Skip to content
LEADERSHIP Masterworks

How to Better Love Your Wife

Your Wife Is Not the Enemy

How the words you speak help create the marriage you live in.

How to Better Love Your Wife Series · Episode 7 of many!

Royce White September 11, 2026 6-minute read

Listen to this article (BETA)

Preparing the reader…

Your progress: Not started

One of the greatest pieces of marriage counsel I ever received came from the pastor who married us. He told us, “Never say anything to each other that you will later regret—and never say anything that will have a lasting negative impact.”

Nearly fifty years later, I still remember those words. And I still need them.

When disagreement comes—and it will—there are moments when I want to lash out, defend myself, win the argument, or say the one thing I know will make my point land. Unfortunately, sometimes I know exactly where to aim. But my wife is after my good, not my demise. She is not the enemy.

So why, O foolish man, would I use my words to tear down the woman I have promised to love? Why would I speak to my bride in a way I would never tolerate someone else speaking to her? And why would I ignore the very counsel I have given my children so many times: let your words edify for the need of the moment?

Paul tells us to let no unwholesome talk come out of our mouths, but only what is helpful for building up the one in need and bringing grace to those who listen (Ephesians 4:29).

Building up. Bringing grace.

That is the stewardship of our words. Words are never merely sounds that disappear into the room. They can remain in the heart of another person long after the conversation has ended—especially the words of someone whose love matters deeply to us. I have written more about this in The Stewardship of Words (https://leadershipmasterworks.com/vcsrc), but the principle is simple: our words belong to God before they belong to us. What comes out of my mouth is therefore something I am responsible to steward.

So let your love be seasoned—no, saturated—with grace. Lead in thinking more highly of your wife than you do of yourself. Refuse to intentionally use a word as a weapon. You may need to say difficult things. You may need to disagree strongly. Truth sometimes needs to be spoken plainly. But there is an enormous difference between words that hurt because they are true and words deliberately chosen to hurt.

A husband should know the difference.

You Are Cultivating Something

Years ago I wrote a sentence that I still believe, although today I would say it a little more carefully:

How you consistently treat your wife will shape the woman you experience in your marriage.

Say that again?

How you consistently treat your wife will shape the woman you experience in your marriage.

No, you do not control your wife’s character. She is responsible before God for her own heart, choices, words, and behavior, just as you are responsible for yours. But that doesn’t release you from responsibility for what you contribute to the relationship. Every marriage develops a relational climate, and you are helping create it.

Treat your wife harshly year after year and don’t be surprised when defensiveness begins growing between you. Continually criticize her and don’t be surprised when she becomes reluctant to let you see her vulnerabilities. Speak contemptuously and you may eventually discover that contempt has learned to speak back. That doesn’t make her response right. Explanation is not exoneration. But it should make us sober about what we are cultivating.

Now turn that around.

What kind of marriage are you cultivating when you consistently serve, give, cherish, encourage, bless, forgive, protect, and speak grace? What happens when your wife knows—not merely because you told her once, but because your life keeps telling her—that you are for her?

Grace creates a very different climate in which a marriage can grow.

Paul describes a husband’s care for his wife with remarkably ordinary words: no one hates his own body; he nourishes and cherishes it (Ephesians 5:29). There is nothing complicated about understanding those words. The difficulty comes in living them.

Nourish her. Cherish her.

That’s the assignment.

Lead Here

Men, this is one of those places where I want us to lead big time. Don’t wait for your wife to create the atmosphere you want in your marriage. Don’t keep score to determine whether she has been loving enough for you to begin loving her well. And don’t make your obedience contingent upon hers.

Serve first. Bless first. Encourage first. When you’re wrong, apologize first. Speak words that build rather than words that wound—not because you are guaranteed a particular response from her, but because this is the husband you have been called to be.

And keep doing it even when she doesn’t immediately respond the way you hoped. Marriage is not a transaction in which I provide five units of love after receiving five units from my wife. We do not love our wives because they have successfully completed their part of the bargain.

We love because Christ first loved us.

There is the difference.

Christ did not wait until we became sufficiently lovable to love us. He did not wait for us to initiate. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). A Christian husband therefore has a model for loving that reaches infinitely higher than reciprocity. I am not asking, Has she loved me enough today? I am asking, How has Christ loved me—and how can I carry something of that love to my bride?

So love your bride today. Call her from work just to tell her you love her. Make the bed once or twice this week if that’s normally something she does. Look for one small burden you can quietly remove from her shoulders. Tell her something you appreciate about her that you haven’t said lately. None of those things is enormous. That’s rather the point. Great marriages are built from thousands of ordinary moments in which somebody chose to love.

And don’t forget date night.

You don’t have to manufacture some spectacular romantic event. You simply have to keep communicating something your wife should never have reason to wonder about:

I choose you. I cherish you. I am for you.

Your wife is not the enemy. She is your bride.

Treat her accordingly.

Much love & blessings,

Royce

Scripture referenced: Ephesians 4:29; Ephesians 5:29; 1 John 4:19

Reflection and response

Join the conversation

Tell a good story, ask an honest question, or add something that may help the next person.

Continue exploring

The Stewardship of Words

God has entrusted us with words, and Scripture gives those words a purpose. They are to tell the truth, give grace, build people up, restore relationships, protect reputations, communicate gratitude, and express love. The Stewardship of Words explores how husbands and wives, parents and children, friends, and leaders can learn to love one another through what they say—and what they refuse to say.

Love Your Wife by Serving Someone Together

Marriage can become surprisingly inward-looking. One simple way to grow closer is to turn outward together—serving someone else side by side. Shared service gets us outside ourselves, lets us see Christ at work in one another, and shows our children that love and ministry are personal, not merely programmed.