Be Her Encourager

Just in case you haven’t noticed, the world is full of people who are quick to put you down, tell you that you can’t do something and otherwise just bring negativity into your life. Actually, I don’t think that there are all that many of them, but they seem to be good at popping up at just the wrong moment; and when they do, they’re so noisy that it sounds like a crowd. Everyone else is pretty much content to sit on the sidelines and see whether you succeed or fail. Even if they’re wishing that you fail, they don’t get in your face about it.

Those few loudmouths can really mess up your day though. Actually, they can mess up anybody’s day; like your wife’s. If you and I have to put up with those sorts of people, don’t you think that she does as well? Of course she does. She might even have more of them to put up with than we do.

Unfortunately, we can’t really do much of anything to shut them up, at least not within the limits of what the law allows. So, we’ve got to come up with something else to do, something to help overcome the negativity that they are sowing in the hearts and minds of our wives.

Fortunately, we can do something about that. We can encourage our wives, letting them know that there’s at least one person who stands behind them, who believes in them, who’s willing to go to bat for them. We can be the ones that lift them up, when others are dragging them down. We can tell them that they can, when everyone else is telling them they can’t. We can encourage them, when everyone else is trying to discourage them.

The key to this is understanding what your wife needs and when she needs it. That can be a bit challenging at times. Most of the time, trying to figure out what a woman is thinking or feeling is beyond a male understanding. However, that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless; just that we have to find new ways of doing it.

Start with the basics. You know when your wife is depressed or in a bad mood; nobody has to tell you that. Most of the time, when a woman is in a bad mood, you can tell as soon as you walk in the door; even without seeing her.

From there, the next step is to find out what happened. She may not be in the mood to tell you what she’s upset or depressed about, but she’ll usually be more than ready to tell you about her day; so, ask about her day. If you pay attention to what she says, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to figure out what has put her out of sorts.

Once you know what caused the problem, you’re in the home stretch. All you have to do is the opposite. If somebody has been telling her she can’t do something, tell her that she can. If somebody has been talking bad about how she does things, tell her how good she is at doing things. Whatever it is, give her the opposite, and keep giving her the opposite until you see that it has made a difference.

That doesn’t mean to sit there and badger her with it. What I mean is to tell her, then come back to that again a little later, from a different direction. Keep coming up with new ways to encourage her, until you can see that she’s actually encouraged. That’s going to take several comments, not just one.

She may not accept what you say the first time, especially if what the others have said has hurt her. It takes a while to overcome that. But, your words will make a difference. So, don’t give up. She needs that encouragement and she’ll appreciate it.