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Solomon said, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Hope is a confident belief that a desire or promise will be achieved within a specific time period.
I believe that we can trace a lot of the problems in marriages to this one principle. When a wife has expectations that go unmet, she takes on sickness.

Dr. Gary Smalley states that the four greatest needs of a woman are:

1. Emotional and physical security – a husband as spiritual authority to umbrella his wife with protection; he also has the responsibility to provide emotional support. How? Through the next most felt need in her life.

2. The need for regular meaningful communication – men relate shoulder to shoulder facing challenges, women relate face to face sharing feelings. A woman needs eye contact and verbal support. When she receives this attention it speaks deep into her, cultivating her emotional security. Which leads to the next need in her life.

3. Nonsexual touch – According to one study, there are 64 physiological benefits to the human touch. In other words, when you “lay hands upon” your wife, her body receives a chemical boost. There is more to the touch than the physical. It can have a spiritual healing effect upon her as well.

4. Romance - As a husband, when you provide the first three needs of a woman, you won’t have any trouble with the last need, which is romance. I cannot understand why men don’t realize that it took courting to get their wife and it will take courting to keep her.

The second half of the principle is the promise, “a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” The fruit that is produced by fulfilling a wife’s needs is life itself.