Companionship

In a consultation with a marriage counselor, a wife said this about her husband, "He's a brilliant success as a merchant, but a pitiful failure as a man." Said another wife, "When I talk of the things I love, my husband just looks at me and grunts."

Commentator John R. Gunn states that, "These two women have revealed one of the major causes of divorce: Husbands who fail as companions to their wives. Here we have one husband who is so bent on achieving a business career that he neglected the more important thing of being a man, at least so far as his home and wife were concerned. In the case of the second husband, he was so absorbed in his own affairs that he had no concern in the things that were of interest to his wife. In the case of both, they gave their wives everything they wanted except the one thing they wanted most of all - a husband's companionship.

Doubtless, these husbands thought their wives ought to be satisfied with the abundance of luxuries, which they provided for them, but a woman's heart calls for something more than mere things. A true wife delights more in her husband's companionship than in any success he may achieve. The apostle Peter offers excellent counsel to husbands; he says, 'Likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as being heirs together of the grace of life.' The husband who accepts this counsel has a happy wife and a happy home.