Thank you for the clarification. As I think about it, I’m sure I am nitpicking words. To me the word “pursue” implies that I’m trying to convince someone to love me who currently does not. Of course I want my wife to feel loved as much as I can. I just won’t call it “pursuing” because I know she already loves me.

I get what you’re saying. Thanks for sharing that.

You know, it’s hard on this end to say something pithy yet meaningful that applies across marriages. (Another reason why I tend to turn to Scripture a lot, because God’s way better at that!)

I think my statement is generally true, but of course a wife shouldn’t play hard to get. I’ve even written about how wives should be their husband’s “sure thing”. I focused on the hubbies here, in terms of him pursuing, but honestly, she should be super-easy to catch in marriage. It shouldn’t take anywhere near the effort it did in dating. For instance, in my marriage, what took weeks, several dates, and a lot of hemming and hawing (for that first kiss) now takes my husband walking through the door and striding up to where I am. Bam! Kiss. (And a far better kiss now than when we first started. 🙂 )

Honestly, I suggest if that wording doesn’t work for you, find another. Something like, “Just because I caught my wife once doesn’t mean I shouldn’t continue to catch her, again and again.” Does that work? Got a better version for your situation?

As a man, I wonder if there’s a different way of saying this that doesn’t make it all sound so discouraging, as if our romantic efforts are a striving after the wind. I get that love is a verb, and that loving my wife means, well, showing her daily that I love her. That makes sense. Indeed, the reason I pursued her was so that I could catch a person I could love on over and over. That’s what love does. Love without daily expression isn’t love. But, when I’m told to never stop pursuing my wife, I get a jolt in my romantic soul. In that phrase, I hear a whole host of other messages.

a. I hear that, no matter how hard I try, I will never truly catch her.
b. I hear that her love for me is not only responsive, but entirely conditional and that I must earn her loving response.
c. I hear that our marriage has a “what have you done for me lately” quality.
d. I hear that it’s good for a woman to play hard to get, in order to get us guys to pursue harder, thereby turning romance into a game.
e. I hear that my wife has no romantic or sexual memory. In an earlier post, you wrote of women who have no interest in sex until they are aroused. That’s my wife. Not only is she not interested in sex until she’s aroused, she has little interest in doing anything that will get her aroused. It’s as if she has no memory that the last time we made love, she thoroughly enjoyed herself (and she did).

As a man, I need to know that my efforts will produce some fruit. However, with this phrase, I see me as an Adam Sandler in “50 First Dates.” Nothing I did yesterday has any lasting effect. I must start all over tomorrow, as if today never existed. My guess is that most women liked that movie, and liked the idea of being pursued every day as if it were the first day of the relationship. I get that. But, to me, it becomes an almost Sisyphian doom of pushing the boulder up the hill every day only to get up the next morning and do it all over again with no hope of ever seeing any lasting response.

I wonder if I’m alone in how I react to this phrase or if I’m just nitpicking words.