When you are connecting, emotionally, mentally, just listening won’t be enough. You will want to give voice to your feelings. Let her know how much and how often you desire her.

Granted, if you’ve been doing the stuff we’ve talked about in previous chapters–giving her presents and pampering and helping out around the house, and looking dreamy-eyed–your wife already knows how you feel. But why not say it? Tell her how hopelessly in love you are with her, how much you think about her during the day. By now, she should have ample reason to believe it.

One wife-worshipping husband said that the simplest communication, and one that he shares with his wife often, is precisely that–he tells her just how much desires her, how often he thinks about her, how proud he is to be hers.

Am I counseling mature married guys to start gushing like lovestruck kids? Absolutely. There’s no expiration date on passion. Listen to the effect of such a romantic confessional on a wife married 45 years:

“He began by talking about what brought us together in the first place, and what it was that used to make us feel so good and special about each other. This was a real awakening for me and reinforced the importance of being intimate every day. The results have been astonishing! Hugs and kisses as he or I came and went are now back in place and our sex life has never been like it is today. We can hardly wait to be alone together.”⁵

Why not make your wife your confidante, if not your confessor? To paraphrase Fumika Misato, Don’t be afraid to let your wife know the extent of her power over you. Don’t try to be the “strong, silent type” when it comes to your devotion to her.

“Consider a true and honest confession of your feelings to your wife, ” Misato continues. “Express yourself without reservation. Don’t be afraid to let your wife know how powerful she is. Her primary goal is to get your attention, and all that entails. Let her know that she has it. And she will be impressed, even touched, by your honesty.”⁶

Isn’t that risky, you may ask, handing over that much power to your wife? Of course. But aren’t risk and vulnerability part of the thrill of original courtship? Singles who prefer “hooking up” for impersonal sex while playing it cool all the way, need not apply.

I’m not advocating dredging up miscellaneous misdeeds from the past. I’m talking about “confessing” the way a suitor confesses his adoration, on bended knee with throbbing pulse. This is the essence of “Being Known by Her. ” To use an old-timey phrase, you want her to “know your heart.”

For me, the throes of conjugal sex tend to trigger impromptu, lovestricken confessions. The most impassioned avowals suddenly populate my brain—mostly unoriginal, even trite. I used to suppress these, trying to maintain at least a semblance of manly reserve, knowing my blurted words might sound embarrassing afterward.

I no longer do that—muzzle myself—for all the reasons discussed above. These days, during the final crescendos of passion, I am more likely to let myself go—verbally as well as seminally. My wife has heard me stutter out empurpled phrases like, “I’m so lucky to be married to you.” Or: “You are my queen.” Or: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Or: “I want to belong to you completely.” Not a few times I have reverted to simply repeating her name over and over and over, mantra-like.

Extremely unmacho behavior, no? Am I embarrassed afterward, in the cooling aftermath of white-hot passion? Yes, a little. James Bond wouldn’t gush like that. Nor, in an earlier generation, would Gary Cooper or John Wayne. And yet, I’m not the strong, silent, muy macho type. I do want to belong to her completely, etc., etc., and I want her to know it, to know me. What I have given voice to really are the innermost secrets of my heart—things I want to share with my beloved.

Are there other secret matters suitable for uxorious confession? Stay tuned.

In Chapter Two, “Making Her Your Fantasy,” I cited a confession that I made to my wife–that I had been secretly masturbating to erotic and pornographic images all during our marriage, that I had now realized this was a kind of betrayal of our marriage, and that I was no longer going to do it. From that time forward, I vowed, my sexual gratification would come only with her participation.

This confession, if you recall, was not so much shocking to my wife as puzzling: “She hadn't suspected that I had been masturbating. She had simply accepted that things had cooled off between us.” But, despite this confusion over what I was saying, my emotionally charged delivery got through, clearly conveyeing to her that I wanted to make a new start between us, to rekindle our romance.

Was this a necessary confession? In my view, yes, because I had been disloyal, and sneaky, withholding part of my sexual being from her. If nothing else, this constituted a communication break with my wife. By removing this barrier, I reestablished communication between us and felt immediately closer to her.

Perhaps the ultimate intimacy is to be known totally, and accepted, by the one you love. Obviously, this requires full disclosure by the party wanting acceptance, something akin to walking a high-wire without a net. Rare courage is required, since there is no guarantee of acceptance from the loved one–and the real possibility of rejection.

