Learn to Speak His Language

I’ve been pretty reflective the past several weeks and I’m sure it’s due to the fact that I’m moving into a new stage of life. One of our children is entering her final year of high school, and another beginning the first official year of her homeschool journey. Our family is in a transitory period. I’m introspective by nature, but all of the milestones of the coming year have made me even more so.

Today is also the first of my last five days as a 30-something.  After spending most of this year dreading the looming milestone, I’ve settled into a thankful anticipation of what the latter part of my life will bring. Despite our culture’s obsession with all things young, there is something to be said for the wisdom and experience that comes with having lived a bit. Many of the biggest lessons I’ve learned have come within the context of my marriage. Since this is Wednesday, the day we talk marriage around here, I thought I’d share one of the lessons I’ve learned after spending almost all of my adult life with SAM: Pay attention to how my husband receives love, and act accordingly.

I have a little book on my bookshelf called The Five Love Languages. It’s an interesting little book and for those who have never read it, I highly recommend it.  The gist of it is that each person has a love language, or a way that they most readily perceive and receive love. You can find a synopsis of the love languages here. It’s s good resource because our natural tendency is to love and relate to others in the way we most readily respond. For a woman whose love language is words of affirmation, being married to a man of few words can create some tension if she’s not paying attention. And for the first few years, I wasn’t.

This subject took shape in my mind after reading this post from Cindy. It was about the problem of women “letting themselves go” after marriage and childbirth. She asks some good questions and got me to thinking. Y’all know I have a thing about weight, am constantly striving to look my best for my man, and encourage other wives to do the same. But I don’t think a wife should measure her attractiveness on any scale except her husband’s. To do otherwise is a mistake. After you examine yourself, your husband is the final arbiter of whether or not you’ve let yourself go. No one else can do that, since they don’t know the time and effort you put into doing whatever it is you do to care for yourself, for him, and for your family. What does this have to do with love languages or paying attention? Well, everything!

My husband is really into me. This is just true, and the feeling is totally mutual. It’s obvious to anyone who knows us very well. In a world where youth is worshiped and perpetual youth is marketed as the key to happiness, it feels good to be settled and content in a relationship based on shared values, shared history, and shared faith. A relationship where love made is truly love made is satisfying in ways difficult to put into words.  After 5 babies with the resulting up and down weight loss, and not a few abdominal stretch marks, SAM still thinks I’m beautiful. Part of it is because I’m just his type, which luckily for me isn’t the Hollywood standard of beauty. More importantly, I think it’s also because I learned his love language, and make a real effort to love him the way he needs instead of the way that I need or the way someone else has prescribed as “the way” to love a man.

His language is physical touch followed closely by acts of service, preferably acts of service where I help him fix the car or cut the grass. He finds me most attractive not only when I’m all fixed up, but when I’m dirty from helping him do “man stuff.” I’ve applied that lesson I learned, and he has learned that a few words fitly spoken are worth far more than diamonds and pearls. Date nights are far less important to me than words of affection and appreciation. Given the choice between having his wife sit next to him and rub his back or spend half an hour shining the kitchen sink, my husband will choose the hands on his back every time. A neat house is good, a super clean house not so much if it means I can’t sit close to him because I’m cleaning it. Filter what you read at Flylady through the prism of what works in your own marriage and family. Nothing personal against the Flylady. I rather like her. I’m just sayin’.

If there’s one thing that has struck me about online conversations, it’s how they can get you thinking about things in an unhealthy way if you’re not careful. For example, I never really thought much about my looks, except for my weight which multiple pregnancies has caused  me to watch closely, until I stumbled into the blogosphere. All the talk of modesty and femininity and such was good in many ways, and not good in others. The same can be said of spiritual issues. There are a lot of ideas floating around the Internet and it’s a landmine for those not secure in their faith, values, and beliefs.

