 What is the primary need that a woman wants from her husband? What's the primary emotion? That is the continual love and the continual enveloping of that attention that the husband always makes his wife his priority. The husband always shows his wife that I'm thinking about you, I'm caring about you, i.e. I will always love you. To feel that love, to feel cherishment, they need to be constantly reassured that their husbands love them, that their husbands always take them as number one. Always. If women could get away with it, they want to be put on the pedestal and the husband just looks at them all day and night and that would be great for them, right? They want to be number one in their husband's lives. So they want constant reassurance that the husband always loves them. Now brothers, listen to this. Wives do not take your love for granted. You take your wife's love for granted. You don't need your wife to constantly reassure you that you love me, you love me. No, you take it for granted. The fact that she's still living with you shows you she loves you. Well, it doesn't work the other way around. It does not work the other way around. A woman is always double guessing. Does he still love me? Does he still think about me? Does he still care about me? Does he still put me number one? And therefore a woman has to have constant reassurance and not only this, but another issue that men need to be sensitive to and understand. Women are very conscious of their looks and they're comparing their looks with other women all the time. We guys don't do that. We don't care about other looks of men and we don't compare ourselves. But women are always thinking, am I still beautiful enough for him? Does he still think me attractive? Maybe I've gained a few pounds. Maybe after the third kid this and that. She's always double guessing her looks, her figure. And so the husband always has to make her feel the most beautiful, the most cherished, the most loved, the most admired. She always wants these reassurances. How does he do this? I'll just point out a number of them. Number one, words, words, words. Never underestimate the power of speech. Simply saying I love you. I know it's awkward for men after the courting phrase. I know it's awkward, right? But believe me, it never goes out of fashion. For women, it never goes out of fashion. They always love to hear this phrase. And in fact, there are da'if hadith of our Prophet ﷺ, but it's still mentioned in our books that our Prophet ﷺ and Aisha were joking once. And Aisha said to the Prophet ﷺ, how much do you love me? How is your love for me? And our Prophet ﷺ said, and he gave a beautiful metaphorical poetic expression. He said, my love for you is like the tight knot that cannot be unbound. My love for you is like the tight knot that cannot be unbound. So then in the future, sometimes if they would have a bit of an issue, a bit of an argument, one of the two would remark, how is the knot right now? How is the knot right now? And Aisha would say this when the Prophet ﷺ sometimes got irritated. How is the knot? So he would smile, he would say, as strong as it ever was. And this hadith is in Daraqutni. Now the point being that the words I love you are something very important, but not just I love you, praising her and what she does. Husbands, never take your wife's actions for granted. Suppose she is cooking and cleaning most of the time. Never take it for granted. Always once in a while, come and compliment her. Masha'Allah, that was great. I really appreciate what you're doing for me. Those words, they go a long way. Your wife realizes, you know what, he's not taking me for granted. Very important. Praise her looks when she dresses up, when she does something extra special for you. Never take it for granted. Husbands, you all know the big danger of forgetting anniversaries, right? You all know how dangerous that is. Why do women want you to know their anniversaries? Because it makes them feel you still love them. Makes them feel he still remembers me, he still cherishes me. And celebrating anniversaries, honestly, I believe there are some scholars, they say it's Arambidah. SubhanAllah, quote me, celebrating anniversaries is mustahab. It is encouraged in our religion. What greater thing to do than for the husband to tell his wife over and over again that I love you, I'll do it all over again. Take them out for a romantic dinner, be romantic with your wife. What better way of showing that love? There's nothing wrong at all to show that love on your anniversary days. This is something that the Sharia encourages the husband and wife to have that love they bond together. Another thing that the woman wants is time. And time, this is now a difference in language. For husbands, time means the watch on your hand. So when the wife says you never spend time with me, immediately he goes into calculation mode. I sleep eight hours in a day, I have breakfast one hour, I come home, that's 10 hours with you. How can you say I never have time for you? Right? Because he's thinking of time in the dictionary definition of time. That's the clock. No, no, no, no. Women have a different dictionary. Women have a different vocabulary. For women, time means attention. Undivided quality attention. So you're working five days of the week, you have that Saturday night free and you want to go and you want to watch a television match, you want to watch a cricket game, you want to go and play some basketball, you want to do this and that. That is quality time. And you have just shown your wife when you have quality time, you don't want to spend it with her. So what does that mean? You never go out with the guys? No, of course you have to go out with the guys. But understand when she's asking for time, she wants quality time. And this also, when she comes to you to help, to come for advice, she wants some issue to solve. One of the biggest problems that men have is they