Your Responsibility for His Masculine Pride

Another tip from Fascinating Womanhood:

1.  Don't Wound Him.  Take care that you don't wound your husband's masculine pride, that you are never the guilty one.  If he returns from the battleground of life and is further subject to contempt or indifference, it will undermine his confidence and alter his feelings for you.

2.  Heal His Wounds:  Heal the wounds inflicted by others.  Become his good angel, the one who builds him up when others have torn him down.  When you do, you become indispensable to his happiness and contribute greatly to his overall success in life.  No one can take your place in ministering the healing balm that keeps men going.  

If you fail on both counts, if you add injury to injury and utterly fail to build his self-esteem in his hour of need, you can destroy him and his feelings for you.  A woman is in a precarious position; she can build or destroy a man according to how she deals with his masculine ego.

When you see the sensitivity of a man's nature, you know how careful you must be in conversation.  You cannot permit yourself to have an unbridled tongue and say anything you please.  You cannot pour out your heart to him as you would to a mentor.  You must withhold feelings and confessions which would wound his sensitive pride.  However, when you learn to converse in a way to build rather than destroy, you can carry on intimate conversations with a man and feel a closeness that will be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  You will bridge the distance...

Challenge:  Make your home and your presence a safe haven from the battles of the world outside the walls of your home.  Be a wise woman and a mature woman and do not let your mouth and critical nature ruin the relationship you have with our spouse.  If you are angry or upset, learn not to talk to your spouse until you've talked to the Lord!