In other words, any prescriptive advice I offer to a wife whose husband’s love language is words of affirmation may cause more harm than good because I’m used to dealing with a man whose love language is physical touch. Forgive me if the marriage posts may begin to seem redundant around here because the most valuable lesson I’ve learned in the past 17 years is to pay attention to my own husband, learn how to best love him, and act accordingly, no matter how I much it requires me to step out of my comfort zone. It’s the best advice any wife can offer to another.

Fortunately for me, touching my husband is very comforting. Resisting the urge to talk his ear off? Well, that’s another story. Funny thing about preferring another before yourself: it is deeply gratifying once you get over yourself. I’m not sure why preferring others gets such a bad rap.

Our culture has created a billion dollar industry from books detailing the differences between men and women. Volumes are written with catchy slogans like Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Counselors charge hundreds of dollars an hour to tell you that you can’t love your man properly until you fully love yourself. In other words, they take your money to give you advice that lands you in divorce court, all under the guise of helping you save your marriage.

There’s one thing I know for sure: Love is by definition focused on its object. If I’m thinking about me, I am not focused loving my man. “How do I love thee, let me count the ways…” makes my heart swell, but that’s just not his thing. And that’s okay. I have learned to speak his language, and he has learned to speak mine.

It’s the best linguistic study. I highly recommend you try it.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Adapting To What Works In Your Marriage

Last week’s Wifey Wednesday post on what a husband’s leadership in marriage looks like has unfolded into a lengthy, conversation about the nature of male leadership. That and wifely submission, of course. Somehow it always comes back around to this. To submit, or not to submit; that is the question. The answer to the question is: submit. Practically speaking, what does that look like?

I think what it looks like depends on the individuals involved. For some women, it may mean learning how to be more quiet and with that allow her husband grow into his role as leader of the family and man of the house. For other women it may mean learning how to rise to the occasion when the situation calls for it and speak up. There are no hard and fast rules in the Bible for how we are to relate to our men except for the words “love”, “submit”, and “respect”. Beyond that, I don’t have much to offer. I can however, offer personal examples from my own marriage.

The early years of my childhood were difficult. Our family endured a lot of hard trials, and I lived in something of a survival mode. Some kids become hardened and assertive as a result of overcoming challenges.  For a naturally docile child such as I was, that manifested itself with a compliant nature. I wasn’t inclined to rock the boat, believing the best way to handle challenge was to grin and bear it. Experience had taught me that things could always be worse, particularly if I rocked the boat so it was better to let well enough alone.

SAM on the other hand, has a strong personality and a commanding presence. He prefers to cut to the chase and lay all his cards on the table. He doesn’t like ambiguity and he doesn’t want to have play mind reader to know what I feel and need. And he doesn’t want me to have to do that, either.  He doesn’t think it makes any sense not to express your feelings to the person you’re closest to. The docility that drew him to me when we began dating became something of a stumbling block as we began to build a life together. In our marriage, submitting to my husband  meant learning to speak up, not remaining silent when I am unhappy. Submission in our marriage in no way calls for me to be my husband’s doormat.

It was important that I learn to be assertive when the situation called for it, and that applied at home as much as anywhere else. Most of those who read this blog would agree that I’m quite adept at expressing and defending my convictions. I wasn’t always this way.

It took some time to get used to expressing myself and my needs openly, but I learned. Sometimes a little too well, my husband might say. And our relationship is markedly better for it. Because of that, I am a bit leery of those who teach that wifely submission means never offering a different point of view or never expressing your needs. That would’ve been terrible advice for me to take when my husband has articulated that he prefers just the opposite. I think most husbands are open to hearing their wife’s concerns.  If he loves his wife, her concerns concern him.

I’m not referring to materialistic nonsense and petty trivialities. A wise wife knows better that to burden her husband with silly matters of no lasting importance. Issues of time, affection, being overly stressed or other emotional issues are certainly worth discussing in a calm, respectful way. At the right place and the right time, of course. Even when the issue is a valid one, it helps to weigh all considerations.

