FOR MEN ONLY (12 page)

And lastly, here’s one that may be hard for any father or married man to hear:

• In this culture, women are not being protected emotionally. They are being humiliated.

Do you really think it is possible for you and me to understand just how “on stage and under review” our wife or girlfriend feels every day? I have to admit—until now I haven’t given much thought to how demeaning and threatening our world is for Shaunti and other women. Or really, how demeaning their own internal thoughts about themselves can be, even if they hide it well.

When I think back on typical male responses to this unseen struggle, I’m not encouraged. For Shaunti, I’m the one man in her life who can really relieve the pressure and make her feel beautiful. But because I haven’t known I’ve needed to, my response on an average day to her unseen need has tended to be…a yawn. Or even irritation at how long she’s taking to get dressed.

Or on a good day, maybe, “You look nice.”

I’m the one man in her life who can really relieve the pressure and make her feel beautiful.

Guys, we are divinely positioned to encourage and build up the woman we love; we can’t be nodding off in the living room chair while the little girl twirls.

So now that we’re awake to the problem, what can we do?

Reflecting Back the Truth About Her

Remember, you’re not just the guy who shares her space. You’re her most important mirror—the man who can reflect back to her how lovely you think she is. The man whose opinions of her are the best antidote for the damaging internal dialogue and external pressure that stalk her thoughts. So how should and could you respond for the greatest benefit to her—and you?

You’re not just the guy who shares her space. You’re her most important mirror.

Say it.

Just think of a few affirming words—“You look beautiful today” (or your version thereof)—and
say
them. That kind of compliment might not feel natural to you at first, but if you stick with it, it can eventually feel as familiar as, “Pass the remote.”

Whenever possible, your guy-mirror talk should be in specifics. “A lot of women are so desperate for specific, honest compliments,” one wife told us. “We’re dying of thirst for them. I think guys probably often think them, but don’t say them. But I hope they can learn to say them, because one compliment can carry me for a long way.”

A key time to practice affirmation is when you’ve both noticed another attractive person. One woman told us: “To me, the confirmation I need is something like this, ‘Yes, that other woman is cute, but you’re beautiful, and
you’re mine
.’ Those words would be such a help to me in consciously tearing down the insecurity I carry around.”

Say it sincerely.

Words are sweet, but it’s your heart she’s after. It may sound contradictory to ask you to come up with a “sincere” comment that you wouldn’t otherwise have said, but it’s just a matter of learning to say what you’re already sincerely thinking—just like you would naturally do for your daughter.

It’s just a matter of learning to say what you’re already sincerely thinking.

Here’s what one woman told us:

I wish I could explain to him that when I’m not satisfied with the options in my closet, what I’m really not satisfied with is myself. I’m bummed that I’m a little overweight, or that my chest is too small, or whatever. At those times, that should be my husband’s cue to give me his comments, yes, but not in a clinical way. What I am craving is a sincere, delighted remark from my husband that that red dress looks great on me, shows off my legs, and he’s going to have his eyes on me all night!

Say it now.

Most of all, train yourself to say it when she needs it: right away. What she’s looking for is the immediate, “reflexive” response that proves you’ve been wowed. But as this story from one couple we talked to shows, we men have to practice putting ourselves in that frame of mind, lest we send the wrong message!

Train yourself to say it when she needs it: right away.

Her: After I get ready to go out somewhere, there’s sort of a thirty-second rule. If he hasn’t noticed me in thirty seconds, I guess I don’t look good enough for him. So, okay, we were going out last night. I take a lot of time getting ready and spiffy for him, and I think I look pretty hot. I come downstairs and he doesn’t say anything. So instantly, I’m a bit deflated. We walk out of the house and climb into the car, and as we’re backing out of the driveway he notices that the little metal insignia on the car hood is crooked. He stops the car and gets out to straighten it. He noticed
that
, but he didn’t notice
me
?

Him (laughing ruefully): Pray for me, Jeff!

Erase “fine” from your response options.

Fine is not fine (unless used in the sense, “She’s so fine!”).
Fine
is what you mumbled to Mom when she asked you how school went.

One wife mentioned that if she asked at the beginning of an evening out how she looked, her husband would typically say, “You look fine, sweetheart.” But as she put it, “I worked this hard for
fine
?”

I think guys say that word because we simply misunderstand the real question. When she asks how she looks, we think she’s wondering if she looks presentable. But what she wants to know is if she’s still rocking our world—like she did on that first date. So “fine,” sort of by definition, tells her, “No, you’re not rocking my world.”

What she wants to know is if she’s still rocking our world.

Don’t take “no” for an answer.

By now, you might be thinking,
But I try to compliment my wife—and she always brushes it off!
At those times, you probably give up, thinking she doesn’t need affirmation or that there’s no point in expending the energy if she’s not going to believe it.

