Having an exemplary marriage is hard work. It doesn’t come easy to ANYONE. We are not inborn with knowing all the right things to do or say. It takes practice, time, and above all, patience.
If you want to win and keep your wife’s heart, you’ll need to know how women think. But telling you how she feels, doesn’t come easily to her either, despite a woman’s natural ability to communicate. It’s still hard at times to express how we feel.
So…what DOES your wife want? It varies woman to woman of course. Each wife, each person is different, but this will give you a good start into understanding her better! 😊
Here are 10 ways to win your wife’s heart each and every day!
10 Ways To Win Your Wife’s Heart
Many women feel scattered. Life is so busy for the mom and the world pulls them in a million directions at once. There’s a lot of things they need to take care of; things that we are responsible for and it really all comes down to time management and discipline as to how much she can do and how much she DOES do. We’re all at different stages in this, but…
- We have our husbands to take care of, our children to tend to.
- We have a house to clean, friends to serve, outreach programs to be involved in, church, our outside family to spend time with.
- We have cooking to do and all the motherly responsibilities.
- All the daily decisions that keep the house and life running smoothly.
If your wife is like the Proverbs 31 woman, she is also responsible to hire and delegate things as well. This can often mean leading a team.
Other mouths and other family’s depend on HER doing her job! If she suddenly stops working, or gets lazy, other people go hungry. 😮 Let that settle in your mind for a minute.
Sometimes I get made fun of, by those closest to me, because I work hard. They want me to relax more, not work so much, but this is not God’s will. He doesn’t want us to be busy for no reason, or for selfish reasons, but rather, a peaceful life dedicated and on fire for Him and this means working hard. It means supporting others.
I lead a team on this blog, families depend on the financial support. If all the sudden, this blog dies or I suddenly decide to be lazy and not do my job, all those family’s that I contribute to for their hard work on this blog, some of them would crash and burn. They need that income and they DESERVE that income, and I purposely try to hire people that DO need that income in order that I can help others. 🥰 This blog is a ministry, not just outwardly, but in the inner workings of it too.
If your wife is a blogger for example and leads a team, there is a huge amount of responsibility on her shoulders to manage well, everything that is on her plate. And that kind of pressure is similar to what the husband feels every day at HIS job and for his family. We feel it too…just in a different way.
The Proverbs 31 wife will want to relieve some burden off of her husband in any way she can, so she’ll want to make some money on the side to help the family income.
People that she meets during the day, strangers, she will SEEK THEM OUT in order to serve them in the name of Christ. She will outstretch her hands to the poor and needy and give and help wherever she can.
She’s not one to sit down (she wakes up early and goes to bed late, making sure the needs of everyone around her is met) and she’s not one to busy herself with insignificant things. She handles it all with God as her support.
She also wants to support the family income by spending wisely and that takes time also. Maybe that’s cutting coupons, maybe it’s shopping around for the things you need, but there will be activity in her day spent toward spending God’s money wisely.
One of my favorite parts in Proverbs 31 is vs 18. “She sees that her trading is profitable,…”
Listen, she’s a smart cookie. She sees what she’s doing is profitable, and I don’t just mean worldly profits, although there’s that too. But more, I mean, godly profits. Spiritual profits. She’s earning dividends in Heaven. She’s working hard for spiritual blessings and she knows it. She’s PURPOSEFULLY doing this!
Her life, her day is not random. It’s not mundane. She’s purposely earning Heaven rewards in as many ways as she can, both with her family (which is the easier part) and with the world, which is often harder. But she’s out there doing it.
She’s not idle or lazy. She’s not watching TV during the day, she’s working for Christ. Both for her family and to serve the world. She’s working hard and while it’s a peaceful type of work (NOT scattered and crazy), it IS work.
There’s a lot of responsibilities as a mom and wife, just as there are a lot of responsibilities for husbands.
