DO YOU HAVE TIMES when you feel as if you walk alone in your marriage? Are there things you don’t understand about your man that drive a wedge between the two of you? Well, you don’t have to feel alone in your marriage anymore. You can be the woman who ministers to your husband – a wife who draws his heart closer to yours in ways you’ve never imagined.

For years, I asked God to change my husband. I wanted him to be everything that I wanted and needed?a man. But I realized that God wanted me to change. So after asking God to change my heart, I asked my husband of 23 years, “How can I be a woman who inspires you, who draws you closer, who makes you all you can be?”

I learned from my husband – and many other men that I interviewed – that a man wants to be treated like a king, respected as a man, admired like a hero, and inspired to be all he can be. And when that happens, his wife reaps the benefits!

Now, you might be thinking, “Cindi, you don’t know my husband. How can you say, if I start pleasing him and serving him, I’ll eventually be happier? And isn’t that a little one- sided?” My answer: God is one-sided when it comes to marriage. He always wants to change the person asking for change. He starts with the person who is willing. Therefore, the starting point for real change in your marriage – real change in your husband – is you. Gary Thomas (the author of Sacred Marriage and Sacred Influence) says, “You can’t make your husband serve you or care for you – but you can focus on helping him, and more times than not, that action alone will prompt him to serve and to care. Even if it doesn’t, it will ... unleash a great spiritual adventure in your own life.”

Becoming His Cheerleader
Your husband lives in a world where it’s important for him to know that he’s winning.
So what’s the best thing you can do for him? Become his cheerleader. A friend of mine told me that when a man hits midlife, he needs his wife to be more like a girlfriend than a mother. I myself think that no matter how old a man is, he wants a cheerleader in his life. (And I’m not talking about a young woman in a short skirt!) He needs a #1 fan to cheer him on, support him, encourage him, and believe in him – even when he isn’t too sure if he believes in himself. And ladies, your husband’s #1 fan needs to be you. As your husband is out on the football field (in the boardroom, on the construction site, in the pulpit, at the office), he needs to know you’re on the sidelines ... cheering for him, believing in him, and rooting him on.