Category Archives: Marriage

A Great Marriage Doesn’t Just Happen

01 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in Faith, Husband, Marriage

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You want a great marriage – one that is loving, encouraging, consoling, affectionate and compassionate.  One that feels like you’re in it together.

A marriage like this doesn’t just happen.  You must be intentional about it.

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Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.  Philippians 2:3

In this passage, Paul is writing to the Philippians about oneness in the church. The same principles in Philippians 2:3-4 can also bring oneness in your marriage. Here we go!

  • Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.
  • Regard your spouse as more important than yourself.
  • Look out for the interests of your spouse – not just your own.

Once self is off the throne, you are ready to ACT.

A–Attitude of humility 

An attitude of humility is a choice – not a feeling. It does not grasp for equality. It is not self-serving.  Instead, it serves the other.

C-Courage to ask

Courage is required when you humbly ask for what you want.  The ask is about you – what you need or want.  It is not about your spouse and how they are falling short in some way. The ask is spoken with truth, love and kindness. It is not a demand or an expected behavior. The ask is honoring and respectful. The ask is vulnerable.

T-Trust God

Trust God with your ask.  The bigger the ask, the more trust is needed. Pray about your attitude.  Pray about your ask.  Pray about the results.  Trust God to work in you and through you and for you. I promise you He will in His time and in His way.

I love sharing my personal experiences with these marriage-changing principles when I speak to other women.  I tell them about the time I threw every shoe I owned at Dan.  Then I tell them how I learned to do marriage God’s way, instead of my own. God’s way is the best way.  It always is.

 

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He Can’t Read Your Mind!

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Anger, Husband, Marriage

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You see dirty dishes piled high, baskets full of laundry (some clean and some dirty- and you’re just hoping you can tell the difference), stinky kids who need baths, bills to be paid, and kids’ homework that hasn’t even been looked at yet.

He sees TV!

You see groceries you bought two days ago still sitting on the counter and a dog staring at you waiting to go for a walk. And don’t even talk about the dog poop you see in the backyard!

He sees TV!

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And you are left thinking things like this (although probably not this genteel):

  • “What is the matter with him?”
  • “Is he blind?”
  • “Can’t he see how busy I am?”
  • “Why doesn’t he get off that stupid couch and help out around here?”

You see a lazy good-for-nothing husband!

He sees TV!

As a wife of 40+ years, let me tell you a secret:

He doesn’t see it and he can’t read your mind!

I know this is hard to believe and accept.  It actually seems incredible. But it’s true!

The sooner you believe your husband doesn’t ‘see’ like you, the sooner you can start taking steps to make your marriage better. If you can’t accept this truth, your frustration and bitterness is only going to increase until you finally explode. And when you explode, your husband will be shocked and wonder where ‘that’ came from. And then he will be bitter against you. And thus it begins – the road of bitterness that leads to more distance, anger and emotional separation.

A couple of preliminary steps to take:

  1. First, take a good look at yourself. What do you see? Do you see frustration and anger? Do you see jealousy and bitterness? Do you see distance growing?
  2. Second, ask yourself what it is that you really want. Do you want help? Or perhaps there’s more to it than that. Perhaps you want to know that he really cares about you?

After you’ve answered these questions honestly, you will be ready to take the next steps toward a better more intimate marriage. And isn’t that what we all want?

(To be continued…)

Oh and by the way, it’s probably a very good thing that he can’t read your mind! Just sayin’!

 

 

 

Men are Hungry for Respect!

05 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by in Husband, Marriage, Respect

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offer-442903_640Men hunger for respect like women hunger for love. But what exactly is respect? I’ve been married 40 years and I’m still trying to figure it out.

I asked my husband, Dan, and both of my sons to explain respect to me.  I kid you not, they all had the same instantaneous answer, “Just do what I tell you.”  They all chuckled a little as they said it.  I don’t know if that is because they were embarrassed by the candor of it or they were partly joking about it.  Either way, I wasn’t crazy about their response.

God gave us a great behavioral definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.  It explains how love acts and does not act.  It’s fairly easy to check our behavior against that list to see how we are doing.

But nowhere in the Bible is there a great behavioral definition of respect. It simply states that wives are to respect their own husbands.  So what does respect look like? How does it behave?  What does it do?  What doesn’t it do?

One thing I am sure of is that men sometimes view respect differently than women.  More than once Dan has felt disrespected by something I said or did when I actually had no disrespect in my heart at all.  Talk about frustrating!

Learning how to respect our husband is definitely a life-time learning process. It involves taking the time to see life from our husband’s point of view.  What matters to our husband needs to matter to us.  When your husband feels disrespected and you have no idea why, grab the opportunity to learn more about your man.

After all, I’m pretty sure eye-rolling, sighs and stomping out of a room aren’t respectful!  LOL

If you’ve never read it, I recommend the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.