People Who Are Genuinely Happy With Their Husbands Can Immediately Answer Yes To These 5 Questions
If you're truly happy in your relationships, these questions won't make you pause.
MariaDubova | Canva Are you wondering if you’ve got a husband who is truly right for you? Do you look around at all your friends' husbands and try to compare, to see how your husband rates? Are you worried you might be missing something and perhaps your husband isn’t as great as you think he is?
Fortunately, there is a way to gauge if you’ve got a truly awesome husband. Give the right answers to these five questions and you will know for once and for all.
People who are genuinely happy with their husbands can immediately answer yes to these five questions:
1. Is he unafraid of your emotions?
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Do you have one of those husbands who slowly backs out of the room when he sees you displaying emotion? If you are sad/mad/frustrated, does he find something, anything, to do elsewhere in the hopes it will pass while he is gone?
Does he try to fix you? Does he tell you to relax and everything will be fine? Or, when you are sad/mad/frustrated, does your husband lean in because he knows what you need in the moment?
We women are 100% fluent in emotions. We process them 24/7, since birth, with the other women in our lives. Many men, on the other hand, rarely, if ever, process their emotions. As a result, when faced with their wife's emotions, they are often left completely clueless as to how to manage them.
And what do they do? They run or diminish or ignore or try to fix. And this does not a good husband! A truly awesome husband is someone who is not afraid of his wife’s emotions.
He knows what she needs when she is sad/mad/frustrated. He knows when she needs him to stay or go or help or empathize. He can be there for her however she needs him to be.
If you want your husband to be truly great and not be afraid of your emotions, you just might need to teach him what that means, to improve his emotional fluency.
How? When you guys are in a good place, maybe on a walk or in the car or over a drink, talk to your husband about what it is you need when you are struggling. It might not be the same every time, but give him a bag of tricks to work with.
My boyfriend knows when I get down, I need him to acknowledge he sees it, and he doesn’t try to talk me out of it. He tells me he is there for me and gives me the space I may or may not need in the moment. When I am angry, he doesn’t tell me to relax, and when I am frustrated, he knows not to hover unless I ask him, too.
It has taken some time for him to understand what I need when I am feeling emotional, and while he doesn’t always get it right, he does enough to make him truly great.
2. Does he know your love language?
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I learned about the five love languages during the very last therapy session before my divorce. Man, do I wish I had learned about them right after my wedding.
Gary Chapman’s Five Love Language system posits that everyone has five ways they want to be loved: Acts of Service, Gift Giving, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, and Quality Time. When we give our person the love they want, in the language they want, they feel loved.
Unfortunately, many of us love someone the way we want to be loved, not what they need to feel loved. As a result, no one feels loved and everyone is unhappy.
I have a client whose love language is gift giving — she loves receiving gifts — and her partner’s love language was physical touch. He gave her hugs all the time because he loved her, and she would give him small gifts. Unfortunately, what my client needed was small gifts, and her partner needed hugs, but they didn’t see it, and so the efforts they made to make each other feel loved meant nothing.
So, I would encourage you to take the 5 Love Languages Quiz with your husband so you can learn each other’s love languages. If he is going to make an effort to show you he loves you, let him know just what you need to feel it!
3. Is he consistent with his efforts?
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I have a client who has been in a relationship for about 2 years. One of the most notable things about their relationship is that they have the same ups and downs over and over and over.
My client’s boyfriend is moody and, when he is in a bad place, he shuts down. He doesn’t pay her any attention, and it makes her feel unworthy and unloved. Her primary love language is words of affirmation, and he is not good with them even on his good days, much less his bad.
Every few months, something blows up, and she calls him on his moods and they have a discussion. She explains to him how hard it is for her when he is in a dark place. And he feels badly and promises to do better — to not ignore her and to remind her he loves her.
It works for a few weeks and then things go back to the way they have always been. Is your husband consistent in his efforts around your relationship? Do you have conversations about things that would keep your relationship strong, and does he agree to do his part? And, once he does, does he stick to it?
Is he also consistent in other areas of your life together? Can you count on him to do the things that are his to do, or that he says he will do? Do you know he will call you if he is running late? Does he keep in touch when he travels?
If your husband is consistent with his actions and words, then he is a truly awesome husband, as supported by a study from The American Psychological Association on marital stability, satisfaction, and well-being in old age.
4. Does he give you the freedom to be yourself?
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I can’t tell you how many of my clients have found they have become less of themselves throughout their marriage. Of course, having a career (and maybe kids) changed things, but many women work hard to be someone who their husbands want them to be.
I have a client who has, throughout their marriage, changed how she dresses. She has always been a bit flamboyant, and she was so when she met her husband. But, as time passed, her husband became increasingly critical of her clothing and, as a result, she has become more conservative. She tells me she doesn’t mind, but I know she does.
Have you had to change throughout your marriage to please your husband and keep the peace, or has he encouraged you to be all you can be in the world? Research on the locus of control and marital satisfaction showed that if your husband gives you the freedom to fly, then he is truly an awesome husband!
5. Does he know what kind of gifts you like?
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This is a tough one. Giving gifts is complicated, and that is why, if your husband knows what kind of gifts you like, he is truly great!
My ex-husband always gave me gifts I tended to exchange. In retrospect, I regret I did that, but, in the moment, it was upsetting to me. I always thought if he truly knew me, he would know what kind of gifts I would like. I mean, my friends and my sister and my mom knew what I would like, but he never got it right. I took it as a sign we just weren’t right for each other.
This is not what it means. Men want to please their wives with a gift, but they, more often than not, have no idea what to get them.
My boyfriend knows I like jewelry and wants to get it for me as a gift. Unfortunately, the first time he bought me jewelry, he got me something I wouldn't wear.
Instead of assuming he didn’t love me, I was honest with him. Really, he appreciated me telling me that, and we went to the jewelry store so I could show him what I liked.
Over the years, he has worked hard to get to know my taste. He pays attention to what I buy for myself and the clothes I wear. He doesn’t always get it right, but in general, I love what he gives me.
He isn’t my husband (yet) but knowing what kind of gifts I like makes him truly awesome, in my book.
So, if your husband knows what kind of gifts you like, that is a huge plus. If he doesn’t, educate him — show him what you like. Husbands want to please their wives when it comes to gifts, so he would appreciate a little guidance to succeed.
I hope you answered "yes" to the five questions above and you have a truly awesome husband.
If not — don’t lose hope. If any of the things above strike you as things to improve, talk to your husband. Talk about what you want in the relationship and work on a plan for both of you. Your husband truly wants to be awesome for you! And he can be, with your help.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, and Psych Central, among many others.
