Marriage Monday: Wives, find ways to keep his mental Instagram full of images of you
Tip #38: Wives, find ways to keep his mental Instagram full of images of you.
Have you ever been out with your hubby on a pretty day, sitting at a park or strolling through an outdoor mall, when suddenly you see his eyes widen as the hot woman in the tight yoga pants saunters by, and you watch him try to wrench his head away and stare resolutely in the opposite direction? It seems like no matter how hard a man tries, these sexualized images are in his face all day long.
In today’s world of media, you don’t have to look very far to see just how in-your-face those images are. Pictures of beautiful women with their necklines down to there grace our magazine covers, TV commercials and social media outlets. Clothing trends like short-shorts and spaghetti-strap tops don’t exactly help. No wonder many men describe this culture as “difficult” for a guy who wants to honor his wife and honor God in his thought life.
Now, if you’re aghast at the idea that such a thing would be difficult – if you think a godly man wouldn’t struggle with this– let me briefly explain what is really going on in his head.
In my research for my book For Women Only I realized that the brain structure of nearly every man is wired in a way that creates an instinctive pull to visually consume the image of an attractive woman. The temptation is automatic; the question is what a man does about the temptation. And this is where many husbands will try very hard, all day long, to fight the challenges of this culture, and look away, look down, think about their wife and try to keep their thought lives pure. They may not always be perfect, but many honorable men truly try. Read in this article what my husband Jeff has to say about visual temptation.
That means that a faithful man loves having images of his wife that he can call to mind. It is like having a mental Instagram that he can pull up and scroll through whenever he needs it. So when the woman saunters by in the tight yoga pants and flashes all her assets, he can look away and instead think about that intimate image that he has of his wife from last night.
So instead of freaking out about how God wired the male brain – and concluding that the only answer is to permanently blindfold your man in public! – remember that God created men’s visual nature to be a good thing. To bond a husband to his wife. To create a visual delight that is good, and godly, and emotionally fills him up in much the same way that you as a woman are filled up and delighted when you have a deep conversation with your man. In other words: Fill your husband’s “mental Instagram” with pictures of you. Create moments and images for his mind to fix on that are of you, his wife, the woman that he loves.
Your husband has a desire to honor you. I have been told by countless husbands how much they appreciated having intimate visual memories of their own wives that they could think about to replace the other images that tried to bombard them every day.
You may be shy when it comes to making yourself visually open to your husband, even by something as simple as leaving a muted light on in the bedroom. It may be scary to do at first, but as you move in that direction, I think you’ll see how much your husband delights in you!
So go ahead! Push past the self-consciousness. Realize that you are the woman your husband wants to picture in his mind. You may come to realize that you actually enjoy filling his thoughts, and your husband will enjoy it right along with you!
Join us next Monday for the next installment in our Marriage Monday series!
The post originally ran at the Christian Post for Marriage Mondays.
Welcome to Marriage Mondays! Each Monday, join me as I share my top findings on the little, eye-opening things that make a big difference in creating great marriages and relationships. Today’s post is one of a series on the surprising truths that men and women tend not to know about each other–and which change everything once we do.
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Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.
Shaunti, your book For Women Only, changed my LIFE with my husband! I heard of you from our Weekend to Remember, of FamilyLife. Best weekend ever and my husband feels so much more fulfilled, happy and appreciated and respected.
THANK YOU! Just wanted to let you know, wife to wife, that our marriage is better because God led me to your book through that weekend. I never realized how I was hurting my husband before, NOT helping him.
This issue of instinctive pull to other women they find attractive has damaged my marriage. I do not look like the women my husband has a reflex toward even though I work out and watch my diet etc. I don’t have thick beautiful blonde hair, and the perfect athletic but curvy figure. I’m not overweight at all nor completely ugly but may as well be because his eyes tell me what his body truly desires. I am second rate at best.
This year when I turned 40 his eyes started darting everywhere else. Slowly I retreated into myself and found my heart closing toward him. I feel a fool / humiliated dressing nicely or putting effort in to be his ‘image’ to recall when it’s not his preferred image. We talked about how much it hurt my feelings especially if the women notice him head turning. So he put in a lot of effort to stop it BUT the truth is out. How do I reconcile that he does not delight in his wife (in her best condition) and that I should provide visual stimulation to protect the marriage? He tells me I’m beautiful, only wants me etc. but actions speak volumes, especially automatic reflexive actions.
