" in the next step.