I once saw a karate teacher offer a lesson I have not forgotten.
A father came to his dojo with his son for some quality time together. The boy had been in a season of rebellion. He was getting suspended from school and making life hard at home. The teacher didn’t lecture him, but wanted to teach him something valuable.
He had the boy’s father get down and start doing a few push ups on the floor. He pointed out, “Your dad is strong. He’s built for this.” After a couple, he told the boy to climb on his father’s back then told the dad to continue his pushups.
As the father began to push under the weight of his son, he slowed. Straining, shaking, and sweating, he kept going.
As the father struggled under the extra burden, the teacher looked at the boy in the eye and quietly spoke to him:
“He works. He provides. He carries all of it. And you’re making it harder because you’re only thinking about yourself. This is what he does for you. But he can only do so much. It’s crushing him.”
Then he told the boy to put his hands on the floor and push up with his dad. He stopped being dead weight and started to help carry the load. With help, the push-up was easier. Without it, the father was near collapse.
I have thought about that lesson a hundred times. It illustrates an important reality: many husbands are quietly struggling under massive weight that’s regularly unseen or unknown, even by those closest to them.
Being a husband and father is a joyful privilege. It is also a heavy responsibility. Both are true at the same time. Men wouldn’t trade it for anything, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need help.
They do.
A Mirror and a Window
The karate teacher’s lesson is focused on fatherhood. I’d like to focus in on marriage. As I do, I write with two readers in mind: husbands and wives.
For husbands, I hope to offer a mirror to help you see your own experience and feel a little less alone. You’re not strange or weak for feeling straining under the weight and the need for your wife’s help. She is created to be your suitable helper (Gen. 2:18), after all.
For wives, I offer a window to give you a clearer view of the hidden burdens and needs of the man you married. Rest assured, I’ve no axe to grind. Nor do I aim to guilt or blame you. I just want to help you see the man you married more clearly that you may love and help him more wisely.
This is not a justification, an accusation, or a diatribe to add into the everlasting gender war. It’s an attempt to highlight the needs husbands and the significant ways wives can use their incredible power as helper to, well, help. Marriage is a union of two very different image bearers: one man and one woman. When they better understand each other’s unique needs and their own unique power to fill those needs, greater joy and flourishing will result.
The Hidden Needs of Husbands
God needs nothing. Humans need a lot. Husbands are not generally needy creatures, but they absolutely have needs. They’re usually quiet about them. They’re not sure they’re allowed to voice them. Some men feel them, but can’t identify them. Others have voiced them and were mocked, blamed, or pushed away for it. So, they put their heads down and grind on a bit slower, much quieter, and with a lot less joy. The needs of husbands aren’t talked about a lot, but they’re real and they matter.
1. A husband needs to be loved for who he is, not what he does
A lot of men learn a lesson early on in life: your value is based on your output. By word, deed, or unspoken expectation, they perceive their income, their productivity, their ability to provide and protect determines their worth. I think this is why a man’s job so easily becomes his central identity. Not necessarily because he’s greedy, but because he wants to feel valuable. If he’s treated only as the family ATM machine, it subtly teaches him, “This is your role and as long as you deliver, you’ve a place here.” If his job disappeared, if the income dried up, if his strength gave out, he wonders, “Would I still be loved?” A man deeply desires to know he is loved, not for what he does, but for who he is.
2. A husband needs a home that is a sanctuary, not a battlefield
In one of the more humorous sections of the Bible, we read:
“Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.” (Proverbs 17:1)
“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife” (Proverbs 21:9)
“A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm” (Proverbs 27:15).
At first, these verses make you laugh. If you linger long enough, they make you think. A man who spends his days fighting battles, navigating conflict, feeling increasing pressures, and taking on the relentless demands of the world outside his front door has a deep need for his home to be something different. Not perfect. Not silent. Not luxurious. Peaceful. No soldier can fight a war on two fronts very well or, at least, for very long. The best of athletes need a place to rest after competition. Men need their homes and marriages to be the one place where they’re invited to put the sword away, take off the armor, and let the shoulders come down.
It shouldn’t shock us, therefore, if men with contentious homes end up spending a lot of time at a favored third place between work and home — a bar, cigar lounge, golf course, bowling alley, etc. That’s not good, but it is revealing. These men have a deep need for rest they’re not finding at home. It doesn’t mean men shouldn’t have responsibilities at home. It does mean that home should have rest for men. When home becomes yet another battleground, men lose something deeply needed.
This is where you, dear sisters, have great power. You are equipped by God to be a one-of-a-kind source of rest and refreshment for your husbands. You have the rejuvenating power of ten-thousand vacations. You, therefore, have an important question to ask yourself: will I be another battle for him to fight or the one place he can find the rest he needs? Will I be his special garden (Song of Solomon 4:12) or another desert?
3. A husband needs to know he is not failing, but fulfilling his role
I’ve wondered if, in our effort to fight against the abuse of women, we’ve created a culture that abuses men. I could be wrong. I don’t think I am. There is a weird double-standard in how we speak, think about, and treat men and women. I once heard it expressed like this:
“When culture addresses women’s struggles, the question tends to be, ‘How can society do better for them?’ When it addresses men’s struggles, the question tends to be, ‘How can men do better?’”
