What if she needs to feel loved?

"I tried to educate her on how to talk to the kids. She felt judged. Things got worse."

A client said that to me last week.

He was frustrated. His wife was short with the kids, impatient and critical, and the way she spoke to them drove him crazy. So he stepped in. He tried to show her a calmer way to talk, a way to get them to listen. He thought he was helping by teaching her a better way and fixing what he could see.

Frustration and distance grew. She pulled away. She felt criticized and judged, as if she were the problem.

He came to me confused.

"I was just trying to help. Why did it make things worse?"

I asked him a question:

"What if she doesn't need education? What if she needs to feel loved?"

He looked at me as if I were speaking another language.

I have seen the same thing again and again. The snap is what we notice. Under it, a need is going unmet. She has little left to give.

She is looking for him. His warmth, his steadiness, his presence, his appreciation. She needs to be filled with love, with appreciation, with the feeling that she matters. When she feels full, she pours out to him, to the kids, and to the home, because he filled her.

The day's work is filling her, every day, in small ways. A word of appreciation. A moment of presence. "I see you. I appreciate you. I've got you."

That is what actually works.

My client sat with that for a while. Then he said something I will never forget:

"So the whole time I was trying to fix her, I was actually making it worse."

What she needed was love.

The work on our side as men is how to overcome ourselves and love our wives. She needs to feel full. We are the ones who fill her.

Sit with this one. Look for where you can give praise in place of criticism, where you can lift instead of diminish, and where you can express gratitude in place of frustration.