When man hurts his wife’s feelings

My wife Carol did not like something I did sometime last month, but I did not know that she did not like it. As I do once in a week or in a while, I took her out to a restaurant of her choice for lunch.

After about two hours of eating, gisting, joking, and enjoying ourselves, she said she would like to tell me something. She said she knew that that was not the right time to say such a thing, especially after having much fun. She then told me that she did not like how I reacted to her feelings about something that happened the previous day.

The development arm of the church, where I am the general superintendent wants to set up a University of Agriculture and Rural Development. We decided to start the project by setting up the food-processing arm. We got a temporary place to process certain agricultural products into exportable food items. But the factory is by far too small for effective use of the machines. To our joy, we found a bigger building not too far from the present factory. The amount for the lease the agent quoted was not prohibitive. Our team went immediately to discuss with the main agent and to make a payment, only to be told that the sub-agent made a very big mistake. The amount was too high. When my wife, who was a part of the team that went to negotiate returned with the news, I simply waved it off that something better would come our way, and I went on with my life.

I have tried to train my wife and myself over the years not to allow pain to affect us. But I did not know that the level of love and passion my wife has for the project made the loss painful to her. While I dismissed the disappointment with the attitude of “new thing no dey finish for the market,” Carol was pained. She said that my attitude to how she felt was too hard. She told me that I should have been a source of comfort to her, instead of just simply telling her that God would provide. She said she knew God would provide, but she still needed my shoulder to lean on. After she finished talking, I thanked her. I made her realise that a strong man is a man who would allow his wife share her frustrations and pains with him and that she should keep counting on me to stand by her to realise her full potentials and to make her happy. I apologised for my hardness on how I handled her feelings and I professed my love for her again. Carol was all smiles and she started hailing me as she normally does. And that was the end of what had the potential to create a bad atmosphere in our marriage.

My advice, therefore, to men is this: it is not fair for a man to tell his wife such words, as “Is it this small thing that is making you be sad?” To you the man, it may be a small thing, but the fact is that this thing you call “small thing” is killing her. She needs your help. According to 1 Peter 3:7, a woman is so delicately emotionally and physically wired that God wants us, men, to handle them with care. Have you ever seen any carton with the inscription “fragile, handle with care?” That is how your woman is. Handle her feelings with care. Handle her frustrations with care and she will be stronger to help you. Do not be hard on your woman. Love you.