We’ve started planning to separate as I am a shell of the person I formerly was and feel no real connection to him anymore. The book helped spell out the depth of the meaning behind glances and how powerless women are over this in their marriage – unless she resembles what he looks at and can maintain that all her years. What a horrible burden for wives to live with the constant reminder that her husband has to restrain himself to want to be with her. If I had known this earlier I would not have married.
First, I am a man. Second, the instinctive pull idea is garbage. A lingering look or taking a second look is the result of temptation and is sin. In no way should it ever by sanctioned, condoned or “understood” as, “that’s just the way men are”. The Bible clearly calls it sin. Like all sources of temptation, you have to be on your guard. It is definitely a lot harder with our media now. Although, maybe I’m wrong on that as men have been forcing woman to cover themselves for years (not just Muslims, beaches used to have decency “guards” to make sure woman were “adequately” covered).
Mel, I’m going through the same thing with my wife right now. She read Shaunti’s book and things are now, well, they’re bad. Despite what your husband may have done in the past, and I have no idea to what extent he was staring and I don’t know you at all or your situation, but I urge you to forgive him. I urge you to accept when he says you are beautiful as truth. No, you can’t read his mind, and no, my wife can’t read mine, but I don’t how else he could prove it.
I do pray that your husband would truly repent and that you could forgive and trust him again.
“For Woman Only” was like poison to my marriage.
This is Linda, Shaunti’s staff director. Shaunti’s reply to your comment: “We grieve over these stories and we know there are cases where this is misunderstood. It is one of the reasons Shaunti has been working for the last two years with Craig Gross of XXXChurch to create a book called Through a Man’s Eyes that will explain this visual nature of men in the type of detail that is needed for women such as Mel and your wife so that they truly understand how a man is wired and that he truly can adore his wife yet struggle with visual temptation, and that there is a difference between temptation and sin. Also we added a new link in this blog to our more current blog dated January 21, 2015 where Jeff Feldhahn addresses this complex topic including the man’s responsibility and the line between temptation and lust – from a guys point of view. Hopefully that article will bring a little more clarity to our perspective on this subject.”
Mel, I’m Shaunti’s staff director posting her answer to your comment which she just now read. She replies: “We are so sorry that you are in this situation and I can tell how painful this is for you. We have to apologize to you that your comment slipped through the cracks and we somehow did not see that it had been posted or we would have responded right away. We would strongly urge you to recognize what your husband has been doing, maybe not perfectly, but trying to honor you and show you how much he cares for you. It sounds to us like you may be misunderstanding what is going on in his mind. We know you might be much further down the road with this since this comment was originally posted, but we would also like to share something we have seen to be important for women in this situation. Just like men have a responsibility in this situation, women do as well. It is a wife’s responsibility to take the despairing thoughts captive just like it is his responsibility to take his visual thoughts captive. Do not let your marriage be ruined because you are misunderstanding something. This will be addressed in detail in the book called Through a Man’s Eyes that is coming out in July of this year, and in an article soon on Patheos in the next couple of weeks.
Michael Todd Wilson is a Christian counselor and coach who has counseled men primarily, and their wives as well, in the area of sexual integrity. We strongly urge you to look at his website http://intentionalhearts.com if you and your husband would like to retain him for some coaching. We highly recommend him.
Do not let your marriage be ruined because you are misunderstanding something. We will be praying for you.”
Many times I have read your material stating the visual tendencies that men have are natural because that is the way God created them, without understanding, or explaining, how those visual tendencies are often the result of the culture in which we live….not intended by God. We live in a society that sexualizes everything, particularly the female body, in such a way that is very unrealistic, thus putting the pressure on our girls. Case in point: when I was a child on occasion I would come across a dirty magazine and from a very young age I was well aware of what men were attracted to, I would then go to church / Christian school and be taught to dress modest because of the way God made men…..do you know what that taught that little girl….that when I grow up I will look like those girls in the magazines. Guess what…..I never have and never will. The damage that has done is still with me for personal reasons. My point is this: men are very visual, but I think there is a fine line between what God intended and what culture has done, what most American men are visually attracted to and aroused by, most America women do NOT attain to. The Christian community should be utterly ashamed of itself for not acknowledging the difference.