How to Know Your Man Loves You

One of the most common arguments in marriage begins when the wife says “you don’t love me.”

Anytime a man hears that phrase he knows the bull doo is about to hit the oscillating cooling unit. It’s the last thing he wants to discuss and it’s most often not true.

Often men and women perceive tasks differently. In a man’s task-oriented mind and task is simply a task—something to be completed. He typically attaches no emotional importance to it. Taking out the trash is just taking out the trash; cleaning the gutters is just cleaning the gutters.

Often women perceive a task as evidence of a higher emotional goal. “If he loves me he will make sure our nest is well maintained.” “He knows how much I hate to take out the trash so if he loves me he will take out the trash for me.”

This difference in perception can create all sorts of problems.

When you tell him the basement step is loose and someone could trip on it, he is busy thinking about something else (probably sex, but that’s a whole ‘nother article.) He files it in his brain along with cleaning out the garage and sharpening the mower.

A week or so later he’s watching the game while you go downstairs to do the laundry. You almost fall over the loose step and remind him again. He, again, files it along side changing the filters in the A/C. After all, it’s just another task to complete.

At this point a thought may pop into your mind: “If he loved me he would fix the step.” Now you immediately discount it and give him the excuse “he probably just forgot. It has nothing to do with whether he loves me or not.”

Another week passes and you trip coming up the stairs. You skin your knee and bruise your forearm. Now that nagging “if he loved me he would have fixed that step” is so loud your rationalizations for his inaction just won’t quiet them. You got hurt because he just didn’t care.

Now in his mind the two have nothing to do with each other. He loves you. He shows that in many ways—from paying the bills (or earning money to pay the bills), by running the kids around, by remembering your birthday most of the time. In his mind household fix-its don’t have much to do with love, they have to do with work.

He just doesn’t understand the connection—though he’s sorry you fell and will probably kiss and hold you as a result.

Here is how you can avoid this becoming a source of hurt and pain for you both in the future.

First, you need to accept that he loves you. He may show it in different ways than what you sometimes expect, but accept his love for you. Take it as a given.

Second, recognize when you tell him about a task you would like him to do, he doesn’t see that as having anything to do with his showing love for you. To him it’s just another task.

Third, if some task is so important or means a great deal to you emotionally that you cannot handle him not doing it, let him know. Sit him down at a non-threatening time and tell him how important it is and how much it will mean to you that it get done. Make sure you emphasize that this—for whatever reason—is important to you on an emotional level, it’s not just a task to be completed.

Will this solve every problem? Of course not, but it will help you both grow into the place where you can find happiness together.

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