For example, there are certain times of the year when my husband works more hours than others. I miss him during those times and I don’t like to see him wear himself out. I could begin nagging him by saying things like, “You work too much.” However, that doesn’t take into consideration the fact that he is working to feed, shelter and clothe a wife and six kids, not to mention himself. A discussion about the hours he works may be valid, or it may not be valid. I’ve found that the best way to handle his busy seasons is to be extra supportive and accommodating. Asking what I can do to help him is infinitely more constructive and productive than complaining about how much of him I’m not getting.

Discernment is required to know when speaking up is constructive, and when it’s just a knee-jerk attempt to save face or earn the respect one thinks she’s not getting. That kind of outspokenness does little to enhance intimacy or build trust. I had to learn that as well.

I have a few cardinal rules for how I relate with my husband. The first is that I don’t contradict him on issues in front of other people. I’m not saying that you have to do it my way, but that’s a gesture of respect that I offer him. My husband is not very talkative anyway, so there are few times when he says anything in a group setting that I disagree with. If he does however, I wait until we’re alone to ask him to clarify his meaning or express my take on it.

Secondly, I don’t interpret every cross word or slight gesture as an opportunity to vent my frustration or have equal say. It was very easy after years of silence to start talking and not know when to shut up. I need to pray for wisdom about what issues are worth the trouble. When I don’t, my husband helps me out with that . As I have learned to measure my words, they carry more weight when I say, “We need to talk.” Besides, doesn’t the Bible admonish us to be slow to speak?

Thirdly, I do believe that submission to my husband includes a measure of  obedience and I try to act accordingly. I don’t always do it perfectly, but I make a prayerful, earnest, heartfelt attempt. I respect his veto power since he is responsible before God for the direction that our family takes. In turn, he appreciates my perspective, seeks my input when we need to make decisions, and respects my insight and intellect. One of the good things about having married so young is that we have sort of grown up and evolved in our views together. It is rare that my husband has “pulled rank” on me when a decision needs to be made.  More often than not, we agree.

Not every husband has an outwardly strong a personality like my husband. Some men are laid back and easy-going. In such cases, a wife who doesn’t weigh her words and time them carefully can seem like a nag or as if she’s usurping his position.  Her husband will withdraw and let her have it. Most wives who find themselves in the driver’s seat don’t like it all that much.

Some men may need to be encouraged to open up about what they need to way my husband had to encourage me to open up. The best way to get him to do that is to not punish him for telling the truth.  In fact, I’ve said this before and I think it bears repeating:

If there is one piece of advice that I could give any wife besides obeying Scripture with regards to your marriage, it would be this:  Make it safe for your husband to tell you the truth. I have come full circle from viewing my husband as overly opinionated, to viewing  his honesty as a gift. Listen to your husbands talk when you get together to fellowship with other couples. You’d be surprised what you hear. My husband has heard far too many men say that they could never tell their wives what they are really thinking because there would be heck to pay. Wives, however, usually feel perfectly at ease reciting a litany of complaints to their husband.

There really  is no “one size fits all” approach to working out the Bible’s guidelines for how we relate in our marriages. Yes, we are to submit to our husbands. But personalities, backgrounds, and perspectives are too diverse for any one person to insist that what works for them can work for me, and vice versa. In fact, I really like the way the Amplified Bible translates Ephesians chapter 5, verse 22:

Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.

Adapt to your own husband. Good words.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

On The Doctrine of “Mutual Submission”

Believe it or not, I actually believe the principle of mutual submission is a Biblical concept. Even the most hard-core complementarians would be hard pressed to read the Bible and come away without a clear understanding that husbands have a responsibility to consider the needs of their wives and go out of their way to understand those needs. And this is not just a New Testament concept. This passage is from the Old Testament:

“When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business; he shall be free at home one year, and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken.” Deuteronomy 24:5

Clearly the Bible position isn’t one of wifely inferiority, and the first year of marriage is so important that Scripture commands husbands to take the lead in laying a sure foundation for the relationship. Of course, that was commanded under the Law and Israel was a theocracy. I am not suggesting that a modern husband can or even should attempt to fulfill this mandate, although I imagine a lot of personality and chemistry problems could be well worked out early  in a marriage with this level of intense focus.  My point is that the Bible in no way insinuates that a wife is her husband’s slave or that her needs don’t matter. I don’t think those of us who “preach” the message of wifely submission are indicating that either.

