The landscape of marriage advice is cluttered with oversimplified solutions and one-size-fits-all approaches. After counseling countless couples and navigating 20 years of marriage with my wife, I’ve discovered that traditional marriage advice often misses the mark on what men and women are truly struggling with in today’s world.
Your wife doesn’t need another Christian marriage podcast telling her to “just have more sex.” Your husband doesn’t need another men’s group chat hyping him up while he neglects connecting with his spouse. The reality of modern marriage is far more complex than most experts acknowledge.
In this blog, I’ll share the often overlooked truths about what men and women really need in their marriages based on real experience rather than idealized theories.
The Unspoken Struggles of Modern Husbands in Marriage
Men today are experiencing a type of exhaustion that goes beyond physical tiredness. It’s an existential fatigue that stems from trying to fulfill traditional provider roles in an economy that makes this increasingly difficult.
One generation ago, my dad could work at McDonald’s as a teenager, graduate to a steel mill job, and earn enough to buy a house and support a stay-at-home wife. Today? We’re the generation of side hustles and three jobs, often still unable to provide the life we envision for our families.
This economic reality creates incredible pressure:
- Many men work multiple jobs yet still feel they’re falling short
- Testosterone levels among men are decreasing, partly due to environmental and socioeconomic factors
- The constant struggle to provide creates a mental burden that affects every aspect of life, including intimacy
When we simplistically say “men need physical touch” in marriage, we’re missing the deeper current. A man who’s fighting for his family’s survival, dealing with crushing economic pressure, and watching his biological capacity to perform diminish isn’t just looking for sex. He’s looking for connection in a world that’s increasingly hostile to his basic needs as a provider and protector.
What Women Are Really Battling in Modern Marriages
While men face external pressures, women often battle an equally exhausting internal war. My wife recently shared something profound during our conversation: “We’re listening to demonic chatter all day long.”
While that might sound intense, consider what the average woman processes daily:
- Constant comparison with other women (physically, professionally, as mothers)
- Internal criticism about their homes, bodies, parenting, and relationships
- Cultural messaging that simultaneously asks them to be everything to everyone
- The mental load of managing family logistics, emotional needs, and household systems
Women experience what psychologists call “cognitive load”—the invisible mental weight of tracking everything from children’s schedules to family birthdays to household inventory. This mental burden rarely shuts off.
One of my wife’s reflections was particularly revealing: “If I were to unload on you every thought I had in a day, you couldn’t handle it. There’s no way.”
Physical Touch in Marriage: It’s Not What You Think
The “30-day intimacy challenge” is popular marriage advice that my wife and I actually tried. It lasted three days before we were both exhausted. Why? Because approaching physical connection as another “task” misses the deeper need.
Physical touch in marriage serves purposes far beyond sexual fulfillment:
1. It creates safety and security
2. It reduces stress hormones
3. It provides wordless reassurance
4. It helps process emotional overwhelm
My wife needs at least two meaningful hugs a day, not because she’s needy, but because it’s how she processes the chaos of life. As she explained: “Sometimes when you hug me, you’re fixing something in me. You’re fixing a problem that you don’t even know exists in my heart.”
For men, non-sexual touch from their wives—the small gestures of affection, playfulness, and flirtation—often creates the emotional foundation that makes intimacy meaningful. These seemingly minor interactions are the building blocks of connection that many couples lose after the dating phase.
The Disappearing Art of Courtship in Marriage
One observation that resonated with many couples we’ve counseled: the behaviors that create romantic tension during dating often disappear in marriage.
When dating, women often:
- Maintain a flirtatious energy
- Laugh at his jokes
- Show genuine interest and engagement
- Offer small touches and physical affirmation
Similarly, men typically:
- Plan thoughtful dates and experiences
- Listen attentively
- Show appreciation through words and actions
- Prioritize quality time together
I recalled driving 400 miles in one day as a college student just to take my now-wife to Red Lobster for Cheddar Bay biscuits. Yet after marriage, many couples wouldn’t drive 20 miles for a special evening together.
The lesson? The activities that created connection during courtship need to be intentionally maintained in marriage—they don’t continue automatically.
Words of Affirmation: The Antidote to Inner Critics
Words of affirmation aren’t just nice compliments—they’re active resistance against the voices of inadequacy that both partners battle daily.
Here’s what makes affirmation so powerful in marriage:
- Your spouse already feels like they’re failing in multiple areas
- Critical words align with their inner critic, creating a powerful negative alliance
- Affirmation provides alternative evidence against negative self-talk
- Encouragement activates motivation and confidence
As I shared with my wife: “Your spouse already feels like they’re failing. And when you’re critical, you’re only contributing to the voice of criticism that’s inside of their own mind. So basically, you’re collaborating with the accuser instead of actually breaking them out of the accusation.”
This principle works differently for different personalities. For my wife, encouragement motivates her toward positive action. Criticism, even when intended to be helpful, tends to create resistance or resentment.
