What Women Wish Men Knew
A young husband recently sighed to me, “Rabbi, I thought marriage was supposed to make me happy.” His wife quickly shot back, “And I thought he was going to complete me.” There it was, the universal misunderstanding. We all expect marriage to be the magic medicine that finally fixes us. But if only someone had told us the secret earlier.
The Torah did. We just didn’t notice.
“When a man marries,” a recent Torah portion says, “he shall remain home for one year and bring joy to his wife.” Sounds like a year-long honeymoon, right? Wrong. The 11th-century commentator Rashi says it doesn’t mean rejoice “with” her. It means “make her happy.” The difference is in the hidden vowels under the word: reading the word vesimach — and he shall make her happy, as opposed to vesamach — and he shall rejoice with her. That single vowel flips the script: Marriage isn’t about getting joy, it’s about giving it.
In his book You’re the One You’ve Been Waiting For, Internal Family Systems therapy founder Richard Schwartz agrees. He says the greatest myth of marriage is thinking your spouse will fix your insecurities and erase your loneliness. If you need a nurse, check yourself into a hospital. If you want a partner, get married. Don’t marry to get; marry to give — that’s the only way love will live.
That’s why the Hebrew word ahavah, love, comes from hav, to give. Love is not something you fall into, it’s something you grow into. Our patriarch Isaac didn’t love his wife Rivka until after they were married. The Torah makes sure to clarify that he first took her as his wife, and only afterward he loved her. Because real love doesn’t explode like fireworks. It unfolds like a sunrise.
Even the ketubah hides this truth in plain sight. It obligates a husband to provide his wife with food, clothing, and onah. Most men assume that onah is a physical duty for conjugal relations. But the Tzemach Tzedek, Third Rebbe of Chabad, clarified that the Hebrew word onah means to respond (Or HaTorah Shmos 4:1314). It’s not talking about physical pleasure, but rather about emotional intimacy. And here’s the part many men never learned: Emotional intimacy is not about what you want to give, it’s about what she needs to receive.
Let’s be clear. Emotional intimacy means to listen when she talks — with your eyes and heart — not with your phone in your hand. You laugh at her jokes even when you’ve heard them before, because she matters. You notice her hints, remember her preferences, and show up when she needs you — not with fixes, but with presence. For a woman, this is not dessert, this is dinner. Not luxury, but necessity. Food and clothing may keep her body alive, but onah — emotional intimacy — keeps her soul alive.
And wouldn’t you know it, modern science caught up. Dr. John Gottman, the guru of marriage research, found that the best predictor of success is how often couples “turn toward” each other’s little bids for connection. “Look at that bird outside,” a husband says. If his wife smiles and looks, the marriage thrives. If she shrugs and scrolls, it withers. Happy couples responded positively almost 90 percent of the time. Struggling couples only managed a third. The Torah said it thousands of years ago: Love lives in responsiveness.
King Solomon saw it too. In Proverbs he wrote, “Whoever finds a wife finds good.” In Ecclesiastes he wrote, “I find the woman more bitter than death.” Which one is it, bliss or bitterness? The answer is both. It depends if you’re in it to serve or in it to be served. In the former verse, the emphasis is on her, in the latter, it’s on himself. If you ask, “What can I give?” you’ve found heaven. If you ask, “What can I get?” you’ll find hell.
Maimonides gives the clearest roadmap of all (Mishnah Torah, Laws of Marriage Ch. 15): A husband must honor his wife more than himself, and love her as himself. And a wife must honor her husband more than he asks. Notice the order: Not love first, but honor. Because love without respect is flimsy. But respect — giving weight, dignity, and centrality to the other — creates the bedrock on which love can grow.
Sometimes the truth is revealed in stories, not sermons. Several years ago, a bus lost control near the Shamgar funeral home in Jerusalem. Among the victims was a young bride, married just six months, who lost both of her legs. When she woke from a coma, she whispered to her husband: “If you had known this would happen to me, would you still have married me?” His reply belongs engraved on every wedding ring: “If it had happened before, no. A healthy young man doesn’t choose that. But now that we are married, it didn’t happen to you, it happened to us. We are one.”
Even history proves the point. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was struck with polio at 39 and paralyzed, everyone thought his career was over. But his wife, Eleanor, refused to let him sink. She became his legs and his voice, traveling the country, carrying his message, holding him up when he could not stand. Without her, there would have been no President Roosevelt, no New Deal, and maybe no Allied victory in World War II. Behind the man who couldn’t walk was the woman who wouldn’t let him fall. That’s not infatuation. That’s inspiration.
So here’s the secret. The Torah commands the happy not to rejoice “with her,” but rather to “make her happy.” Marriage isn’t about finding someone who will complete you. It’s about becoming the one who completes someone else. And here’s the paradox: When you make your spouse’s joy your mission, you discover your own. You don’t lose when you give — you gain. You don’t shrink when you serve — you soar. And you don’t just rejoice with each other — you ultimately rejoice in each other.
Happy wife — happy life!
Rabbi Dovid Vigler is the spiritual leader at Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens, with over 85,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, youtube.com/jewishgardens. Email him at [email protected].
