6 Ways that Wives Can Romance Their Husbands (Part One)

By Dennis Rainey

Marriage is about much more than romance and sex and intimacy.  But without them, a marriage can become bland and tasteless. It may even go into a death spiral. Like the relationship described here (from something given to me over a quarter century ago without an author to attribute it to):

Their wedding picture mocked them from the table, these two, whose minds no longer touched each other.

They lived with such a heavy barricade between them that neither battering ram of words nor artilleries of touch could break it down.

Somewhere, between the oldest child’s first tooth and the youngest daughter’s graduation, they lost each other.

Throughout the years, each slowly unraveled that tangled ball of string called self, and as they tugged at stubborn knots each hid his searching from the other.

Sometimes she cried at night and begged the whispering darkness to tell her who she was.

He lay beside her, snoring like a hibernating bear, unaware of her winter.

Once, after they had made love, he wanted to tell her how afraid he was of dying but, fearing to show his naked soul, he spoke instead of the beauty of her breasts.

She took a course in modern art, trying to find herself in colors splashed upon a canvas, and complaining to other women about men who were insensitive.

He climbed into a tomb called “the office,” wrapped his mind in a shroud of paper figures, and buried himself in customers.

Slowly, the wall between them rose, cemented by the mortar of indifference.

One day, reaching out to touch each other, they found a barrier they could not penetrate, and recoiling from the coldness of the stone, each retreated from the stranger on the other side.

For when love dies, it is not in a moment of angry battle, nor when fiery bodies lose their heat.

It lies panting, exhausted, expiring at the bottom of a wall it could not scale.

This is one of the saddest descriptions I’ve read of isolation in marriage. It is so far from the type of committed, intimate, romantic love that God desires for us in marriage.

God created romance

God penned some of the most poetic descriptions about romantic love in the Song of Solomon, found in His bestseller of all time, the Bible. If you haven’t read The Song of Solomon recently, may I invite you to read its eight chapters?

God isn’t blushing about marital romantic love. Romance was created by God to defeat boredom and the deadly, gravitational pull of isolation between a husband and wife.

 Romancing your husband isn’t the foundation of your marriage (you’ll find God’s prescribed foundation in Matthew 7:24-27). But romance is the fire in the fireplace, the glow and warmth of mutual affection that urge a husband and wife to merge and become one with one another.

Before going further, I know that mentioning the sexual dimension of the marriage relationship elicits all kinds of responses from wives. Sexually speaking we live in a broken world that has impacted women and men in various ways. My friend Dr. Dan Allender has said, “Sexual abuse is the hardest stone the devil of hell throws at a human being.” Its impact can last for a lifetime. Porn twists a man’s view of sex and impacts his wife as well.

There are wives who try to meet their husband’s needs and they are repeatedly rejected. Some wives can’t keep up with their husband’s desires, feel guilty, and begin to shut down after a few years of marriage. There are “low sex marriages” and “no sex marriages.” There’s promiscuity before marriage and affairs after marriage. And deep dark places in some lives that are unimaginable.

We are all damaged by our selfish choices and by the actions of others; we need this area of our lives to be redeemed. It is within marriage and a lifetime of love that this redemptive process can grow and transform you and your spouse into trophies of God’s grace. May I encourage you to continue to cry out to God to be at work in your life and marriage?

Here’s a list of thoughts for wives about how they can communicate their love and romance their husbands. This is the first in a list of six that I’ll finish next week. Read these carefully and pick one or two that you can begin to excel in now and over the next 12 months.

1. Catch the little foxes.

In the second chapter of The Song of Solomon, the bride implores her husband to “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom” (2:15). The vines were trying to blossom and grow delicious fruit, but these little critters were nipping the buds before they could be pollinated and grow fruit. The same thing that was happening in the vineyard was also happening in their marriage.

Passion was being nipped in the bud.

Ladies, are you growing “fruit” in your marriage? If not, perhaps you need to recognize the “little foxes” that are stealing your romance before it has a chance to blossom? Perhaps it’s time for you to go on a lifelong marital mission of ensnaring the enemies that prevent you both from experiencing a romantically fruitful marriage. Here’s a partial list of some foxes that we’ve “caught and released”:

• Children! One beleaguered wife wrote Barbara and me saying, “Our romance gave us our children and now our children are stealing our romance.” Children can go to bed early. Don’t go out to eat, stay home and bring in carryout from your favorite restraint. Have dinner in your bedroom and tell the kids to stay in their rooms!

• Indifference and passivity. One of the challenges in marriages today is the “Low Sex/No Sex” marriage. One or both spouses has given up and quit. If this describes your relationship, perhaps it’s time for you to get purposeful about passion and romance in your marriage. Romance can rescue you from toxic self-absorption. You two need to be together. And if all else fails, consider seeing a counselor if he’ll agree to go talk to one. And pray for yourself and him.

• Exhaustion. Mothers are the hardest workers I know. Consider finding a way to take a nap. Go to bed early and lure him to follow. Or let the dishes go for night or ask him to tidy up so you can be up for him.

• Unresolved hurts and wounds. Our marriages of 10, 20, 30 or more years can create a lot of human debris and left unresolved it can turn hurt into a bitter, toxic waste dump. If appropriate, confess that you’re struggling with becoming critical and, if appropriate, ask him to forgive you for becoming bitter. Romance can’t flourish in the polluted soil of your heart.

• Busyness ... leaving no margin in the schedule for the two of you to connect. You can maintain a driven lifestyle for a season, but not all four seasons. Review all that you two and your kids are committed to. Then begin to eliminate distractions and put the mobile devices and remote control down. Give you and your hubby room to breathe.

Identify and eliminate these “foxes,” and then spend more time together. Go for a walk, do some gardening together, go out for a cup of coffee on Saturday … just the two of you.

Consider Solomon’s wife’s rather suggestive invitation to a “field trip” like none other, in Song of Solomon 7: 11-12: “Come my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, …there I will give you my love!”  Now that’s a horticulture class your husband would NEVER forget!! Spice it up! Entice him up! Excite him up!!! Married couples ought to be found guilty of having too much fun, rather than too little!!

WARNING: Over time, foxes do not become extinct. We are in our sixth decade of marriage and we are finding that foxes morph, multiply, and evolve. Exterminate some foxes and enjoy the fruit of God’s gift of passion in marriage.

Next week: Look for part two of “6 Ways that Wives Can Romance Their Husbands”

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