Pointer from Shaunti: Take her reluctance as a sign that she needs the affirmation even more. It may not look like it, but she’s probably reacting out of discomfort with compliments, or even a painful personal awareness of her flaws. Remember, her flaws loom very large in her mind. Even if you hardly notice them, it’s hard for her to believe that. So keep telling her, and she’ll learn to relax and believe that you mean it.

What if I
do
agree there’s an area to work on?

Most men have probably known the deer-in-the-headlights feeling when a woman is dissatisfied with her weight and wants to talk about it—and you really don’t. There really
is
no way to talk about it without hurting her feelings, unless she’s specifically asked you and given you permission to be honest for some compelling reason. (Like, “Promise me that you’ll tell me if I shouldn’t wear that dress, so I don’t embarrass myself at the reunion.”) If she’s struggling with something that is a real issue (like she’s twenty-five pounds overweight) instead of just being dissatisfied with something she can’t healthfully change (she thinks her nose is too big), realize that she feels terrible about it already. Knowing you are disappointed, too, makes it worse. That said, if she makes comments about wanting to lose weight—and you think she’s seriously contemplating making a change and inviting your thoughts—be supportive and
ask how you can help
. Good sentence starters: “I love you no matter what. But if this bothers you…how can I help?” Then, be willing to help—whether that means doing the soccer run so she can hit the gym or forgoing your nightly ice cream if it tempts her too much. Encourage the results of her efforts! And always affirm those areas that you
do
find beautiful, including her loveliness as a person.

Always affirm those areas that you
do
find beautiful, including her loveliness as a person.

Also, remember that for her, knowing that you find her lovely not just on the outside, but the inside as well, will go a long way. We’ve all seen examples where an otherwise plain looking woman became absolutely beautiful in our eyes because she had the “beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit,” as the apostle Peter put it. If your wife is a lovely person but knows that her teeth are crooked or her post-childbearing stomach is no longer flat, tell her—often—that you truly don’t notice what she thinks of as flaws. Tell her that her inner loveliness radiates through her, and that you—and everyone else—find her beautiful.

View cost as an investment.

A lot of husbands struggle with their wives’ desire to spend money on clothes, makeup, or beauty treatments. I hope by now you’re seeing what’s really happening here—she’s trying to stay in the center of your field of vision and to bolster her own internal gauge of how she feels about herself.

No one is saying households should throw budget caution out the window. But what might appear a “nonessential” to us men might be a budget priority for her that she is willing to make trade-offs for. Here’s a note Shaunti received on this topic:

Please explain to the guys how important clothes are to women. Please try to explain how frumpy and unattractive we feel in old clothes, whether they are worn out or just out of date. A couple of my best friends struggle with this in their marriages; it’s a common problem.

Interestingly, according to Shaunti’s research for
For Women Only
, most men are very willing to spend time or money to support a wife’s weight loss or fitness program—for example, by watching the kids or paying for a gym membership. We
do
make the beauty connection at one level, where it matters to us. We just need to make that connection where it matters to
her
.

Now it’s time to squarely address what may be the most important beauty connection of all. Because you and I can do an excellent job of reflecting our wife’s beauty back to her and
still
cause enormous damage.

How?

Fact #5
: In my hand, I hold a hammer.

The Hammer Drops: Looking Elsewhere

We now know that women are powerfully affirmed by knowing that their husband finds them beautiful. But that power has a dark side. Because if a woman sees her husband’s eyes
also
affirming the beauty of other women, she ceases to feel special. And suddenly, not only is she not affirmed, she’s in competition with the world again—including for the attentions of the one man she thought she already had. That’s when the hammer hits the mirror of you—the most important mirror in her life—and shatters it.

If a woman sees her husband’s eyes also affirming the beauty of other women, she ceases to feel special.

Now, because women are not as visually wired as we are, there are bound to be some misunderstandings here—some conflicts between what we consider “innocent” and what our women think. We may think, “My wife knows it’s just a guy thing and that I don’t love this other woman I’m looking at.” We’ve even coined some analogies that elevate staring to a noble level: “It’s like enjoying a beautiful painting in a museum,” we say. “Just don’t try and take the picture home.”

Yes, sometimes it can simply be admiring beauty. And yes, God has created a beautiful world—and populating it with attractive people is consistent with His artistry. But the challenge with looking at a beautiful woman is the speed at which admiration morphs into something else. Looking at the sweeping vista of the Rockies just doesn’t run the risk of my next thought being, “I wonder what those mountains would look like without all that snow on them.”

I’m not going to spend the rest of this chapter talking about how we need to keep our thought lives pure, since I think most of us already know that, whether consciously or subconsciously. (Still, I strongly urge you: Don’t settle for what you have considered unavoidable or even normal on this temptation. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). I believe that through God’s power, not our own, we
can
be transformed. And if you need outside resources, there are many great ones today, including
Every Man’s Battle
by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker and
Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is)
by Joshua Harris.) My main purpose is to help motivated, sensitive, and slightly clueless guys like you and me become more motivated, more sensitive, and slightly less clueless husbands by explaining what is going on
inside our wives
.