The Prophecy of Encouragement
In our conversation, I mentioned something that surprised many viewers: “The lowest form of prophecy in the New Testament is exhortation and encouragement.” Yet this “low form” is often the most transformative in marriage.
I’ve experienced many times where simple encouragement became something more profound—moments where speaking life to my wife seemed to tap into something divine, addressing exactly what she needed in that moment.
For men specifically: “There are a lot of men in these weird codependent men’s groups where they encourage each other all day and they don’t extend the same encouragement to their own wife.”
The biblical instruction to “wash your wife with the word” is about this very thing—cleansing her mind from the negative voices through your words of life and truth.
Rethinking Problem-Solving in Marriage
One of the most classic marriage dynamics involves men’s instinct to fix problems and women’s desire to be heard without solutions. This isn’t just a stereotype—it’s rooted in different communication styles and needs.
Men often approach problems through a practical lens:
- Identifying the issue
- Analyzing possible solutions
- Implementing the best option
- Moving on
Women frequently process problems through a relational lens:
- Expressing and understanding the emotional impact
- Exploring the context and connections
- Feeling validated and understood
- Then, potentially, considering solutions
My wife joked about this tendency: “Men love to fix things. I know my husband when I’m like, ‘No, no, no, just listen,’ he’s like sweating. He’s sweating, trying to listen. I have a process. It’s all figured out.”
The irony is that physical presence—a hug, a hand on the shoulder, simple listening—often “fixes” more than any logical solution could. As my wife noted: “When you hug me, you’re fixing something in me. You are fixing something. Something only you can fix.”
Serving Through Sacrifice: The True Leadership Model
The healthiest marriages we’ve observed operate with a counterintuitive understanding of leadership. Rather than the husband being the “boss,” true leadership means being the chief servant.
As I explained: “When a father is ruling their home, they’re the king of their own castle… but when I say that, that’s not the top position, that’s the bottom position. That’s me saying I’m at the lowest position. I’m the one pushing everybody else up.”
This servant leadership is demonstrated through practical sacrifice:
- Taking the night shift with a sick child even when you’re exhausted
- Protecting your spouse’s rest and well-being at your own expense
- Carrying the heavier load during difficult seasons
- Putting others’ needs before your own
My wife shared a recent example: “A few weeks ago, one of our kids was sick with a fever. And I’m one of those parents, I cannot sleep when they have a fever. I had been up three nights in a row with a sick kid not sleeping. And you came in and you had a really long week and a really hard week, and you came in and said, ‘Babe, I’m going to take care of this. You are going to sleep.'”
These moments of sacrifice build trust and security that no amount of words or gifts can replace.
Breaking Free from Comparison in Marriage
One of the most liberating realizations for any couple is that their marriage doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s. As I told my wife, your marriage is “like a thumbprint. Your thumbprint is the only one. There’s 7 billion people, one thumbprint.”
The comparison trap damages marriages in multiple ways:
- Creating artificial standards that don’t fit your unique relationship
- Generating insecurity about normal struggles
- Fostering resentment when your spouse doesn’t match an idealized version
- Preventing authentic connection by promoting performance
My wife admitted her own struggles with comparison: “I came upstairs and I dropped the book and I said, ‘Other women could never.’ Women compete with other women even in their own mind.”
This comparison extends to everything from housekeeping to intimacy frequency to parenting styles. The antidote is embracing your unique marriage “fingerprint”—the specific combination of personalities, preferences, seasons, and strengths that make your relationship unlike any other.
Creating a Marriage That Works for Your Season
Different seasons of marriage require different approaches. What works in your twenties might not work in your forties. What’s helpful during financial abundance might be impossible during scarcity.
Factors that influence marriage seasons include:
- Financial stability or pressure
- Parenting demands
- Health challenges
- Career transitions
- Extended family needs
- Personal growth and development
As my wife noted: “Maybe you could enlighten me. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Marriages go through seasons, you know what I mean?”
The key is adaptation—recognizing when a season has changed and adjusting expectations accordingly. For some couples, a season might mean date nights at home instead of elaborate outings. For others, it might mean temporarily shifting roles during a health crisis.
Real Connection in a World of Performance
The most refreshing aspect of real marriage is the freedom to be authentic rather than perfect. In our video conversation, my wife gently pointed out my awkward leg position on camera—a moment that could have created tension but instead led to laughter.
As I reflected: “There would be another couple where if the guy was holding his leg and the woman thought it was weird, that could be a full-blown argument.”
This comfort with imperfection—the ability to laugh together, to correct without criticism, to be fully known without rejection—is the true goal of marriage.
In a world of performance and presentation, particularly in religious contexts, true intimacy comes from dropping the facades. It’s about creating a relationship where both people can say, “This is who I really am” and know they’ll be met with love rather than judgment.
So forget the cookie-cutter advice and the 30-day challenges. Start by understanding your spouse’s actual battles—both the spoken and unspoken ones. Create space for authenticity. Speak life. Touch hearts through physical presence. And please, for the love of all things sacred, don’t buy your wife workout clothes as encouragement.
Your marriage doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be real.
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