Here are some marital lessons today. Let me start off by saying my marriage isn’t perfect but it’s a blessing. My wife is amazing and I am thankful for her.
It’s true that married men live longer than single men so there even are health benefits to being married! Maybe it’s because if we weren’t married, we would just eat pizza and never go to the doctors.
I know I can credit Jesus and my wife for anything good coming out of me.
There are great emotional benefits to having a great marriage. But it’s not instant and it’s certainly not for wimps.
Coincidentally- My wife and I will both admit I am still a work in progress!
I can still be an idiot at times, but the good news is I am not as often as idiot as I used to be. The old expression is men are idiots. That may be true (am i the only one to admit this!?), but the good news is we don’t have to stay there. I get my marital advice from the LOVE book and not the LOVE BOAT and my book says that I am to dwell with them according to knowledge. I am to learn about my wife and what makes her feel special and what makes her feel loved.
That is encouraging to me perhaps, but one thing that helps is to share the lessons I learn the hard way.
Wise husbands don’t have to always learn from experience. They would be better off to learn from other’s experiences.
BUT — I have learned many things the HARD way. The world says men cannot understand women. The bible says we are to dwell with our wives according to knowledge. That’s the LOVE book I was referring to.
The world’s way offers no hope. It says follow your heart. That means follow it to the altar but then follow it to the new secretary in 10 years or the babysitter or the swimsuit model. The other one says seek and ye shall find real love and intimacy. AND here you LEAD your HEART instead. Feelings flow after the decision to love sacrificially.
I want to offer hope. Hope will change the world. And as I was trying to teach my son the one day– the Buck stops here.
Often in marriage, you will find, “what we have here is a problem to communicate!” It can seem like we both speak a different language.
What do you do? QUIT? That is what the world and Hollywood and Ann Landers say to do. Don’t quit. Learn and keep learning and don’t QUIT.
I have to keep learning that I NEED TO LEARN to communicate with my wife and if I am not meeting her love language we are not connecting.
Women are really like a rose- treat them right they bloom- and wrong they wilt. I have seen so many men whine about their wives and how bad their marriages are and I could have done that- instead I learned most of it was ME and when I worked on ME and worked on loving my wife magically I ended up with a loving and devoted wife and an amazing marriage.
One thing I didn’t understand was marriage brings out your selfishness- I thought I was ready for ministry when I got married so I blamed my wife early on for being stubborn and refusing to follow me. But I was not someone who deserved to be followed!!
We will be married 15 years this September.
The fact the first few were not always bliss is my fault. It is not my wife’s fault. It is not anyone else’s fault.
And if it is my fault, there was hope! Things changed. And there is hope for you! The buck stops here!
Every person is different but there are a few basic love languages we “understand” and have to “speak” and we simply need to learn each others dialects. That was one big lesson I leaned. The way this works is look at marriage as you setting up an emotional bank account. You might start off with funds if you had a great wedding and you have a lot of hope and not too much baggage apart from what you used on your honeymoon trip. I am talking emotional baggage. You soon make withdrawals, and sometimes you are grumpy and moody and not putting much into the marriage when you work late and go fishing and golfing on the weekends and try to build a side business or start having kids. That account can start to dry up. It really helps to find out what fills that account. Finding her love language – and her finding yours helps replenish that dwindling account. Us loving our wives in the way they want – and them affirming us or respecting us or being proud of us usually replenishes ours.
I have heard them expressed in many ways, but I like simple, so here are simple ways to explain the basic ones.
The love languages women can speak- meaning what you do that makes them FEEL loved are
1) Words of affirmation (TELL ME)
2) Acts of service (SHOW me)
3) Physical touch (HOLD ME)
4) Time and Attention (HEAR ME).
5) Gifts (GIVE ME)
Learn your spouse’s love language, and start speaking today! You can bring your wife a $1,000 pair of earnings but if she feels loved by quality time you would be better off buying a $10 Yahtzee game and some moo goo gui pan take-out Chinese and spending the evening playing games and watching I Love Lucy Reruns.
And know that women want LOVE and men want RESPECT and often they will be in a standstill waiting for the other to give what they need.
Men when we better learn to LOVE then the respect will come!!
Mike-the-Therapist