When women are hurting, they’re victim. When men are hurting, they’re responsible. Two different measuring sticks for two different genders.
Unfortunately, the church doesn’t seem immune to thinking this either. You may not have experienced this, but it isn’t uncommon for the sermons on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to be very different in focus and tone. On Mother’s Day, mothers’ sacrifices are highlighted, their essential role celebrated, and extraordinary amounts of praise are rightly given them. On Father’s Days, fathers are mocked or chastised to level up (and especially do the dishes). We’ve a culture quick to praise women (which is wonderful), but mock men (which is not).
In these cultural waters, husbands are hungry to know one thing: you don’t suck and you’re doing good. Men don’t need flattery or trophies or exaggerated praise, but they do need “gracious words like a honeycomb” that are “sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24). When a wife ensures her criticisms or complaints are eclipsed by her affirmations, a husband will come alive. a Wife’s specific, frequent, and genuine expressions of gratitude like, “Thank you for loving us so well” or “I appreciate how hard you work for our family” or “I am proud to call you my husband” or “You are an excellent father and husband” or “You’re a good man” will nourish her husband’s soul. A wife’s gratitude and appreciation is her husband’s food.
Sisters, your husband needs to know he’s not quietly ruining the lives of those he loves the most. He needs to know he’s not failing, but fulfilling his role. He needs to hear from you, “You are a good man.” Not because he’s weak, but because he’s a human living in a world that’s especially, and sometimes unfairly, hard on him. If you want your husband to be a good man, make a practice of telling him whenever he acts like one. You’ll see him stand a little taller each time you do.
4. A husband needs to feel liked by his wife, not merely tolerated
Most men are surprisingly comfortable being misunderstood or underappreciated by people in the world. It comes with the territory of building, leading, and doing hard work in the world that not everyone sees, recognizes, or appreciates. He’s likely developed thick skin for the haters in the wild. What they can’t absorb so easily is the feeling that their own wife does not particularly like them. Men have no defense for the cold detachment of an unaffectionate wife. It cuts deeper than anything else can.
Men don’t desire to be dutifully loved, but genuinely wanted by the woman they married. They don’t care what others feel about them. They care the world for how their wife feels about them. They recognize this affection not so much by a clean house or a home cooked meal, as meaningful as those things are. They do see it through what only a wife can offer: physical affection. A hand held. Fingers through hair. A snuggle. A kiss that isn’t purely functional. Enthusiastic initiation and participation in marital intimacy. These small gestures carry the one message men need to hear from their wives: “I see you. I love you. I actually like you.” Without them, a husband begins feeling more like a roommate or, worse, a burden and he’ll be tempted to detach, close up, and go silent. Not because he’s passive aggressive or immature or mean. But because he feels like a burden to his wife and his dignity keeps him from begging for scraps of the marital affection from her he desires.
Maybe a simple picture can help you, wives, see your power. The touch of Jesus had the power to heal leprosy, give sight to the blind, and even raise the dead. To your husband, your affectionate touch carries a similar power. Wield it often.
5. A husband needs his helper, not another burden
Genesis tells us that Eve was created as a suitable helper for Adam (Gen. 2:18). Contrary to modern sensibilities, this is not a demotion or denigration. It is a profound calling that implies women have a one-of-a-kind, powerful, and necessary strength that their husbands genuinely need. God has not designed husbands to lead their homes alone, but blessed man with a gloriously good and necessary helper, his wife. God has created and entrusted wives with an irreplaceable superpower their husbands need.
And, as leaders of the home, husbands definitely need their helper. Leadership, in Scripture, is not a reward. It is a terribly heavy blessing. It doesn’t just mean he’s in charge, but that he’s ultimately accountable for everything under his roof. Like Damocles’ sword, the burden of the bills, the mortgage, the income, and the overall well-being of the family hangs above his head at every moment. So, if a wife unknowingly slips into habitually complaining, criticizing, or creating ever-increasing honey-do lists, a husband will receive it as more weight to carry. But, if a wife forgets her role as helper, then he’s doomed to carry all the weight alone. He may not mention it. He may not even fully know it himself. But he’ll feel it, deeply, and pressure-cracks will start to show.
Wives, may I ask, how are you using your power and position as Helper? Consider asking: “Am I helping my husband in the way he needs me to?” or “Am I working to bless him or unintentionally becoming another burden he has to carry?” Remember too, you are his suitable helper, not just a general helper. There are ways you may like to help him, but there are also ways he needs you to help him, ways that are meaningful and needed by him. Without your help, he’ll likely press on, but deflate to half the man he is. With your steadfast, wifely help, your husband will slay dragons and laugh deep from the belly while doing it.
Dudes rule. They’re not needy, but they do have needs. Thankfully, by God’s grace, they’ve Helpers. Men, keep soldiering on. You’re not alone and you’re not unloved. Filled with his grace, humbly and steadfastly fulfill your crucial role. Your labor is not in vain. Dear sisters, arise, take your post, and be for your man what only you can be. Both of you, for the joy of your souls, the good of your family and neighbors, and the glory of God.
A Pilgrim's Friend 