When you hurt your wife’s feelings

My wife Carol did not like something I did sometime last month, but I wasn’t aware of this. As I try to do once in a week or in a while, I took her out to a restaurant of her choice for lunch. After about two hours of eating, gisting, joking, and enjoying ourselves, she said she would like to tell me something. She said she knew that that was not the right time to say such a thing, especially after having so much fun. She then told me she did not like how I reacted to her feelings about something that happened the previous day.

The development arm of the church of which I am the general superintendent wants to set up a University of Agriculture and Rural Development. We decided to start the project by setting up the food-processing arm. We got a temporary place to process certain agricultural products into exportable food items. But the factory is by far too small for effective use of the machines. To our joy, we found a bigger building not too far from the factory. The amount for the lease the agent to the main agent told us was not prohibitive. Our team went immediately to discuss with the main agent and to make payment, only to be told that the subagent made a very big mistake. The amount was too high. When my wife, who was part of the team that went to negotiate came back with the news, I simply waved it off that something better will come our way and I carried on with my life.

I have tried to train my wife and myself over the years not to allow pain to affect us. But I did not know that the level of love and passion my wife has for this project made the loss a pain to her. While I dismissed the disappointment with the attitude of “new thing no dey finish for market,” Carol was pained. She said my attitude to how she felt was too hard. She told me that I should have been a source of comfort to her, instead of just simply telling her that God will provide.

She said she knows God will provide, but she still needed my shoulder to lean on. After she finished talking, I thanked her. I made her realise that a strong man is a man who will allow his wife share her frustrations and pains with her man, and that she should keep counting on me to stand by her to realise her full potentials and make her happy. I apologised for the way I handled her feelings and I professed my love for her again. Carol was all smiles and she started hailing me, as she usually does and that was the end of what had the potential to create tension in our marriage.

My advice, therefore, to men is this: it is not fair for a man to tell his wife such words as: “Is it this small thing that is making you to be sad?” To you the man, it may be a small thing but the fact is that this thing you call “small thing” is killing her. She needs your help. According to 1 Peter 3:7, a woman is so delicately emotionally and physically wired that God wants us men to handle them with care. Have you ever seen any carton with the inscription “fragile, handle with care?” That is how your woman is. Handle her feelings with care. Handle her frustrations with care and she will be stronger to help you. Do not be hard on your woman. Love you.

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