I am writing this post to the husbands who are struggling to see the gravity of their wives’ problems.
This problem keeps appearing in couples’ sessions, and it aligns with the high percentage of divorces initiated by their wives.
Last I looked, 70%+ of divorces were initiated by women. What you are about to read is a significant contributor.
The problem I keep seeing is that a couple will enter a dialogue with me, and the husband will not see the gravity of the problem his wife is experiencing.
The men in the session tell me that the problems she describes are either easily solved or not important enough to worry about, and she’ll be fine.
Some say she is making the problem bigger than it needs to be, and in a few days, she will be okay again.
He’s right. She will be fine, but the problem for her will still be there, and he won’t know, and this is how the problem grows out of control.
Some men think seeking help for this type of problem isn’t a good use of their time or money, so he is reluctant to take action.
One lady begged her husband to participate in my program, but he didn’t see the point. One year later, she wrote to me, telling me she had divorced him, and he was shocked at losing everything.
Another couple came to see me, and he was adamant they didn’t need my help, yet a year later, the problem I’m describing took hold, and he was willing to do anything because she said she was done, and she meant it!
I remember a gentleman knocking on my door, panicked because his wife had left him with the kids. He told me nine months before that she kept telling him she was in trouble and wanted professional help, and he kept ignoring her cries for help.
He said he couldn’t see her problem, but now he was instantly aware that this was a grave error of judgment.
He said, “I couldn’t understand her problem. He said I thought we were fine!”
Thankfully, I helped him win her back, but he was so close to losing his whole family.
Does he really not care?
So what is going on here?
Why are the men struggling to understand his wife’s cry for help?
Do they not care, or can they genuinely not see the gravity of the problem?
When I explained the problem in a way he could understand, the gravity of the problem became crystal clear to him, and now taking action has become his biggest mission.
One client sat in tears as I explained to him what was going on with his wife. He said, “I never knew. I just thought she was being silly. I had no idea how much suffering I caused her. I never knew, I never knew!”
A few years back, one gentleman was so shocked at what he couldn’t see in his own marriage that he sold the company to focus on his marriage.
So, for most men, I can see without question that they care and want the best for their wives; it’s just that the way they care isn’t connected to what she really needs, and that’s a problem.
So what she gets isn’t connected to what she really needs, and so many women have sat in an emotional deficit for years.
Women in this place may find that they have lost who they are in their own marriage. “When was the last time you felt like you?” is a question that creates tears for many women in this place.
The cost of him not understanding is that she can feel unloved, unsafe, alone, and abandoned, and the lack of emotional connection and emotional security will decimate many’s trust.
None of these negative outcomes is what he wants or his intent.
So, it’s clear that so many of their husbands do not understand what women want.
The problem husbands face is that they use the way they process their problems to process hers, and this is the biggest mistake they can make.
They want to understand the problem before they are armed to fix it. It’s how he processes his day-to-day life challenges.
This is where the men fall over.
Understanding the problem is the wrong mission because that is how he solves his problems.
If your wife is upset, what is most important? Is it why she is upset, or is it that she is upset? You see, one turns you into her judge, and one turns you into someone who cares.
This is why so many husbands start to fail. They can only see her problem from their own perspective.
When he becomes her judge, she will feel he doesn’t care, which will help her engage in masculine energy. This is a place where she will go if she needs to protect herself from him.
This is why women tell husbands they don’t feel safe, which makes no sense to husbands.
If she needs to go into a masculine energy too often a few problems will start to occur.
- She starts to wonder what is the point of him.
- She will struggle to find him attractive, affecting their intimacy on every level.
- She will lose interest in staying invested in the marriage.
In essence, what he is not seeing is part of a profoundly damaging process that will start to affect his life negatively.
Some women run this process passively. They handed divorce papers, and he never knew they had a problem.
One gentleman in a session said, “I never knew we had a problem,” and his wife said, “You have got to be kidding me!”
Some women are vocal about the danger she is in, so men will experience her raging at them because the women need them to understand the raging is about her trying to wake their husbands up to the pain they are in.
The problem is most men will hear they are being attacked and protect themselves from a woman who is actually crying out for their help.
Going deeper
The deeper problem of her challenge is she simply cannot connect to herself when she is with him and this is critical for her to stay in the marriage.
A woman who cannot connect to herself in her marriage will create a profound need to go to places where she can connect to herself.
This can be family, friends, work, hobbies and, for some, the arms of someone new.
Many women crave that connection to themselves and will engage in a trend of needing to be away from the home where he is.
One lady had an affair for seven years. Her husband was horrified. She told me she didn’t go to him for the sex. She went because that was the only place she could feel free to be connected to herself.
For most women, not being able to connect to herself in her marriage is painful for her, and if it goes on for too long, she can suffer.
If she suffers for too long, she can become overwhelmed, and this is when she can self-numb or become detached.
This is a dangerous place because she can feel indifferent about him. The next step is usually a separation.
So, before she gets to that place, the men have to learn how to support her in the way she needs.
All it takes is a different way to see the world; you must see it her way to be valuable to her.
That way, she wouldn’t feel alone and would see him as a support rather than someone to protect herself from.
Men don’t naturally understand how or why women feel what they feel, but NOT knowing creates a problem because how can you be of value to her if you don’t understand her?
If you are in this place, don’t ignore it. Take action. Many men are starting to understand this is a real problem and are taking action alone because they genuinely do care.
Harley Street Expert | Founder & High Performance Coach
With two decades of experience helping couples out of crisis, Stephen the founder of The Marriage Breakthrough Program, uses his proven system for rescuing and rebuilding relationships on the edge of divorce. A trusted advisor to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders globally, his work blends emotional intelligence with strategic clarity. Known for navigating highly complex relationship challenges, Stephen helps individuals and couples find clarity and direction when everything is at stake.
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