Key to Life

In the last article I presented, I drew my remarks from Titus 2:4 -5, "that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed."

I pointed out that the word translated love in our English Bibles is the Greek word phileo, which has as part of its meaning friendship. And so, what the Apostle Paul is saying, the wife ought to be her husband’s friend.

A few days ago, I came into the house when my wife was on the phone talking to a woman we have known for 40 years or so. And my wife was laughing and seemingly thoroughly enjoying her conversation with her friend. She commented as I came in that she was talking to her best friend.

That really struck me, because I don’t have a friend like that.

Most women are comfortable sharing themselves with another woman, her friend, her sister, her mother. And they share their tears, fears, joys, plans, future hopes, feelings, themselves, they share themselves with this other person.

But men are not wired to share themselves easily. A man will not bother other people with his feelings, it’s just not the way a man was created. But there is a great need within a man to share with someone, who he is, those feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams. A guy needs to connect with someone on that deep, intimate level. That someone should be the one that God says should be his best friend, his wife.

However, more often than not, this one person is more interested in herself than she is in her husband. She really doesn’t want to hear what he has to say. She, perhaps, unconsciously, disregards what he says, or shuts him down in a mirid of ways. She ridicules what he says, makes fun of his dreams, has no regard for his feelings, and dismisses his hopes, and his plans, well . . . .

A woman would never do that with one of her girl friends and yet, well, I guess its Ok because a man has no feelings anyway.

A man of my acquaintance has read my relationship articles and really wanted to be the kind of husband that meets his wife’s needs and desires. One evening she was looking through a photograph album and she tried to get him to look through it with her. He sat and looked through the photos until they happened across a group that he had taken while in Vietnam. He closed the book and moved to another chair. His wife asked him what was the matter and he tried to explain his feelings. He has very deep feelings of betrayal by his country and deep resentment that every other service man, past and present has and is receiving positive recognition by their country, but not the Vietnam Veterans. His wife said in a rather offhand way, "You shouldn’t feel like that." She had totally dismissed his feelings and did not try to understand how or why he felt the way he did. In other words, he did it wrong. He felt betrayed and alone and resolved never to share his feelings again.

Another man had made some very specific plans for his weekend, on a Thursday afternoon he told his wife what he wanted to do. He wanted to do some things around the house that he had put off for better weather. Later that same evening she told him what she wanted them to do, totally disregarding what he had planned to do.

Another man was talking with his wife one morning and he was sharing a few things with her. He had made several comments and as he began to say something else, she turned and began to talk to one of the children, cutting him off in mid sentence, without an apology, "excuse me," or any other acknowledgment. Why was it that she thought she could be so cavalier and rude to the one person who should mean the most to her? Well, it’s alright, you can’t hurt a guy’s feelings, everyone knows that men have no feelings anyway.

As I listened to my wife and her friend talking, I thought, "Gee, I sure wish I had a friend like that."