The New Testament commands husbands to love their wives as they love themselves. To dwell with their wives with understanding. There are numerous Scriptural admonitions on how believers are to relate to and defer to one another. These commands apply to both spouses when both the husband and the wife are believers. Those who teach that wives deserve to be treated with less dignity or are of lesser importance are perverting the Scripture and should be roundly denounced.  John MacArthur expressed it well:

Submission is thus the responsibility of Christian husbands as well as of wives. Though [he is] not submitting to his wife as a leader, a believing husband must submit to the loving duty of being sensitive to the needs, fears, and feelings of his wife. In other words, a Christian husband needs to subordinate his needs to hers, whether she is a Christian or not.

It is a part of the Christian mandate to love your neighbor as yourself no matter your gender or position. This applies in much in marriage as anywhere else. Moreso, I’d suggest. However, the husband is not to submit to his wife’s leadership of the family. Leadership is his position and his wife is to accept that and help  however he needs her to. Therefore, the idea that mutual submission means that no one is in charge should also be roundly denounced. It too is a twisting of Scripture. The Bible makes it clear repeatedly that the husband is the head of the wife, and that she is to submit to him as unto the Lord.

There is a balance to be struck here and we’d do well to find it. The problem arises when we choose to focus on what the other person should be doing rather than our own responsibility. I am a wife, therefore my focus is primarily on my responsibility to honor, respect, and submit to my husband as Scripture commands. My husband is focused on doing his part. Together, it works well.

This not an all-or-nothing proposition, and we shouldn’t treat it as such.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Before Taking Any Online Advice: Is Your Husband On Board With It?

No matter what we read online, no matter how godly it sounds, no matter how much it resonates with us, we go dangerously astray when we fail to filter the advice and views we receive through the reality of the man God has given to us in the covenant of marriage. Further, if a husband is not asking his wife  to do something that is clearly sinful, then she is to submit. The only  issues where there clear Biblical  directives for how we are to interact with our husbands are the issues of love and fidelity, sex, and respect/submission. You don’t have to take my advice on any of these (though you can find it here and here), but you do have to listen to your own husband and act accordingly.

We must also appreciate our men for who they are and not attempt to squeeze them into the mold of some blogger’s husband, a man we don’t even know. If your husband needs a half hour of down time at the end of the day when he first comes in the door, let him have it. It doesn’t matter if you read somewhere that an online Titus 2 mentor and her husband take time at the beginning of the evening to catch up on each others day.  If it works for them that’s wonderful for them. It’s better for you to wait until the time that’s best for your husband. Appreciate your husband’s strengths and you will be less likely to look at him through critical eyes as a result of what you’ve read on another woman’s blog.

I realize some issues are much bigger than the one I described above, but I believe the principle still holds. I can hardly count the number of sisters I have encountered since I started blogging who have either commented or emailed me about the fact that they envy my large family. How they wish their husbands would relent and consent to having more children! I hope they can one day experience the joys of a large family as well, but I often also wonder: how many of these women were completely content to parent their 2 or 3 or 4 children before they stumbles onto the Christian mommy blogs? More than a few, I’m sure.

This is not to debate the issue of whether or not birth control is Biblical or not. If you want my opinion on the issue of children as a blessing you can read this post and leave a comment there. I implore you not to begin a debate on the issue of birth control here. That is not what we’re aiming to discuss. Rather, this is a discussion of that little phrase in Titus 2:5 that reads as follows:

“…obedient to their own husbands…”

Don’t you marvel sometimes at the wisdom and simplicity of the Scripture? God, who certainly could have given a concrete list of do’s and do not’s  for every matter under the sun, chose instead to advise us to work these matters out in the context of our individual marriages. Even in those areas where you may feel your husband is off base Biblically, I would advise to pray and approach your husband with an open heart rather than a holier than thou attitude. Remember the admonition of Proverbs 21:19:

It’s better to live alone in the desert than with a quarrelsome, complaining wife.

