12 Things Women Need in a Marriage

Do you know what the #1 need of a woman is? It is to know that she’s significant and she feels secure in the relationship, and that you (I’m looking at you, husbands) treasure her. She doesn’t want to question where she falls in your life, if work and money is more important or if you crave a past relationship that didn’t work out the way you thought. She needs to know that she’s what you want, and you would make the same decision to be with her over and over again in a heartbeat and without pause. She needs to feel this every single day!

12 Things Women Need in a Marriage

1. She needs to be number one. Your wife needs to feel that she is more important than your business or job, and especially more important than your mother, children, friends, sports, and hobbies. I mean it when I say she needs to truly FEEL this from you, you may tell her she’s your number one but if your actions don’t back it – your words fall flat and are meaningless.

2. She needs intimacy. When your wife is stressed out and overwhelmed from putting out fires all day while trying to meet that important deadline or running one more errand for a kid, trying to make dinner for the family or cleaning up that mess she never made, she needs to know that you are willing to share an intimate moment of comfort without demanding explanations or giving lectures. In other words, don’t fix her. Lend an ear and let her process. Remember that you are her person, and she needs your arms to feel safe and loved.

3. She needs your undivided attention. Husbands, your wife needs your undivided attention. What wives want is to feel valued and important. Making sure you focus on her is a huge component of feeling valued. And, guys, you need to know something about undivided attention. The word “undivided” means…not divided.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

True! But most husbands don’t understand why their wife doesn’t feel valued even though they sat on the couch together for three hours. Here’s why. You stared at the TV or your phone most of the time while occasionally nodding your head, pretending to listen or acknowledging her during the commercials of a football game. That’s called divided attention.

Guys, you’re not spending quality time with her because you’re in the same general area. This isn’t about proximity. When you wife speaks, look at her. Eye contact says you’re valuable.

Your wife won’t tell you this, but she needs undivided attention. And she should. If you don’t turn off the TV or put down the phone when your wife speaks, you’re not just sending your wife a signal.  You’re saying your relationship isn’t important and you have better things to do.

4. She needs you to be vulnerable. Open or unobstructed communication is hugely important to the female gender, and that you can be emotionally available for her. She feels close and connected to you when you are able to open up and share things with her that you wouldn’t with just anyone.

5. She needs compliments and praise. Make it a habit to often acknowledge and praise her for her work accomplishments so she can feel like she’s a valuable part of your life. Tell her that she’s beautiful, even when she’s in sweatpants and has her hair in a bun. Women need this!

6. Let her be part of your team. Your wife needs to feel free to help you and contribute to the things that matter to you without fearing retaliation and anger and she wants you to be part of her team too. You should look at your marriage as the two of you against the world or a problem not the two of you against each other.

7. She needs you to protect and defend her. Not just from physical harm, but from the criticism of others. She wants to know that you are for her and has her back. It doesn’t matter if it’s with a stranger at a bar or with your children – she needs to feel like you will side with her and not waiver. She also wants to feel like you will protect your marriage, not check out the girl at the bar or have a conversation with a woman at the grocery store – she wants you to protect the purity of the marriage.

8. Make her feel like her opinion counts. She needs to know that her opinion is so valuable about your work, business or parenting and that you will discuss decisions with her, and act only after carefully evaluating her advice. Don’t treat the person you love and value more than anyone in the world as an outsider to a portion of your life because you assume she doesn’t have the knowledge to help with a decision or worse yet that she’s just excluded from certain areas of your life, so her opinion doesn’t count.

9. Share your life with her. She needs to connect with you in a special way, so create margin so she can share her life with you in every area — home, family, work, and outside interests. Don’t shut her out.

10. Be a man of character and integrity. She needs you to be the kind of man her son can follow, and her daughter would want to marry. Period.

11. Hold her often. She needs physical affection, to be tenderly held, just to be near you, apart from times of sexual intimacy. This isn’t saying that sexual intimacy isn’t also very important to her but make it a point to hold her hand in public and give her that hug from behind when she’s doing the dishes. Women want and need that extra physical affection.

12. She wants to have FUN. Your wife doesn’t want you to fly her around the world (ok maybe she does) as much as she wants day-to-day marriage to be fun. Marriage is ordinary and routine. But it should never be boring. A fun relationship can’t be bought. If it could, only a small percentage of couples would ever have fun and the rest of us would be in a state of boredom until we die. How awful!

The key to an adventurous marriage is finding the extraordinary in the mundane. Be present every day. Be spontaneous. Find ways to have fun in the familiar. Look for opportunities in the ordinary.

Your wife won’t tell you this, but what wives want is marriage to be fun and adventurous. And she should.