Is All this Romance Stuff Really Necessary?

If you’ve been reading this blog, then I’d have to say that you see at least some value in being romantic towards your wife. Whether that is just that you want to find new ways to express your love towards her, want to motivate her to jump into bed with you or whatever, you’ve come to the conclusion that being romantic is part of being a good husband.

Okay, that’s fine as far as it goes, but let’s take it a little bit farther. Do our wives actually “need” us to be romantic, or is that just a desire on their parts? You know, from our viewpoint as men, it can easily seem like all this romance is just a waste of time and effort. But, in reality it isn’t; it’s a very important part of maintaining our wives emotional health and maintaining our marriage.

First of all, romance is how a woman defines love. As guys, we tend to define romance by sex, but in reality, most sex isn’t about love, it’s just about lust. The biggest difference between love and lust is that love is about giving to the other, while lust is about receiving from the other.

Without romance, a woman can’t feel loved. I don’t care how much sex you have in your marriage, without other expressions of love, all it will be to her is that you’re using her body for your gratification. Her sexual response is a loving response to having her emotional need for love (romance) satisfied. So, if your wife isn’t responding sexually, it’s time to step up the romance another level.

There’s another part of this that’s real important though. That is that without romance, a woman can’t have a good self-image. She feels worthless and unwanted, and she becomes depressed.

Let me back up a moment. As men, our self-esteem comes from what we do. The position we hold or the profession we practice has a lot to do with our feeling of worth. Maybe we’re only a lineman for the electric company, but we’re the best lineman in the company. Maybe we’re only a mechanic, but we solve problems that other’s can’t. Somehow, we always find something about our work to make us feel good about ourselves. If we can’t, we’re in trouble.

Women, on the other hand, don’t identify themselves with their work, but with their relationships. Their worth as a person is based upon what the people who are close to her say about her and how they act towards her. Without receiving expressions of love from her family and friends, a woman feels that she isn’t worth anything.

No wonder so many women battle with depression; they feel that they aren’t worth anything. Nobody is taking the time to tell them that they are worth something. As men, we receive that at work, whether it’s from our bosses, co-workers or customers, somebody is telling us that we are worthwhile. Okay, so who are your wife’s co-workers and customers? If she’s not in the workplace, it has to be you and your kids.

Are you telling your wife that she’s worthwhile? Just saying those words isn’t enough; you have to show her as well. She needs your romantic acts and expression as a way of telling her that she is worth something as a person. Otherwise, all she is receiving is a constant bombardment of messages from the world, which tell her that she isn’t good enough.

Fortunately for you, your message is much stronger than that of the world. However, you’ve got to make sure that you’re sending the right message. If you aren’t romantic, then you’re sending the same message that the world is. However, if you are romantic, you’re telling her by your actions, “You are someone special. You are worthwhile. You are loved.” That’s a message that she needs to hear over and over again.

Yeah, when we’re romantic, we receive points from our wives. But, there’s a much more important reason for us to invest in being romantic, that of letting our wives know that they are important. That’s one of the best emotional protections that we can give to them. 

Careful About those Comments

Most women battle insecurity on a constant basis. Society in general is telling them that they’re not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, their breasts aren’t big enough, their hair isn’t full enough and they just aren’t sexy enough. Every woman is supposed to look like a supermodel. Of course, even real supermodels don’t look like supermodels you see, since they’re all photo shopped. Nevertheless, every woman is supposed to be that spectacular.

Think about it; with all that negativity being thrown at them, it’s really no wonder that they feel insecure. To add insult to injury, at times we add to this insidious process, without even realizing it. How? You might ask. By the comments we make about other women, without even thinking about it.

A perfectly innocent comment about another woman’s hair, dress or looks in general, can come across as a slam against the way your own wife looks. Suppose that you see a woman with long, wavy blond hair, something that you’d expect to see on one of those supermodels. Of course, she probably just came from the beauty shop, but you don’t know that. You happen to comment, “her hair is beautiful” a fairly simple comment, without any hidden meaning. You’re not saying that you want to jump in the sack with her or that there’s anything wrong with your wife’s hair. But, what your wife hears is “her hair is much more beautiful than yours is.”

Oops, the law of unintended consequences just jumped up to bite you. While you were just making small-talk, your wife wasn’t hearing it that way. To her, it was a whole different thing.

I’m not trying to say that you’re wrong for saying something like that; but she might say that you are. You see, in cases like these, it’s the results that matter, not the intention. While your intention may have been perfectly innocent, the results weren’t. Even worse, the results which you don’t see were probably a whole lot worse that the ones that you do see.

You’re really better off not saying anything about other women than saying something positive about them. Granted, you could say that the problem is your wife’s and not yours, and I’d have to agree with you to a point. But, where does our responsibility to our wife’s health and happiness start and end? If your wife was a recovering alcoholic, wouldn’t you have a responsibility to avoid drinking in front of her? You could say that the alcoholism was her problem, not yours. But, if your drinking was causing her to be tempted, wouldn’t you be guilty?

Actually, there’s more to this than just avoiding positive comments about other women, we also need to avoid making negative comments about our own wives. If you and I start comparing our wives to other women, we’ll quickly find that there are always others out there that appear to be better. Maybe they’ve got prettier hair, bigger breasts or a smaller waist. Regardless of what it is, when we start making those comparisons, we’re setting ourselves up for real trouble.

Comparisons generally tend to show us the bad in our own wives. Rarely do we compare them to women who are uglier or fatter; we generally compare them to those supermodels. Of course, everyone forgets that beauty is a 24/7 job for a supermodel. She doesn’t have to go to some other job, doesn’t have to take care of the kids and doesn’t have to clean the house. All she has to do is work at keeping herself beautiful. That’s more than a full-time job.

One final thing, we need to work at overcoming the negativity which the world is throwing at our wives. Complimenting your wife’s looks is an important part of this. She needs to know that you find her attractive. That’s not just a casual “like to have it” sort of need, but a serious need. With everything around her telling her that she’s not what she should be, she needs someone telling her that she’s more than she should be. If you don’t do it, who will?