think as if the woman, the woman is coming to him to solve her problem. So immediately he'll say, oh, you did this wrong, you did that wrong, you should do this, you should do that. And that is not what the woman wants. What does the woman want? The woman wants a the woman wants a loving ear, a sympathetic ear. She wants somebody to listen to her problem, to be sympathetic to her, not necessarily to solve her problem. This is quality time to express that whatever she went through was frustrating, was problematic, and inshallah they will work it out. You have to give what the woman wants, and in return she will give what you want. When the man gives love, when the man gives that what we call romance, and romance is nothing, men, men think romance is a very dangerous word, they never want to use it, right? All romance means is you show her, you're thinking about her, you show her, you're caring about her. Husbands, the phrase I love you, giving roses, remembering the the anniversaries, taking them out, spending quality time, this is what romance is. When you give the wife the love, you make her feel like she's number one, guess what? She'll make you feel like you're number one. And so the both of you make each other feel like number one, and that's exactly what marriage is all about. Many men could not be bothered to fulfill the conjugal rights of their own spouses, because they do it in haram, or sometimes they don't realize. The Prophet sallallahu sallam says, when you fulfill the intimate rights of your spouse, it is a Sadaqah, it is an act of worship, it is a charity. The Sahabah was surprised, they're listening, they said, me, have sex with my wife, and it's an act of worship. So they said, how, oh messenger, how is that? You know what he said? Do you see if this person fulfilled his desires in a haram way, would he get a sin? They said, yes, he would. Well, if he fulfilled it in the right way, he would get a reward. Many people say, you know, when a man calls his wife, she's supposed to respond. You know, Subhanallah, what about the wife's needs? Many men don't even want to talk about that. You've left her alone. She's remaining this way, as though she's a widow, Subhanallah, and she's not, she has a husband. He's not really interested, he's not keen. She'll touch you at night, and so on. What do you do? Hey, I'm tired, trying to sleep, don't you see? What time do I go? And you say, what did I say? I didn't say anything. May Allah forgive us. The only reason I'm speaking bluntly and directly is because my beloved messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, has spoken in the same blunt and direct way. Otherwise, I would be ashamed of speaking and saying things. He spoke about it live, open, clear, no idea, because Allah knows this problem was there and it's going to come. When men sometimes think, that's it, it's me. I'm only worried about me, me, me, and me, you know? No way, not at all. It is about us. It is about a family unit. A family unit is made up by more than one person, otherwise it's not called a family unit. A marriage is made up by more than one person, otherwise it's not called a marriage. You can't say I'm a married man when you don't have someone who called a wife. You can't say you're married. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala grant us strength. So my brothers and sisters, it's important for us to know to give people their independence. When you're married, sometimes people think, and I know the in-laws sometimes feel this in some cultures. Like I said, I'm not totally aware of the culture here, but I know in a lot of the places in the world, a woman gets married and the mother-in-law thinks that, okay, I can now fire the maid I used to pay, because now I've got a maid whom I don't need to pay. If that's the case, you have failed me. Actually, say no. Doing some of the household chores if she is appreciated correctly. Am I right, sisters? You heard that. They don't mind. They will cook for you. They will do for you and so on. They will say a lot, but at the same time, they will say as much, I'm sorry, they will do a lot. They want you to appreciate it. That's all. You just need to say, wow, you must have been working from the morning to the evening. Don't worry. The weekend, we'll go out to eat. I'm not encouraging going out to eat, by the way, but I'm giving an example. You can bring her something, bring a little gift. We take gifts for everyone here and they, what about your spouse? What have you done? Have you ever brought her a gift or him? Have you ever decided sometimes of kind of love? You know, I remember and I'm going to tell you this. It's my own life. Okay. So I'm not doing this about someone or saying something of someone. One day I was leaving to travel on a journey and I remember as I was going, there were some visitors. Now normally you greet your spouse and you go as though you're never going to come back, because every time you leave the home, it could be the last time. They may never see you again. So whenever you leave loved ones, make sure you utter beautiful words to them because it could be the last time that you're ever seeing them. Right? So I saw my wife was busy and I'm thinking to myself, what should I do now? You know, she's there with the visitors. I can't go in. These are ladies sitting and saying, love you, man. Love you. Love you. And so, you know, some of us, it's still a little bit taboo to do it in public because, you know, I always believe when people show too much of love in public, I don't think they get along inside their doors, you know. It's just a show, you know. It's like the boxers who hold hands in public and they want to go, they want to box each other, you know. They were just holding hands before the fight. But those who really love each other, it's more than words. It's more than, it's actually something you feel is there. That does not mean to not say the words.