I was raised in a frugal family. My husband was, well…not. In our earlier years of marriage, I thought he was wasteful and he thought I was cheap. After many years of trial and error, we reached a comfortable balance financially. I have learned to appreciate that there are instances when you really do get what you pay for. He has learned that there are times when you have to prioritize. He’s aggressive about  saving more and I’m less fearful when it comes to money.

Everything is going great. However, on several blogs one year I saw pledges of commitment to giving only handmade gifts that Christmas season. I could literally feel my heart rate increase with excitement over the prospect of a truly frugal Christmas. I could hardly wait for my husband to come home so that I could run it by him.

Just as quickly however, reality set in. This was simply NOT going to fly in my house. We’d already decided what we’ll spend and what we were going to buy the girls. A scaled back Christmas was already on the horizon as extended our new, more frugal ways into the holiday season, which is the one time of year when we were more inclined in the past to throw caution to the wind. Not racking up debt mind you, but still spending more cash. NOW I wanted to push it even farther by springing this handmade idea? Uh-uh.

Maybe with much prayer and more time to prepare, it might work in the future. But I know my husband. He doesn’t change over night unless he has concrete biblical reason to do so. Furthermore, it’s unfair of me to place some other woman’s expectations on my own husband. He has never done that to me. Probably because he doesn’t spend an hour every day clicking around on blogs about Biblical manhood!

Again, please know that I am not suggesting that we can’t introduce new ideas to our men as we become more enlightened and educated in any number of areas as a result of reading on line. If we have sound Biblical reasons for doing so, I think it’s a good idea. While I firmly believe that the best way to fulfill the Titus 2 mandate is in person, it would be foolish of me to assert that we can’t grow and learn something while reading edifying sites on the Internet. Of course we can! If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here.

We do need to keep in mind however, that God has called for our husbands to be the heads of our homes. If our husbands are following the Lord, then we have a responsibility to joyfully follow their lead. Once you have made your requests and desires known, if he doesn’t respond right away, commit the matter to prayer and trust that if it’s meant to be, it’ll be when the time is right. If your husband is not a believer, you’re still to follow his lead, but you have bigger issues to pray about than whether or not to have another baby, homeschool, or even whether or not you can quit your job next week.

I sincerely believe that people who know you and your husband personally and who are invested in the success of your marriage are in the best position to offer advice that is anything more than suggestive if it isn’t clearly articulated in Scripture.

Now watch me offer prescriptive advice next week and have a reader call me out on that.

This post is my contribution to Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Why Romantic Movies May Be Bad For Marital Health

“If this sounds like a radically different view of marriage, it’s important to remember that the very concept of “romantic love,” which is so celebrated in movies, songs, and cheap paperbacks, was virtually unknown to the ancients. There were exceptions-one need merely read Sons of Songs, for instance- but taken as a whole, the concept that marriage should involve passion and fulfillment and excitement is a relatively recent development on the scale of human history, making its popular entry toward the end of the eleventh century”- Excerpt from the book  Sacred Marriage, by Gary Thomas

Given our culture’s aggressive insistence that a marriage sans romantic bliss is a marriage that should be discarded, it’s hard to imagine a time when people saw marriage as something deeper and more meaningful than fleeting feelings or romantic flights of fancy. When I first read the above quote, it hit me that we have elevated fleeting feelings and romantic flights of  fancy to the status of deep and meaningful. When the feelings go, so does the marriage. One wonders where we learned to cultivate such a shallow and disposable view of what used to be a solemn and sacred commitment.

Last weekend one of my daughters asked if we could rent the movie Letters to Juliet.  The longer I’ve been married, the more I found myself becoming leery of Holly wood’s version of romance. Romantic comedies in particular aren’t a good fit for me because I like comedies, and I like romance. The combination, when done well, can suck me in. I haven’t seen many done well. Besides marriage isn’t always romantic, or funny.  I’m still a romantic at heart though, so after a bit of recon to insure that the picture wasn’t objectionable, I went ahead and rented it.

