Why She Shares, and What He Hears

When a wife dares to share her hurt and negative feelings with her husband, she does so hoping he will humbly apologize and make efforts to do things more lovingly next time. Her goal in addressing her concerns is to get rid of her hurt, be energized, feel positive, and respond to him in caring ways. In her pink worldview, all of these happen when her husband understands her criticism and complaint. 

However, few husbands do, as they do not share their wives’ pink worldview but are instead living in shades of blue. Instead, when his wife shares her hurt and negative feelings, he feels defensive, put down, inadequate, unfairly treated, and disrespected. He pulls away, appearing angry and offensive to her. Which leads to her being totally confused, thinking, Doesn't he see why I’m sharing this? Then typically she will complain even more: "Why do you treat me this way? How can you say that you love me?"

The culture favors every wife telling her husband of her hurts. And certainly in a healthy marriage both husband and wife should be allowed to share their hurts and frustrations with each other. But few grasp the vulnerability in the male at such moments. All they see is his defensive reaction and declare he is unloving and unworthy of respect. They see him as mean if not indifferent. Of course, I predict every mother's son will be the same as this man, and these experts will shame their own sons for being uncaring and egotistical. But is he? Maybe. But maybe not.

In the case of most husbands, they are not trying to be unloving but are feeling the wife is sending the message that she doesn't respect him, that he isn't good enough, and that she wishes she had a better man. Consequently, he misunderstands her deepest intent and need. He feels attacked instead of feeling he is being called to better love her. 

Interestingly, most wives feel that their negative criticisms and complaints should be interpreted by their husband the same way their BFF does so. Within the nature of most women upon hearing their friends’ hurts and frustrations toward them is this response: "Oh, I am sorry. I did not intend to do that. Please forgive me. Share with me what you were feeling and how I can do it differently next time. I have time to talk right now. This is too important to postpone. Again, I am so sorry. Will you forgive me? I feel horrible." 

But when a husband does not respond this way, most in the culture of intimacy will argue that he is not a good husband, when in fact it simply means he is not a good woman. 

Watch how men resolve conflict. They do a pretty good job of it themselves. Men are team players, and when tension arises, they know how to navigate the conflict with less offense and talk. 

Let's say that during a football game a halfback yells at the offensive tackle for not blocking as he was supposed to. Perhaps he calls him a dumb idiot. Well, the tackle weighs if it is important to personalize the "offense" and make it something that must be dealt with later between the two of them, or if he needs to simply decode that his halfback wasn't angry with his teammate but was fixated on winning as a team. In most cases, he will opt to ignore the comments, and especially so if he was in fact a dumb idiot on that particular play. Interestingly, though, and extremely applicable to what is going on between a husband and a wife, is that he also knows that the halfback is spitting mad because he needs the tackle. His success is contingent on the prowess of the tackle and he is disappointed in the lineman because he sees the lineman as one of the greatest players on the team. 

Usually, too, sometime later the halfback will walk by the tackle and say, "I was out of line for saying what I said. I was a jerk. We okay, man?" The lineman says, "Well, I was a dumb idiot. It was my fault." Over time, that halfback stops talking that way to this lineman. Next mistake, he says nothing. They are brothers. They have each's back. The badmouthing is minimized. 

Men tend to look beyond the relationship and at the goal. Their upset and purpose aren't about telling everyone that they need to be a more beautiful person to them. Their upset is about not making it to the mountaintop. That's why coaches can yell and scream at a player, but the player knows it is because they all want to win. His coach needs the best from him because he is vital to achieving victory for the team. If he doesn't give it his all, they will lose. He is a pivotal piece to the puzzle. 

Oddly, men can feel honored at such moments. They don't personalize this as an attack, so they drop it and move on, and the relationship stays intact. However, when the attack comes from his wife, whom he loves with all his heart and would literally sacrifice his life for, he sees the complaint as being about who he is as a disappointing human being. In essence, he interprets that he is the problem, not the missed play his teammate was previously yelling at him about.

And when her remarks of contempt cause him to deflate and react in anger, his wife will then personalize his response as offensive and want to talk about all of her feelings in response to what he did. One could say that in moments like these it’s not that she isn’t being a good wife; it’s that she’s not being a good man! Because if guys did this among guys, they'd go nuts. This would be utterly exhausting. Men would say to such a man, "Get over it, dude. Let's move on. He just wanted to win. Yeah, he was out of line, but he's over it, so you get over it." 

So what is the answer? Where is the compromise? Does the wife not share her hurt and frustration toward her husband, even when her intentions are for the good of the relationship, so that he won’t mistakenly take it personally and become upset? Certainly not. Suppressing such things are never healthy for any relationship.

Does her husband need to learn to be more like her female friends who immediately understand the underlying concerns? Though some may think yes, that would in essence be telling him that God’s blue design of him is wrong. Any wife who is insistent on this is going to have a long, uphill battle. That’s just not how her husband was designed.

Should the husband learn not to deflate and become angry at her remarks toward him? Perhaps, but are we forgetting the reason why he reacts this way? It’s because of how much he loves her and would do anything for her. So he interprets her anger as an attack on him and he can’t understand how she can say such things about him, knowing that he would die for her.

Maybe the best answer is simply for pink to learn how to better understand blue, and for blue to learn how to better understand pink. Pink can’t turn blue pink, and blue can’t turn pink blue. They need each other in the way God created them—male and female. So why don’t we get to know each other better, huh?

Wives should understand how when they share their hurt and frustration with their husband, he is feeling attacked for who he is as a human being. So is there a more respectful way of sharing what she needs to share? Is there more content she can add that will help him around feeling attacked personally?

And husbands should understand that when they deflate and react angrily toward their wife who is only wanting to repair the relationship, she will only personalize his reaction as an affront toward her, and the Crazy Cycle will spin faster! Without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love. So lest she actually say to him, “I don’t respect who you are as a man,” can he consider how he as a goodwilled, loving husband should best respond to the confessions of his goodwilled, respectful wife?

Sometimes the answer isn’t to necessarily “do” something, but to simply understand something. Understand your pink wife and your blue husband.