Have you ever been in the company of a man who never talks about his wife?
Well, I have.
I worked closely with a married man for several years and never knew he was married.
No, this man wasn’t flirting or having extra relationships with other women.
At least, not to my knowledge.
The day I found out that he was a married man, I was simply shocked.
Forgive me, but it was my first time seeing a man who had never spoken a word about his wife or marital life.
What is popular around me is seeing men who love to talk about their wives like they are extra pads on their shoulders.
I’m more used to seeing men flaunt their wives even when they are engaging in extramarital affairs.
So forgive me for my surprise.
It got me thinking, wondering why a man would decide not to talk about his wife at all.
It also inspired me to go into research about this topic
And here’s what I found.
6 Reasons a Man Never Talks About His Wife
1. Respect for Privacy
Some women are very private people.
Especially when it comes to relationship matters.
I am one of them, and so maybe the wife of the man who never talks about his wife.
In every relationship, it is very important that partners are able to respect each other’s need for privacy.
One of the reasons women like to keep their relationship private is to shut the door against third parties and unsolicited relationship counselors.
So, if a woman is at this table, her man will refrain from talking about her in public just to honor her decision for privacy.
This doesn’t mean that they do not love or are not proud of each other.
Some people just prefer to be more discreet about their personal lives.
2. Communication Preference
When you see a person who talks to you about seemingly everything, the person is only telling you about things that they feel comfortable talking about.
It means that there are certain aspects of that person’s life that you may know absolutely nothing about.
And it’s not exactly because they are private people, it’s just what they prefer to talk or to not talk about.
That is how I thought that I knew everything about somebody’s husband, without knowing he is somebody’s husband.
Some men find joy in flaunting their wives and singing her praises (or shame).
I know one man whose no. 1 ego booster was singing his wife’s praises in public.
It makes him so proud that he married her.
And just like him, there are other men who are over 100% proud of their wives but do not just feel comfortable talking about her at all.
They may be able to talk about anything else other than their wives.
3. Marriage Preference
Different strokes for different folks.
What works in family A may not necessarily work for family B.
You’ll find one family whose daily lives have become a reality TV show and another family who never takes pictures or posts on social media.
It will be funny how both families may be living their best marital lives—or not.
A man’s decision not to talk about his wife can be influenced by what happens in his family.
Chances are that he and his wife are very private people who do not like to spread their lives out for public consumption.
There are also chances that there are family issues that they would like to keep as private as possible.
In this kind of situation, the man will choose not to talk about his wife so that he won’t be tempted to talk about their problems and expose his family to public scrutiny, unsolicited advice, and pity.
Keeping their family issues private will help them exclusively make decisions concerning their marriage that they are completely responsible for.
4. Protective Instincts
There’s a story from the Bible that fascinates me a lot.
The story of Abraham when he introduced Sarah, his wife as his sister.
If you are one who is familiar with this story, you will be able to tell that Abraham pulled that stunt in order to protect himself.
Sarah was a very beautiful woman, and Abraham was afraid that if the Egyptians found out that he was her husband, they would kill him and take her for themselves.
So, he decided not to disclose the fact that they were married.
In the same way, a man can decide to hide away the knowledge of his wife’s existence just because he senses a threat either to himself, his wife, or the marriage as a whole.
If he feels like they are not in a safe place, physically or emotionally, he naturally will want to keep her safe from any harm.
This may include hiding her away and never speaking about her in public places or in places that pose a threat.
5. Avoiding Unnecessary Comparison
We live in a world where comparison has become a vice.
It feels like people no longer have what it takes to be their own person in every unique and beautiful way.
We no longer know what it means to own our pains, failures, successes, etc., without looking at it in the light of other people’s own.
If you talk about your win today, there is someone waiting to tell you how much they are winning more than you, invalidating your success.
It is the same thing when you talk about your pain.
I started asking myself why people see the need to showcase that their pain is worse than someone else’s.
Does it make the other person’s pain invalid? No.
Should you bring it up when they are grieving? Absolutely not!
This comparison can fuel a man’s decision to keep his wife from the public view and never talk about her.
Especially if he feels like he didn’t meet up with the societal standard for marriage.
6. Personal Preference
Just as a man can marry a woman who cherish privacy in her personal life, a man may also be one who is private about his private life.
Also, some people believe that they are unique individuals outside of marriage and that marriage does not necessarily define every other area of their life.
This type of man may be able to go around in his daily affairs without having to engage anyone in a conversation about his wife.
In fact, it will be difficult to know what person he is outside the circumstances of your knowledge of him.
It’s even worse with people who are discreet.
Aside from being of the opinion that one area of their lives does not concern the other, their discretion will help them keep a greater part of their lives completely private.
The fact that a man does not talk about his wife is not always a bad thing.
But if you are the wife and you are not exactly comfortable with the fact that he never talks about you, you can easily go to him and tell him that you would like him to be more vocal about his marriage to a beautiful woman.
He is your husband; I’m sure he will listen to you and make adjustments as it is needed.