It was clean movie, romantic in that sappy Hollywood sort of way, and stuck to the formula: Girl meets boy. At first she finds his personality objectionable but he grows on her. That doesn’t matter of course, since their budding attraction is complicated by one or both of them being already spoken for. Girl and boy part ways. She is confused and heartbroken. He is dejected. Girl loses the boyfriend (who was obviously objectionable, of course) that precluded her from exploring her feelings for her true love. But is it too late? Alas, it isn’t! *Surprise, Surprise* Boy professes his undying love complete with assurances that he will move across the Atlantic to be with her if he must. He strikes all the right notes in a perfect speech, the music crescendos, they kiss, and the credits roll. The end.

My girls ate it up. I kind of enjoyed it too. I would have enjoyed it more if I didn’t know that it’s this very kind of thing that has made far too many women mistakenly believe that we can expect this in real life. My girls and I have conversations about the difference between fantasy and reality. It’s important to do that from time to time because it seems far too many of us confuse the two and marriages suffer for it. I remember when I was susceptible to Hollywood’s formulaic romances and the unrealistic expectations they foster myself. As I searched my mental Rolodex for an example of what was considered a great romantic movie when I was younger, I remembered Jerry Maguire. Some of you may or may not remember the closing scene.

Anyway, I saw this movie back when it was released in 1996. At the time almost every young woman I knew thought that these were the most romantic 60 seconds ever captured on film. My friends, nieces and cousins were running around saying they wanted someone who’d say they completed him. I was already married then, but I was immature not to mention an unbeliever. I could never watch that movie now, nor do I recommend it. However, I still remember the final scene:

I find that somewhat trite now but it moved me back then. I may have even teared up. What can I say? I simply must point out the irony that Tom Cruise’s character makes this declaration of undying love in a room full of women in a support group who “hate men” for various reasons. I didn’t fully appreciate the implications of that back in 1996.

Hollywood romances have away of ratcheting up our expectations. We all have expectations. It’s a part of being human. Without expectations most of us if not all of us would have no reason to get up in the morning. When our expectations are set by things that have no basis in reality however, we can get into trouble because real life isn’t like the movies.

When I’d been dating SAM for a while he came to my apartment to pick me up. While waiting he took a closer look at my book shelf. Right next to Little Women and The Sun Also Rises, was a couple of cheap Janet Dailey paperbacks. I remember him telling me he didn’t think I was the type to read that kind of stuff. But here’s the kicker: He also asked if I thought “whatever we have here” was going to be anything like that. I assured him I didn’t, haven’t grown up with far too much reality in my life to expect what I read in fantasy books to ever resemble it. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the stuff hadn’t subtly infiltrated my thinking. Of course it did.

The heart of the matter for the Christian of course, is that our lives aren’t supposed to be all about what makes us feel good. We’re commanded to love others as we love ourselves. To do unto others no less than what we would want them to do for us. In other words, stories like Eat, Pray, Love should repel us. Sadly, for far too many Christian women, they don’t.

Which brings us back to the quote I started this with from the book Sacred Marriage. For the believer, I can think of no other state that offers more opportunity to die to self on a daily basis than marriage. I’m tempted to offer motherhood as a parallel example, but I think marriage tops the list. For a man to love his wife as Christ loves the church and a woman to submit to her husband as unto the Lord is a daily exercise in self-denial. If there’s one lesson we rarely see preached in today’s culture, it’s the lesson of self-denial. Particularly to women.

We’re told that anything that requires we put the needs of others ahead of ourselves is oppressive. We’re admonished not to commit to marriage too young and not to “lose ourselves” in it when we do. To our own selves be true. Follow our hearts wherever they may lead. We only live once, after all. This all sounds great on the surface. Movies, songs, and cheap paperbacks present it to us in an appealing and beautiful package, but is destructive to the sense of maturity and commitment we need to be good wives.

