Do Husbands Want to Be Held? A Marriage Conversation

Key takeaways

• A joke with a point: A bedtime disagreement over who gets to be the little spoon led Pastor Adam Mesa and his wife Ashley into a serious talk about how men are treated.
• Touch can mean being seen: Ashley describes affection toward a husband as a way of noticing him, which goes beyond physical closeness.
• Men carry heavy expectations: Adam says men are pushed hard on standards and often have nowhere to say they are tired.
• Appreciation matters: Thanking a husband, and not treating his work as only his duty, is something both of them keep returning to.
• Depression has more than one cause: Adam describes chemical causes, circumstances, and questions of identity and purpose, and says each needs its own kind of help.
• Do not walk through it alone: Ashley urges anyone who is struggling to stay close to their church and to godly people.

A bedtime argument about the little spoon

The conversation began with a story. Ashley said she told Adam to come cuddle her, and he answered that she should cuddle him. He started backing into her, calling her the big spoon. She told him that was very feminine and to get off her.

Adam had just finished a water fast from Saturday evening to Tuesday evening, during a discipleship sprint at their church. He told her he needed comfort and needed to hear that it was going to be okay. He pointed out that she would hold their sons without a second thought. Would she stop when they turned eighteen, or thirty?

"It is not feminine to receive"

Adam turned the joke toward the men listening. He said he believes about ninety percent of them would not mind a cuddle from their wives, and that "it is not feminine to receive." He tied this to a larger worry: when a man cannot be held or heard at home, he may feel he has no safe place to be soft.

Others on the call joined in. Josh, who has known Adam since their high school cross country days, agreed with him. Andy, who is twenty, said he would love that from a wife someday.

Ashley was honest about her own reaction. She wondered why she smothers her children but not her husband, and who decided the man must always be the one doing the holding. Adam offered a gentle guess: she grew up in professional sports with a rigid mentality, shaped partly by her dad. Yet she was close to her father and lay on his lap until the day he died, so she is not a cold person. She is simply not very affectionate with most people.

Why Adam thinks men carry so much

Adam spoke as a pastor who is in the room with sixteen-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, and men in their fifties. In those rooms he is hard on character, integrity, self-control, and providing for a family. He said that when women gather, the message is often different: you are special, you are crushing it. He did not say women should be spoken to the way men are. He said God made us different, and he added that women also get away with some things.

He described how pressure builds. A man gets up early, works hard, and comes home to a list of what he did not do. If he says he is overwhelmed, he may hear, "What are you, feminine?" Adam summed up the result: men are "drilled regularly" about not being enough, and they begin to hear a no everywhere. He called that a lie of the enemy, since there are often more yeses than nos.

He also described how marriages go wrong on both sides. In his experience, spouses of either sex often keep score of what is owed instead of seeing themselves as a team, where one needs more in one season and the other needs less.

Where men go when home feels closed

Adam told of a Father's Day service at his church. He invited any man who had never had an active father, or had never been hugged by another man, to come forward and be hugged by the leaders. About five hundred men came up at every service, many of them crying, twenty-year-olds held by eighty-year-olds and the other way around.

To him, that showed how many men want connection and reassurance. The first place they would hope to find it is with their wife. When they do not, he said, they pick up gaming, golf, or motorcycles, places where a guy can say he is stressed and hear "man, that sucks." That can start innocently. Without integrity, he warned, a hobby can turn into an addiction.

What Ashley hears from women

Ashley and Adam both get messages from people about marriage. Ashley said the common ones from women are that a husband wants a divorce, that he is not leading, and that intimacy is missing. Adam said most men who write to him are struggling with depression and feeling disconnected.

When Ashley talks with a wife, she mostly asks questions. How does she respond when her husband shares something? Does she listen, stop what she is doing, or say she is busy? Ashley said that about ninety-five percent of the time the woman ends up crying and saying she is the problem. Ashley had not said so. The woman reached that conclusion on her own, and often felt she had a lot of work to do.

Ashley believes small pauses matter. She said "a husband will feel seen if you just pause," and she named the excuses we pile up: kids, sports, work, workouts, even church. Her answer is that "your marriage is the first commitment. That is your first ministry." She said that when it is healthy, the rest of life follows from it.

Adam added a few things his wife already does. She puts her arm around his bicep when they walk and thanks him often. She tells the boys, "Daddy did this for us." Because he pays the bills and carries the family finances, those words mean a great deal to him.

When a spouse is depressed

Nancy asked what to do if your spouse is depressed and you have never been through it. Adam said he is not a therapist, but he has asked many friends who are. His first point was plain: "Depression can be chemical." In that case a psychologist and possibly medication may be needed. As a Christian, he said, he sees physicians and true insights from psychology as gifts from God, though he added that not every secular counselor is healthy.

If it is not chemical, he suggested asking where it comes from. Is it circumstance, such as a lost job or a hard marriage, or is it internal? He pointed to identity in Christ, where we do not have to earn our place as God's children, and he mentioned that nothing can separate us from God's love (Romans 8). Then he pointed to purpose, since many people lack both identity and purpose. Only then do you look at the circumstance. Adam said that as a young man he struggled with depression connected to not knowing his identity or his future, and that he was often anxious, quiet, and isolated. He also warned that many people numb it with alcohol, weed, or painkillers and need freedom from those.

Ashley's advice was simple. Stay close to your local church, lean on your brothers and sisters in Christ, and ask for help. She said "Don't do it alone," because the enemy works in isolation. She suggested looking for godly men who can encourage you, rather than someone who only says "me too, I'm depressed."

What this means for you

If you are married, the first step is small. You might ask yourself when you last stopped what you were doing to look at your spouse. A touch, a thank you, or an arm around a shoulder can tell the other person that you see them.

If you are the one struggling, say so to someone who can help. A conversation with a doctor, a counselor, or a pastor is a good place to start. You do not have to be strong enough to carry it by yourself.