Especially since many of us harbor a conviction that we are not really worthy of being loved. In consequence, there are things about us we withhold even from those we love–or especially from them. If she really knew what I was like, she wouldn’t love me.

Somerset Maugham once wrote, “If I set down every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind, the world would consider me a monster of depravity.”⁷ (Maugham actually prefaced that little confession by saying, “I do not think I am any better or worse than most people. ” Some people, of course, are worse than others.)

But to live authentically, and with real intimacy, you need to “get naked” psychologically with the one you adore. Opening up to her in this way will strengthen emotional and sexual bonding.

A family friend of Dr. Phillip McGraw, the popular TV psychologist, said that “Phil told me that one of [his and his wife Robin’s] biggest secrets is writing personal diaries and sharing them with each other weeks and months later. They do it as a way to open the floodgates of communication.”⁸

Another couple writes each other monthly letters of devotion, reminding each other how they feel. The intimate exchange precedes a special monthly date. The wife comments, “I really like the letters, they keep a great fire going.”

Elise Sutton, a psychologist who advocates marriages governed by what she calls “Loving Female Authority,” recommends that a husband keep a journal where he can record his thoughts. This, Sutton believes, “can spark romance and a deeper, more intimate love.”

She employs this in her own marriage, with highly beneficial results: “We communicate wonderfully verbally but there are thoughts that he puts in his journal that he does not easily communicate to me with the spoken word. Creativity can spring forth and from that can come heart-felt letters, poetry and other expressions of the man’s romantic feelings.”⁹

As mentioned earlier, e-mails have become another useful channel of romantic communication between husbands and wives. Whether your wife is at home or work, you can always leave a love note for her in cyberspace.

Should you tell your spouse everything? Isn't that what “getting naked” psychologically is all about? I back away from making such a categorical pronouncement, invoking a blanket disclaimer, along the lines of that old legal standby, “State laws differ; your case may vary.” It has to be an individual call.

Do you catalogue for your wife all past indiscretions or your darkest secret sexual fantasies? Reveal what you really think of her relatives or her taste in interior decorating. Let me just say that I would counsel extreme caution.

Somewhat safer ground is underfoot, I think, when the wife conducts the confessional, and asks for such intimate revelations, assuring the husband in advance that whatever he offers will be accepted in a loving spirit and not stored away as information for later use or even possible retaliation...

Fumika Misato counsels wives to initiate an intimate conversation in bed every night, often with sexual contact, in order to create intimacy and get her husband used to revealing himself to her–especially his emotional life. “Get him in the habit,” Misato advises, “of telling you everything, every day.” The goal, again, is for the husband “to be known” by his wife–and in this find acceptance.¹⁰

Psychologist Elise Sutton also prescribes regular intimate sessions, with gentle interrogation by the wife of her husband’s fantasies, to break down his defenses: “Keep encouraging him to open up more. You will come to understand him more than you ever thought was possible. By doing this you should feel much closer to him and the two of you should have bonded together in a deeper and more intimate way.”¹¹.

Another writer in this area agrees: “Men are generally very closed and secretive, particularly where their emotions are concerned. Most men would rather brave death than admit their weaknesses and failures even, especially, to their wives...

“If the wife has very particular expectations of her husband, new behaviors that she will require that are specific to her own personal situation, then this is the time to bring them up. This conversation will represent an extremely intimate and sexually powerful moment in the evolution of the relationship, and it is the best of all times to secure long-term behavioral shifts that will improve the marriage over time. For example, a wife could choose this occasion to ask her husband to stop smoking, lose weight or exercise more often. ”¹²

But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Behavior modification will be dealt with in Chapter 7, “Bonus Points: Motivational Magic.”

5. Quoted by Dr. Scott Haltzman in Secrets of Married Men.
6. Fumika Misato’s Real Women Don't Do Housework.
7. W. Somerset Maugham in The Summing Up.
8. “Inside Dr. Phil’s Marriage,” National Enquirer. July 15, 2003.
9. Elise Sutton's website Loving Female Authority.
10. Real Women Don't Do Housework.
11. Loving Female Authority.
12. Ken Addison: Around Her Finger. Venus Publishing, 2004, p. 96.

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