Few little boys sit and dream about being married. They assume they will be, but they don’t imagine the day, pretend to have the ceremony, or consider what their wife will be like.

Most little girls are different. On more occasions than I can count, my daughter has hummed the music to the wedding march and paraded herself into our TV room wanting my attention as she pretended to walk down the aisle. She asks about her future husband and wonders what married life will be like.

Little girls dream of weddings. Little boys dream of frogs and baseballs and dragons and anything except wives.

While women might always have a concept of what they want in a husband, few men ever truly consider what they want in a wife. Only after being married for some time can a man begin to communicate what he desires.

After fifteen years of marriage, I now know. (See: 5 Types of Women You Shouldn’t Marry)

The Kind of Wife I Want

Loving. I want a wife who will love God, love me, and love others.

Hard working. I want someone who is pursuing her own goals and aspirations while also helping me achieve what I desire.

Faithful. I want her to be devoted to me not just because she loves me but also because she does what is right.

Strong. I want a wife with a backbone, a brain, and a will to use them both.

Humble. I want her to recognize her imperfections but not be defined by them. (Remember, humility is to think rightly about oneself. So pride can express itself as arrogance or in self-pity.)

Fair. I want a wife who is fair-minded and acts in a fair manner. I don’t want someone to agree with me on everything, but I do want to be treated fairly in all things.

These are a few of the things I want in a wife. Thankfully, I have them. Yet there is something far more important about this list and my desires than simply comparing it to my wife. If these are the things I want in a wife, these are the things I need to make sure I give to my wife.

The Kind of Man I Should Be

It would be hypocrisy to expect something from Jenny that I’m not willing to give to her. At the heart of a good marriage is a focus on being for our spouses what we want our spouses to be for us.

It’s too easy to focus on others. We can daydream about what our spouse should be doing and isn’t or what they are doing that they shouldn’t. We can compare them to others (although we would be comparing them at their worst to others at their best). We can wrongly conclude how much better our lives would be if our spouse would do everything we think they should. (See: 7 Things Never to Say to Your Wife)

None of this daydreaming, comparing, and concluding will positively impact our marriage. Instead it will hinder it. It will waste our time, create false perceptions, and make us feel helpless.

To help our marriage, we should focus on ourselves. We should consider what we want from our spouse and then work on being that person for them.

This doesn’t mean we can’t look at the actions or character of our spouse. It is important to communicate disagreements and to confront moral flaws. The marriage relationship should be a place of growth for both individuals. Bad behavior should not be dismissed and major character defects should not be ignored. However, our primary focus must be first on ourselves.

When we focus on our own actions and attitudes first, it empowers us within the relationship. It makes a healthy marriage seem achievable. It takes us from helpless to active within the process. While we can’t change another person, the most likely climate in which they will grow is one in which we are growing. As we change, they are more likely to change as well.

It’s easy to dream of the things we would like in a spouse or the things we would change in our spouse, but it is far more effective to stop looking at the other side of the bed and start looking in the mirror.

The kind of wife I want is the kind of man I need to be. My expectations of her should be my expectations of me. (See: Stay Out of My Wife’s Bed)

Of course we already know this. Jesus told us this truth long ago,

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them…”