You probably do not see all she does because if she IS like the Proverbs 31 woman, she’s not tooting her own horn, telling you a list of everything she’s done that day. God knows. And you know she is diligent for your family and God. That’s all that matters. 😊
Here’s the thing, men have a whole ‘nother level of strength then women do, and that’s something you really need to understand before moving forward.
God made men to be the stronger gender. Physically, they are usually stronger. Emotionally, they are usually stronger. It’s just by design and it’s a great thing. I’m often jealous of just how strong men are! We don’t have men’s strength, no matter how hard we try.
What a man can accomplish in just 30 minutes, can take her hours. Unclogging a sink for example. Fixing a drip from the dishwasher. Mowing a lawn.
That doesn’t mean she’s weaker in character or godliness. It doesn’t mean God loves men more than women. He loves us all equal, Romans 2:11 says: “For there is no partiality with God” but we have to understand that God gave men more strength than girls.
I used to not see it so much. It didn’t really hit me how strong men were until I was living on my own as a single mom.
For a single mom or even a mom who’s husband is gone a lot, it’s tough, and I appreciate a man’s strength now more than ever! Because after running all of life by myself for many years, I realize how hard men work and how much they do. But as a woman, we also do a lot of work too. 😊
It’s not easy trying to live up to the standard: the Proverbs 31 woman. It takes years and years of cultivating a godly character to be like her, which brings me to my first point…
1. Invest In Her Spiritual Walk
The hands-down, number ONE most important thing you can do for your wife…invest in her spiritual walk.
If you were reading above and realize that she’s NOT there yet, the model Proverbs 31 wife, help her GET there. She is your wife, but first and foremost she is a child of God and your sister in Christ.
It can sound a little weird, I know. She’s your sister?
But in Christ, you are family. After you die, you won’t be married in Heaven. You will be her brother and she will be your sister. God is our Father and Jesus, our brother. It’s a family.
Since you will be her brother for all eternity, it’s even MORE important to really invest in her spiritual life.
Your first priority should be to see her grow closer to God each and every day and help her in that. As she grows in her relationship with God, she will grow in YOUR relationship together too. The more she loves God, the more she loves YOU! It’s kind of a triangle. God is the head, the top part of the triangle, and you and her are the lower parts of the triangle.
You want to always be seeking to put God first in your own life (and keeping Him first) and help her to keep Him first in her life as well, so that you are in unity.
This means keeping her detached from idols. Idols can be absolutely ANYTHING we deem as more important to us than God. It can be people, stuff, etc. But you want to make sure you and her are both always striving to not have idols in your life. Both as a couple and individually.
Don’t let idols creep up. Kick them out the second you see it could be a problem. Help keep her on the right track. You are, before God, accountable TO God for her and your kids spiritual warfare. You want to be taking that 100% seriously, because I promise you, God is! 💯
Encourage her to join a Bible study, read Scripture together, pray together, listen to sermons together, sing Christian songs together, listen to godly music in the car.
Pray for her with her and on your own, and put her relationship with God above your marriage relationship.
That is super key to having a fantastic marriage and winning her heart. If she’s right with God, she’ll be right with YOU! 😊 How we treat others is a direct correlation between how we treat God and vise versa!
2. Cook Her Favorite Meal
Now we get to a fun and practical way you can help your wife fall in love with you more!
There’s an expression I’ve seen on Facebook that goes something like, “When you are waiting for mom to cook dinner and then realize you are the mom.”
Funny, but it’s so true. Most of the time your wife is cooking dinner while juggling a lot of things at once – the kids, cleaning, side business, church, friends, her spiritual walk with God, etc.
You can grab her favorite meal from the store and tell her not to worry about dinner. OR you can go in the kitchen and just start cooking. Seriously, there’s nothing sexier than a man cooking. I bet your wife would like it too. 😊
Not only will this take some pressure off of her, but it shows you are thinking about her because it’s her favorite meal and you realize she’s stressed and you want to help. I don’t care who you are, if you are wanting to help her, if you are tender with her and show her you care, she will love you for that!
