The third area that Peter speaks of is that the husband understand the need for unlimited sharing of his own life with his wife in the most important part of his life - his spiritual life. You are "heirs together of the grace of life."
This means that a husband must recognize his wife's right to share in this most important aspect of his life. Too many husbands have the idea that the religious part of their families' life is to be led by their wives. They think it is unmanly to be religious or spiritually minded. Men, there is nothing more important to your family and to your wife than your spiritual leadership. It was Paul who wrote in Ephesians 6:4, "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." Certainly the wife has a great responsibility in this area, but the husband must be the leader in bringing up his children in the training (instruction) and admonition (warning) of the Lord.
The husband must also share every other aspect of his life with his wife. All the barriers must come down between them, all the channels of communication must be open. There are no off-limit areas that he keeps separate from his wife. One of the greatest complaints that wives have in regard to their husbands is that they don't listen to them. The communication is "one way." Husbands, listen to your wife. Listen to her concerns. Listen to her complaints. Listen to her desires. Listen to her when she tells you about her day.
If there is one thing I've come to appreciate after all these years of married life, it is that your wife needs for you to listen to her and be concerned about her thoughts and feelings -- about those things that are important to her. Those things that are important to her ought to be of extreme importance to you, if you truly love her. Husbands, most of the time, your wife is not looking for you to solve all her problems, she just wants you to listen to her problems and concerns. Here is the way we men are. We think our wives tell us all these things because they want us to solve the problems, so we start to give solutions to her problems, telling her what to do and what to say in different circumstances. That is not why they tell us these things. They tell us because they need for us to listen to them -- to support them -- to make them feel that they can trust us.
This does not mean that the husband and wife must always participate in everything together. It does not mean that the wife will always want to do everything the husband does or the husband will always want to do everything the wife does, or that they have to. It does mean that he does not try to hide anything from her, nor her from him. There is to be no outside activity or person that he would love more than her other than God. The wife should never have to worry that she has to compete with something in her husbands life or that he considers something to be more important than her. This relates again to that central need of a woman to have first place in her husband's love. He must understand that women were made to be helpmeets, partners . What good is a partner if she is excluded from some particular area of your life? Husbands, you have to open the doors of communication with your wife.
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