HE'S NOT YOUR PRINCE CHARMING: what every woman really wants #4

FAITHFULNESS

Why be captivated, my son, by an immoral woman,

or fondle the breasts of a promiscuous woman?

Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you.

Rejoice in the wife of your youth.

She is a loving deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts satisfy you always.

May you always be captivated by her love.

Proverbs 5:20, 18-19

Dear sons,

Just a few weeks ago when I asked women to write and tell me what they really want from a man, I got so many responses I had trouble reading them all. Some funny, some sad, some silly, and many wise words of what women want and hope for and need in order to thrive.

Yet there was one thing I didn’t hear from even one woman, and it surprised me. Because I know that it is what every woman wants more than anything in a relationship with a man.

One thing without which every relationship is doomed…

One thing that is critical for the happily ever after…

Every woman, every single woman without exception, wants her man to be faithful.

Hers and hers alone from this day forward and forever.

So why didn’t anyone happen to mention faithfulness? Not even one?

I think I know. Because I am a woman too and it’s what we hardly dare talk about. As if merely mentioning the idea that my man might possibly choose someone else might jinx us.

It is the unmentionable, unimaginable, too-horrible-to-think-about worry of every woman.

Every single woman. 

My dear sons, I have scraped the wounded hearts of too many women off the floor. Soaked my own skin with their tears. Carried the weight of pain they were never meant to bear.

All because a man found it irresistible to slip between the sheets with a woman who had convinced him he was irresistible. Or because a man felt that somehow his own pulsing needs were more powerful than his promise of forever.

And no woman ever recovers that part of her soul that is lost when the man who chose her chooses another.

Good men fight every day for purity. Not for perfection, but for the strength and courage to “contain his own vessel in sanctification and honor” (I Thess. 4:4).

Yet I would like to suggest that faithfulness is more than simply staying out of another woman’s bed.

Faithfulness, the way a woman defines it, means staying wholly devoted to your wife through good times and bad, not matter how she is or how she looks or how you feel.

And so, my sons, may I offer you…

Three Ways To Stay Faithful To Your Wife:

1.    By focusing on her

Every woman knows she’s not The Most Beautiful Woman In The World. We are surrounded by the marketing magic of men (and women) who exploit the magnetic pull a woman’s body has over men.

Then we look in the mirror.

But when a man, a good man, looks at his wife and tells her she is beautiful, when he lets her see the sexual pull she elicits from him, when he uses his eyes to rebuild the beauty she thinks she has lost… something magical happens in her insides.

She feels beautiful.

The mirror doesn’t matter as much as what she sees mirrored in your eyes. She stands a little straighter, acts a little sexier, tries a little harder because you’ve given her what she really wants— you’ve given her your whole-soul faithfulness.

2.    By delighting in her

Every woman longs to be captivating. She wants to be so alluring, so lovely, so clever that she pulls you in to a cocoon of oneness with herself.

Forever.

A good man gets that. He understands that to remain fully faithful he must choose to remain captivated by his wife for the rest of his life.

No matter who else vies for his attention, no matter how much she changes, no matter that three kids have wrecked havoc with your once orderly home— NO MATTER WHAT!

To remain faithful, a man must remind himself every day how delightful his wife really is. And if he’s really wise, he’ll say it out loud.

3.    By pursuing her

Every married man, at some point, figured out how to pursue a woman. Some better than others.

For some men, that act of pursuit is something of a game. A battle to be conquered. A woman to be won.

For others it is more like a chore that needs doing in order to get what he wants.

Either way, may I suggest that just because she wears your ring does not mean you’re finished?

Women are, by nature, responders. God made us that way. Part of what a man gets when he pursues is this magnified response a woman emanates when she is being pursued.

Stop pursuing her and she stops responding. Keep pursuing her and she’ll flirt and give and be the delightful woman you want.

Pursue her heart. Ask her questions. Give her gifts that mean something. Carry her burdens. Share your fears. Lighten her load. Open her door. Keep taking steps towards this woman you’ve pledged your life to.

If you will do this: If you will focus on her, if you will delight in her, if you will pursue her heart, her soul, and her body— all of her— and if you will keep on doing it every day for the rest of your life, then you will be a faithful man.

To you faithful men, THANK YOU. Keep at it. You are our heros.

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. Girls, can you tell us how your man is delighting in you and focusing on you and pursuing you?

And men, can you chime in here? Women are reading this who want to know— how can we help? Has your wife helped you to remain faithful? Can you tell us how?

More on this next week...