Think about it like this. You work in a department and another guy from another department got his work done early that day. Instead of going home early, he sees you struggling and offers to help you until you can get out of the weeds.
How awesome do you think that guy is for doing that?
Pretty awesome right?!
That same feeling of appreciation and respect is how she will feel about YOU! 😊
You are a team.
Think baseball. I grew up playing baseball on an all boys team as a kid. Funnest time of my life. All your team members look out for each other. You help each other. It’s not competition! You make decisions based on what’s best for the team.
Your teammates are NEVER your enemy. The other team is your enemy. The world is your enemy. Life is your enemy. But your wife isn’t! 💯💯💯
When she’s struggling, you help her, when you’re struggling, she helps you. It’s give and take and working as a team.
3. Show Her Lots of Affection
Many wives would love nothing more than to just take a day off and stay in bed all day with you and be held. Forget the problems of the world, forget the demands, forget everyone’s voice ringing in your ears, and just take it easy.
There’s also a part of her that just wants to be wanted. She wants to be cherished. Loved. She wants to feel your strength holding her, making her feel safe, warm, and secure. Taken care of. Protected.
Women NEED to feel safe. We NEED to feel secure. You need to meet her needs, just as she needs to meet yours.
Hold her ALL the time. Holding each other, cuddling, spending time in bed talking to each other, is really important. It connects you emotionally and when you are more emotionally connected, she will naturally fall in love with you more.
Here’s the thing though. Men oftentimes view love through physical intimacy. If your wife doesn’t want to be with you in that way, it hurts a man’s self-esteem. It hurts his manhood. He feels disrespected. More women need to understand this. They don’t understand what they are doing to their husbands by withholding.
But it’s tricky too. A woman doesn’t want to just do things just to do things. Women need to feel emotionally connected to their husbands BEFORE they are intimate (and not just being emotionally connected to get what you want, because there are some guys like that too).
Do you know that if your wife is feeling stressed, it kills her romance? If she’s tending to kids all day, she’s not thinking about romance. If she doesn’t feel connected to you, emotionally, it’s harder for her to want to be intimate?
It’s not that she doesn’t love you. It’s not that she doesn’t want you. It’s just that you’re not doing enough to really make her feel cared for and connected to you in your souls.
How does SHE personally read your love for her? Does she respond more when you’re cuddling. Maybe it’s through kind words. It could be through gifts or through serving. But find out how SHE feels emotionally connected to you and every woman is different. Find out what SHE likes and then do more of it. Be so connected to her you can’t put a butter knife between you guys!!!
If life is too busy to do that, STOP LIFE! 💯 The world is not more important than your wife.
Listen, your wife is the most important person on Earth. If you want to have a great marriage, you need to take the time to invest. That may mean working less to be home with your family more (if you both agree and you’re still able to pay the bills, of course).
Don’t clutter up your life (or let her clutter up hers), so much so that you guys can’t spend time together DAILY!!!!!!!!! Right after spending time with God daily, it should be your second priority!
Time with her…alone! Daily.
Yep, I said that.
It’s not impossible.
Despite having an insane amount of work (I serve hundreds of thousands of people here a month), Kyle and I always MAKE time to spend together. It’s a priority. In fact, when I’m working too much, he will get mad and start showing me that he wants to spend time with me.
He is an INCREDIBLY patient man, but he refuses to let a day go by without investing in each other as much as humanly possibly and I ADORE that about him! We are joined at the hip, just as we both have intentionally and purposefully decided to be.
We want to do everything together. We both know a couple in my previous church that they are ALWAYS together. Everything they do, it’s always together. You never EVER see one without the other. We see their relationship and we both agree that that’s what we want.
Is that always possible for every relationship? No. But we have made all kinds of sacrifices along the way in order to be able to be in a position that we CAN be together. Sometimes, that’s what it takes and you want to be willing to do that.
You have to fight for that time with your wife, she is your biggest treasure in life. 😊
4. Compliment Her
Complimenting your wife is the easiest thing you can do (just make sure it’s 100% genuine!)
