Your Wife Already Knows
Three questions that will change how you lead at home.
My wife and I have date night on most Monday evenings. It’s nothing fancy. The idea is to get away from the house and have some quiet time to connect and catch-up on each other’s lives. When the weather’s nice, it’s a walk in a local park. During the winter, we spend more time in restaurants.
I started bringing to those conversations a question I used to ask each of my employees before I sold my business:
What do you need from me?
In my business, the question often surfaced issues, emotions, and struggles that otherwise would have remained hidden. It also helped me see where I could improve and grow.
I find that the question does something similar for me in my marriage.
As someone who’s aspiring toward the noble task of eldership character (1 Tim. 3:1), I don’t want to just develop those qualities in my work, but in my family relationships, too. Paul’s qualification list in 1 Timothy 3 doesn’t start with theological knowledge or public influence. It starts with my household.
“He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” - 1 Timothy 3:4–5
I need to manage my home well before I can lead well in my community, and my wife sees that area of me more than anyone else.
She sees me when the kids push my buttons at bedtime. She watches how I handle money when it’s tight. She hears the tone I use when no one “important” is listening.
My wife has a front-row seat to the man I actually am, not the man I’m trying to become. So if I’m serious about pursuing this noble task, I need her to let me know what she sees. She can help me train for leadership in my home like no one else.
Whether I lead with wisdom, resolve conflict with grace, discipline with consistency, serve without resentment, and grow in character when no one’s watching, she knows.
But most men never ask.
As I’ve been thinking about how my wife can help me grow in more areas at home, I think there are a few questions simple enough to ask on a date night and honest enough to change me if I let them. Not because I like to hear how easily my wife can identify my struggles, but because they're forming me for something eternal.
1. What do you need from me?
This one I already ask her. It’s the leadership gap question. Her answer reveals where I’m absent, where I’ve dropped something, where she’s carrying weight I could be sharing. Maybe it’s spiritual initiative. Maybe it’s emotional presence. Maybe it’s following through on something I said I’d do three weeks ago.
I don’t know until I ask, and she won’t tell me unless she believes I actually want to hear it. This question, asked regularly, trains me to see what a leader needs to see: the needs right in front of me that I’m blind to.
2. Where have you seen me grow?
This is the formation question. I plan to start asking this one regularly because eldership isn’t built overnight. It’s built over decades of incremental character development, but most men have no way to measure their own growth. My wife does. She’s been watching. She noticed how I handled our conflict differently than I would have a year ago. She remembers the night I noticed she was struggling and showed empathy without being asked.
When she names my growth, it confirms that the formation is real, that God is actually shaping me through the dailiness of family life.
Hopefully, her answers change every time I ask because I’m a different man than I was last month. At least, I hope to be.
3. What’s the one thing I should focus on next?
This is the mission question. Elders aren’t developed in every area at the same time. They’re formed one area at a time. Patience here, consistency there, gentleness in this specific situation. My wife can see the next thing more clearly than I can because she’s not inside my blind spots. She’s looking at them. Her answer gives me a specific, actionable target for the next month.
Together, these three questions create a cycle: Identify the gap. Measure the progress. Set the next target.
If I ask these questions each month, I’m building something most men never have: a record of character development witnessed by the person most qualified to assess it.
This is what Paul is talking about. A man whose household management is visible, tested, and proven over time.
The path to the city gates runs directly through your own household. You don’t get to skip past your marriage to get to the “important” work. Your marriage is the work. Every hard conversation is training for harder ones. Every moment of faithfulness in the ordinary prepares you for responsibility in the Kingdom to come (Luke 19:16-19).
Your wife already knows the man you are. The question is whether you’re vulnerable enough to ask, brave enough to grow, and faithful enough to keep asking.
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