What’s Important to Her?

Have you ever noticed how everyone seems to have one that’s important to them? You have it, I have it, your wife has it, even your kids have it. It may seem insignificant and unimportant to you, but to that person, that one thing is the thing that their life is centered around.

Movies, especially comedies, capitalize on this and make fun of it. The writers will pick out some insignificant thing, and make a supporting role center around their love for that thing. I remember seeing a movie recently, in which the character’s mother centered her life around her dog. Everything she said, she had to include the dog, as if the dog was in agreement with what she said. That dog even sat on her lap at the dining table.

Okay, so maybe that character had a screw loose. Fortunately, the rest of us aren’t quite that bad. Even so, the fact of the matter is that we all have something, or more likely more than one something that’s important to us.

Do you know what’s important to your wife? What gets her juices flowing? What does she get passionate about? Knowing that is an important part of knowing who she is. You can tell what these important things are, because those are the things she constantly talks about.

Let’s say, for example, that your wife regularly comments on the front lawn of your house and even the lawns of your neighbor’s houses. Why is she doing that? Simple, that’s something important to her. It could be that she sees the lawn as showing how well a family takes care of their home or that a well manicured lawn indicates that the people have their lives together or even just because it looks good. She may not even know the reason why that’s important to her.

The point isn’t the reason why it’s important, the point is that for some reason it is important. Now, what we usually try and do as guys, is to talk out wives out of that. If we can’t see any reason why it should be important, we dismiss it out of hand. Unfortunately, when we do that, we’re saying “your opinion isn’t important.”

You can’t dismiss another person’s opinion as unimportant without dismissing them as unimportant at the same time. Whether you try and justify your reason for seeing it as unimportant or not isn’t the issue. If it’s important to her, and you dismiss it as unimportant, you’ve essentially said that her opinion doesn’t matter.

How many times have we as men done this to our wives? How can we say that we love them, in the midst of dismissing their thoughts as unimportant? If your wife is important to you, then the least you can do is recognize the value of her opinion, even if it doesn’t agree with yours.

I’m not trying to say that whatever is important to her automatically has to be important to you. What I am trying to say is that you should take into account what is important to her. Because it is important to her and she is important to you, you should make some effort to take care of that thing.

Let’s go back to the lawn example for a moment. If your wife is concerned with how the front lawn looks, then you need to realize that by taking care of it, you are telling her that she is important to you. You are valuing her opinion and her desires. You are removing a worry or concern from her life. In other words, you are protecting her, even if it is just protecting her from herself.

When you love someone, you take an interest in their interests, even if they aren’t your own. Doing that shows them that you care, and isn’t that what romance is all about?