When you think of compliments, go deep on them.
It’s great to say, “You’re beautiful,” or “I love you,” and you SHOULD. Absolutely. But that shouldn’t be ALL you say.
I remember early in my relationship with Kyle. He would always send messages saying those things and it’s great to hear. But we talked about it one day because after a while of the same things I felt like, “Well, do you JUST love me for how I look?”
It didn’t dawn on him at all that that’s how it can come off. He didn’t mean it like that. But he has a harder time, expressing himself in that way and that’s okay. I’m here to help. I’m here to be patient. I’m here to love him while he becomes better at it.
His first response to that conversation we had was the song by Dagny – Love You Like That. It’s basically saying he’s not that great at expressing himself but that he really loves me. He’s the happiest he’s ever been in his life, when he’s spending time with me.
And over the years, he has been getting a LOT better at expressing how he feels in that way. He’s told me some really deep things. How “he doesn’t want the world to know he’s on my shelf.” How “he doesn’t want the world to know that side of him.” It’s hard for him, even more so because I AM a blogger, but I think it’s hard for most guys to open up. And he’s right. He’s completely sold out to me and I’m likewise, completely sold out to him!
He really took what I said to heart (he almost always does with everything I say- I really love that about him) and his messages are so deep now. I’m really proud of how far he’s come and he will just keep continuing in the future expressing himself better and better. 😊
The more you find ways to show her that you treasure her, little by little, day by day, the more it grows her confidence, allows her to open up more as a woman and in her love for you as well. 😊
5. Share With Her How You Feel About Her
Most women love to talk about how they feel and would love to hear that from you as well. This will speak straight to your wife’s heart when it comes from a genuine place of wanting to connect with her on an emotional level.
Tell her 3 things you love about her, 3 things you respect about her, or just what is on your heart when you think of her.
Talk to her about your day. What was your favorite part of it? What was not so fun?
Talk about your dreams, your goals, your plans. Include her in all that. Remember, you’re a team.
Where do you see yourself next year. In 5 years. Those plans and goals should be hers too. You should work together to make your dreams one in the same!
Talk to her about the Bible. What did you learn today? Were there any epiphany moments for you today?
Talk to her about absolutely everything, from big to small. Communication is massively HUGE in a marriage!
Talking in depth is definitely something you should do every day and it will slowly and surely cultivate love and intimacy between you both.
6. Listen, Don’t Try To Fix
This isn’t new information, but guys tend to want to “fix” things. They hear their wife share with them a problem they are struggling with, and automatically go into fix-it mode. This isn’t a BAD thing at all, and some women are the same way (I know I am!)
It shows that you care. In your heart, you are trying to help, and fixing it would help, right?
However, sometimes your wife just needs you to LISTEN to her. Hear her heart and be there for her. Tell her you may not understand how she is feeling but you are there for her and her thoughts and feelings are valid. This will go a loooong way, trust me.
So how do you know when your wife wants you to listen and not fix? She should tell you! Before she starts the conversation, she should just be direct and say something like, “You know honey…I have a problem. I don’t need it fixed but I’d just love to talk it through.” Then it’s just a matter of being there for her.
Listening goes a long way. Remember, you should be her BEST friend. The person she turns to FIRST (outside of Christ) and the person she shares with the MOST! Listening to her (without judgement) will make her feel safe to come to you and talk to you.
7. Encourage Her Spiritual Gifts
What better way to speak to your wife’s heart than to encourage her! And not just in the things she does on a daily basis like taking care of the house, teaching the children, working hard, etc. but encourage her in her spiritual gifts.
When we are operating in our spiritual gifts, we have a renewed energy and purpose.
There is a great spiritual gifts test you can check out here to figure out what those are (I also recommend talking to others to ask what they think your spiritual gifts are as well), and encourage each other in them. It helps keep your focus on Christ, which helps win her heart not only to you but more importantly, to God. 😊
Keep in mind that how she treats God is almost always in direct alignment to how she treats you. If she is going through a period of being mad at God, she will act mad at you. If she is feeling distant from Christ, she will be more distant from you. It is the MOST IMPORTANT thing, again, to focus on her relationship with God. Put bluntly: how she treats God is how she treats you!
