10 Ways To Be A Better Wife, Starting Today

What do you see when you imagine the “ideal” wife? Maybe she always knows how to make her husband laugh, even when he’s in a bad mood. Or maybe she always presents him with the perfect, most thoughtful gift on his birthday. Or maybe she’s able to get her husband to talk about his feelings in a way that no one else can. Most of us strive to be the best wife we can be — we all want to be loving, present, loyal, empathetic, steadfast, and generous. We want to be the kind of wife that causes our husband to think to himself, “I’m really lucky to have her.” We want to love the person who’s committed their life to us well. But when we eventually fail to be perfect, this image of a wonderful wife that we all strive to be can leave us feeling overwhelmed, disappointed, incapable, and agitated. It’s good to aspire to something, but we often mistakenly see our competence as a wife in black and white terms — either we’re good, or we’re bad. But self-improvement, as challenging as it can be, is a matter of making a series of little choices that add up to something great, rather than one grand decision. In order to be a better wife, it’s not about simply making the choice once and never failing again, but instead about continuing to choose small acts of love every day. This is good news for all the wives out there, because it means that becoming a better wife is within our reach every single day. Here’s how you can start becoming a better wife today. 1. Pay Attention To What He Needs As a wife, we’re the very first person our husband will look to, whether he needs someone to bounce an idea off of, is looking for insight on an issue with his sister, or is feeling down after not getting that promotion. We’re the person who has special access to his thoughts, problems, and emotions. This means that we have to pay attention to what he might need from us on a continuous basis, whether practical or abstract. While we might think we’ve “done our job” by checking in every now and again, it’s important to stay attuned to our husband’s behavior and anticipate his needs, as the main person who is responsible for that. 2. Show Respect (Especially in Public) We’ve all seen that couple who takes cheap shots at each other, oftentimes when they’re out with a group of friends. Maybe they didn’t fully realize how their joke would come across until they’d already said it, or maybe they’ve been fighting behind the scenes and their sour feelings have begun to seep out in public settings. Either way, none of us want to be that couple . It’s important to remain a united front with our husband when we’re in public. It’s important, as much as it’s possible, to remain a united front when we’re in public with our husband. This means that even if we’re annoyed with him for valid reasons or disagree with him about something, we attempt to show respect and not undermine or degrade him in the presence of others . 3. Be Supportive and Figure Out How You Can Help We all want our spouse to be our biggest cheerleader. We want them to be the first person we turn to to celebrate with, or to help us flesh an idea out, or to find encouragement in a challenging pursuit. And our husband is no different. While we might feel like our husband is capable of figuring everything out on his own or doesn’t really need an encouraging text from us to get stuff done, he’ll appreciate at least being supported , cheered on, and celebrated, and possibly even offered assistance — even if our husband seems to be totally self-sufficient. 4. Argue Wisely When we imagine a happily married couple, we might see a couple who never fights. We think of a husband and wife who are always on the same page and don’t ever get annoyed or upset with each other. But this is where we’re wrong. The reality is that every couple fights — even the ones who are happy together. What healthy couples do do, however, is argue well . They don’t resort to name-calling, manipulation, shifting blame, or act on heightened emotions, but instead seek to strengthen their relationship by tackling the issue at hand. We need to make the extra effort to fight fair and wisely with our husband, with the betterment of our marriage, rather than winning the argument, in mind. 5. Let Him Have Guy Time Ideally, we love to hang out with our husband. He’s our closest friend, the person we’d rather be with on any given Friday night, and always makes us laugh. And maybe, if we’re lucky enough, we even get along with his friends. We have no issues being the only girl with our husband and a group of his friends crowded around a pizza and a movie. Or maybe, we don’t love his friends, and any time he mentions the guys are getting together at so-and-so’s house, we convince him to stay in with us or take us out instead. It’s wonderful to take opportunities to bond with his friends, and it’s also important that we ultimately feel prioritized by our husband and not always cast aside in favor of the guys, but it’s also necessary that we allow him to have guy time. He needs to feel like he has a life outside of us, and it’s crucial to encourage him to have his own friends — not to mention, it gives him an opportunity to miss us. 6. Invest in Your Own Community On the flip side of that, it’s also important that we have our own friends and community. We should look to our husband for friendship, support, and companionship, but even for those of us who struggle to make friends, it’s essential to have friends who aren’t our husband . Our husband can’t and shouldn’t be expected to be our sole source of friendship, and vice versa. Our husband can’t and shouldn’t be expected to be our sole source of friendship, so it’s not just for our own well-being that we need to have friends, but for the well-being of our marriage. Don’t underestimate the importance of girl time. 7. Offer Gentleness and Safety Our husband is most likely faced with enough harshness, frustration, and rudeness from the people he encountered throughout his day, from his demanding boss to the barista in a bad mood who snapped at him to the random person who cut him off on the way home. One of the best ways we can work on being a better wife? Attempting to be a place of consistent gentleness, consideration, and safety. Our husband likely doesn’t have many people taking care of him, listening to him, drawing him out, and treating him tenderly — but we can be someone who does. 8. Have Something Nice To Say We often think of us ladies as being the ones who need regular compliments: “How does my hair look? Did I do a good job at work? Does this dress look okay?” And with how wonderful it feels to receive a compliment from our husband, why wouldn’t we assume he’d appreciate the same? So the next time we think of something positive about our husband — whether we notice a new shirt that looks really good on him, or we admire the way he just handled a work issue, or he did an amazing job making dinner — we should say it rather than keeping the thought to ourselves. 9. Encourage Him To Be Healthy While our husband is capable of making his own decisions, it certainly helps to have a spouse who encourages his health rather than hinders it or simply takes no interest in it. And as his wife, we’re one of the few people who can influence his health positively. If he’s not naturally inclined to go to the gym, try inviting him out to join you for a run; if he struggles to make healthy food decisions, we can take it upon ourselves to find recipes that will help him keep his health in check; if there are health problems that run in his family, help him stay on top of them and up to date on his doctor’s visits. 10. Be Willing To Admit You’re Wrong No one likes being in the wrong — in fact, no one thinks they’re wrong to begin with. We all have what we feel is perfect, sound logic and valid reasons for our behavior. But the reality is that at some point or another, we’ll be in the wrong about something, and our husband will be right. Part of being a good wife is being willing to admit our faults, shortcomings, and wrongdoings, and being willing to apologize for them , address them, and work on changing our behavior. Closing Thoughts Becoming a better wife sounds like a lofty, far away goal that only a select few will ever achieve, but it’s entirely possible and within our reach — all it takes are small, intentional decisions, each day, in the same direction. Don’t miss anything! Sign up for our weekly newsletter and get curated content weekly!