Our wives are holding up a mirror to us

They often see us for who we really are, warts and all. If they really love us they don’t hold back from reflecting our imperfections. I know. I’ve been married for over eighteen years and my wife is good about doing this. The problem is I so rarely pay attention and so, like the quick check up in the bathroom mirror, I don’t really see and think everything is just fine.

Most of us struggle with the battle of our self centered worldview. It’s hard to escape this. The illusion, delusion, denial and numerous other forms of self-deception are constantly engaged. Some of this is protective. We need to project confidence and strength. When that confidence is sitting on a mass of buried insecurity we’ll work all the harder, often subconsciously, to cover up the weakness and believe the lies about ourselves.

The good news

Honest love and trust that sacred unions (marriage) are built on makes it ok to be our real self around our spouse. If we fail to get real and pretend to be something that we aren’t we end up really only fooling ourselves. Come on, your wife knows you better than you think!

Perhaps the hardest thing to do is to spend more time thinking about how to be more loving, kind, patient and interested in your wife. Yes, it’s hard. So what?

I’m no expert on women, but my experience is that they really connect to others in a much deeper way than most men do. You know how it annoys you when your wife tells you the same story over and over again? It’s like “I heard it the first time!” Guess what? Probably you didn’t. Not really heard it.