Annie Chapman - What Every Wife Wants Her Husband to Know

Annie Chapman

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Verses marked TLB are taken from The Living Bible, Copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.

Verses marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.

Verses marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Italics in Scripture quotations reflect authors emphasis.

Cover photo Sandra Gligorijevic / Fotolia

Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota

WHAT EVERY WIFE WANTS HER HUSBAND TO KNOW

Formerly published as 10 Things I Want My Husband to Know

Copyright 2007 by Annie Chapman

Published 2011 by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chapman, Annie.
[10 things I want my husband to know]
What every wife wants her husband to know / Annie Chapman.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7369-2990-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4197-6 (eBook)

1. HusbandsReligious life. 2. HusbandsConduct of life. 3. MarriageReligious aspectsChristianity. 4. Husband and wife. 5. Manwoman relationshipsReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 / BP-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

M Y LIFE AS A MARRIED WOMAN began on March 29, 1975, when I stood in front of family and friends in a quaint, little Methodist church and made some serious promises to a young man sporting an Art Garfunkel-style hairdo. My bushy-haired beloved was wearing lime-green polyester slacks, cowboy boots, and a homemade muslin shirt. He looked soooooooo far out. Since Steve and I were products of the hippie era of the late 1960s and early 70s, we decided it would not be cool to repeat vows that had been recited for eons. No, in our youthful exuberance for being different and with love oozing out of every pore of our enlightened bodies, we were convinced that we knew more than those who had come before us. Hence, we decided to create our own vows.

When it came time for the covenants to be exchanged during the marriage ceremony, Steve frantically realized hed left our carefully crafted words of commitment in his Bible that was sitting on a windowsill far across the sanctuary. Alrighty then! With no help from our cheat-sheets, we were on our own to come up with something memorable and meaningful to say to one another.

I have no idea what lofty, sincerely optimistic promises we made to one another that day. And, sadly, we will never know what was spoken. The 8-track tape recorder (yes, you read it rightan 8-track!) that was supposed to record our ceremony was unfortunately placed beside a young, brain-dead couple who decided to bring their newborn infant to our wedding. When we eagerly rewound the tape to listen to our heartwarming words of commitment, all we heard was the screeching wails of a baby who was not enjoying our wedding. Even though our pledges of love and devotion were not documented on tape that rainy day, I can assure you we meant every word we said. Now, these many decades later, we are still bound by those love-struck promiseswhatever they were.

I must admit that being married to my husband, Steve, these many years has been, by far, the easiest joband joyIve ever had. My experience has thankfully been nothing like one spouse who was asked, How long have you been married? The reply was, Its been five years of marital bliss-ters! Much to the contrary, my years are best described by the old song from my far-distant days of youth called To Know Him Is to Love Him.

One of the things about Steve I cherish most is that he tries to live by the biblical directive to husbands found in 1 Peter 3:7: Husbandslive with your wives in an understanding way. I know it might sound too good to be true, but Steve really does want to know how I feel and even urges me to tell him. For example, I remember distinctly a specific moment in our dating days that told me he cared about what I thought. It happened when Steve wanted to take me to dinner. When I sat down in the passenger seat of the 1950 Chevy he was driving, he asked, Where would you like to go eat?

I answered, Wherever you want to eat.

He asked again, Where would you like to eat?

Again I said in a pseudo-submissive tone, Wherever youd like to eat.

His response was direct but delivered with gentleness. If I didnt want to know where youd like to eat, I wouldnt ask. That was the day I realized it was safe and even appropriate to express my desires and needs. How grateful I am for that revelation as well as the freedom. Others have not been as fortunate.

For some women, sharing their deepest concerns as wives, as well as their sincere wishes about how their husbands handle their roles in the relationship, is the greatest challenge theyve ever faced. And then there are the wives who are in marriages that fall between these two positions. Their marriages are good but they wonder if they can be even better. What Every Wife Wants Her Husband to Know will help you build a stronger, more dynamic union.

In my research, which included conversations with wives regarding what they wanted their husbands to know, the following issues rose to the top. A wife longs for her husband to understand that:

she really wants to love him and feel loved in return

she wants to fully embrace and achieve the God-ordained, scripturally ordered cooperation in the home

she wants to truly enjoy the privilege of sexual intimacy without guilt or regret

she wants to bridge the divide that occurs as a result of the everyday challenges of juggling finances, children, hobbies, and in-laws

she wants the comfort of knowing that both of them will bravely face the sometimes daunting issues of health and aging

a deep and abiding respect for one another is the foundation for their strong and lasting relationship

The good news is that while it may be a very real challenge for a wife to help her husband see and feel how emotionally important these issues are to her, it is not only possible to do so, but it can be done with expectations of great results. To live these principles and communicate them to your husband takes some good, solid insights along with a little feminine finesse. The finesse is something you already possess. What I am offering in this book are the insights and the nuts and bolts of putting them into practice.

Within these pages is a collection of wisdom gleaned from various resources. First and foremost, the very best insight I can pass along to you comes from the life-changing Word of God. Nothing else on earth is capable of doing what Gods written Word can do. Hebrews 4:12-13 reveals that it can literally cut through the hardest of fleshly armor, that it lays bare our hearts. With our lives open to the Great Physician, He then can repair and prepare our hearts so that they can beat in harmony with those we love.