This is definitely true in my relationship with Kyle. When he is running away from God, he is usually running away from me as well.
Same with me.
When I have a bad day and I’m just mad at God, not wanting to do His will, maybe He’s convicted me of something and I initially don’t want to do it, I am a lot more distant from Kyle. I don’t talk to him as much. I leave him alone.
It’s not because he’s done anything wrong at all. It’s just because I’m dealing with something in my relationship with Christ.
That’s why it’s so important to be walking with Christ in a holy way. Our relationship with God affects our entire lives (our spouses, our kids, our friends, etc.) and most of the time, we don’t even realize it!
8. Reduce Her Stress
You both have pressures and weight on your shoulders, whether it’s your job, parenting, balancing different activities, etc., remember that you are a team! When your wife is stressed, help her out, and vice versa. It’s a give and take!
When she is overwhelmed or stressed, take the time to ask her what is the cause of it. She may be able to tell you and even give a detailed list (haha) but maybe she can’t quite pinpoint it.
One of the things I really appreciate so much about Kyle is that he is CONSTANTLY pulling me aside and saying, “Hey, let’s talk!” When I’m frustrated, when I’m stressed, when I get mad, he wants to talk about it. He knows that talking about it, helps me. I calm down. I cool off. I get things out and off my chest and I feel better. Taking your wife aside and talking to her when she’s stressed is really a good thing to do. It’ll help you BOTH!
Here are some things you can do to reduce her stress and encourage her to do something for herself, whether that is a relaxing bath, massage, reading a book quietly, 30 mins of kid-free time, etc. You can be a team player by…
- Cleaning/tidying up the house
- Doing some laundry
- Washing the dishes/loading the dishwasher
- Taking the kids to the park for an hour
- Cooking dinner (refer to #2!)
- Help her in her side business
- Order groceries online/go grocery shopping
These are just a few suggestions, but if you are wanting to do something specific for your wife, simply ask her what you can do to help alleviate some of her stresses.
Encourage her that she doesn’t have to do it all. That you’re there to help! This will go a long way. If she feels supported in her life, she will relax a lot more and not be so stressed out. 💯 But it’s not just SAYING that you support her, it’s about showing her you do!
Take the initial step to show her you’re a team by doing some of the things above.
9. Take Her Out On A Kid-Free Date/Have Fun
How many dates did you go on with your wife before you were married? What about after you were married? I bet the numbers are slightly, maybe even dramatically different.
When you get married, it doesn’t mean you can’t date anymore! If anything it is more important than ever to invest in one another and your relationship, because the devil wants to do everything he can to drive you apart.
Don’t let him!
Take her out for a nice (kid-free) date.
It doesn’t have to be a fancy dinner and movie, although that is okay too and sometimes needed.
It could be a quick run for ice cream, renting your favorite movie while the kids are with a sitter, a walk in the park.
Anything to get some quality time alone together!
But not JUST alone time…
Also, think of things you can do more as a family. Not so much dates, but family time. For example, if she loves to go to the ocean, take a family trip to the ocean.
Sometimes in a marriage, you get so busy, you don’t take time to really spend time with one another and invest time into each other. Doing something, like a weekend getaway as a family is really good thing to do. Slow down a bit and have some fun!
10. Support Her
Have you taken time lately to ask about your wife’s dreams, goals, and aspirations? If not, find out what those are and support her.
Maybe she wants to start a blog, write a book, take a cooking class, start a business, create printables…encourage her in those things and be her number 1 fan. This is sure to speak to her heart and make her feel supported and loved.
These tips will help you win your wife’s heart no matter how many years you have been married. Always keep working towards loving each other, and take the time to really speak to her heart and show her she is still your number one lady! 😊