Consider this my reminder to myself as well as the reader to take the sweet, sappy movies that I occasionally indulge with a grain of salt. I’m a wife. I have responsibilities. I keep fiction, which I still enjoy, in its proper place. Real romance built on a shared history, deep commitment, and without drama is much more satisfying anyway.

This post is part of Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Kids In the Marriage Bed(room)?

Sheila has a most excellent post up titled, Your Husband Trumps Your Children. I highly recommend it to wives, and most especially wives to be. Here’s a teaser:

…because our love for our kids is so primal and so different, it’s easy to push our husbands out of the way and build our lives around our kids.

Don’t. Your kids don’t need you to be with them every single night. They would benefit from you taking a break and going on a date with your spouse. They would benefit from having their own room, so that you and your hubby can relax together in your bedroom. Your children will thrive when you learn how to resolve conflict with your husband, how to form a real team, and how to put him first.

After all, the Bible says that the husband and wife are one flesh, not the kids and the mom. They may come from us, but we are united with our husband, not our kids.

What most interested me about the post, however, was what inspired it. As a guest blogger on another site, Sheila wrote about making your bedroom a sacred (and private) place for you and your husband. A commenter immediately took her to task for suggesting such a thing, making it clear that she believes a child’s needs should come before a husband’s.

You all know enough about me to know that I don’t agree with that at all. It’s utter nonsense. Of course, Sheila is right. The marriage relationship is the primary relationship in the family. It’s the relationship on which everything else in built. However, does that mean that the children are automatically banished from the master bedroom? I’d love that to be my reality, but it isn’t. And sometimes it’s a challenge.

Before Lil’ Princess and Sweetie Pie were born, our oldest three kids were already in middle school, firmly entrenched in their own bedrooms on the other side of the house. We were in “the zone”, if you will. Our bedroom was our cozy, private space and we loved it. ‘We also spent a lot of time in our room just talking and catching up on each others day. Our communication really deepened during that time because while the kids were doing homework, we were talking to each other. Anyone with little ones appreciates the challenge of enjoying any private time when they’re awake.

The arrival of our two youngest changed the dynamic considerably. Nursing infants need close proximity and it just made sense to put the crib up against our bed so the baby could feed through the night without my having to roll out of bed and walk across the house every two hours.  But they’re three and four years old now, and we’re still attempting to transition to making our bedroom OUR bedroom again.

They have their own room, with comfortable beds and inviting decor. Every night they start out in their room, in their beds. About midway through the night without fail, one of them makes the journey to our bedroom and climbs up into the bed. For a while, we accepted it. Then, we started getting up and walking them back over to their room.

That lasted all of about a month. We have now reached a tentative arrangement where they still end up in our room at 2 AM, and everyone gets some much needed sleep. We harbor no illusions that this is an ideal situation, but it’s working for now. They make their trek late enough into the night that our intimacy is not hindered, and they get the security of close proximity to Mom and Dad.

Additionally, I’ve read that in cultures with a far more healthy attitude towards sex than Westerners, little ones aren’t kicked out until they need their own sense of privacy. Not having lived outside of the U.S. I don’t know how true that is, but I wonder how that affects marriages. Given that most of the world doesn’t enjoy the luxury of  four-bedroom houses, I imagine there must be some truth to it.

Question: How do you deal with the issue of kids in the master bedroom? Is the room totally off-limits? How young is too young to kick them out? How old is too old to let them stay? Thoughts?

Husbands Are People, Too

Women can do anything a man can do.  Men can wear pink and still be masculine. Gender roles are obsolete. Leadership is for tyrants and women with no brains. A real man knows that all you need is love, love. Love is all you need. Truth is whatever each couple determines it to be.

In this corner of the ‘net, we often decry the androgyny that our culture has embraced in an effort mask the innate differences between men and women. There is an increasing backlash here against that type of foolishness, and rightly so.  In our zeal however, we have to be careful not to box men into the same rigid corner that those who hate complementary marriage claim women need to be liberated from. Our men are called to lead, but not to sacrifice their humanity in some misguided attempt to “be the man” at all costs. They need to be able to lean on us, and we need be able to let them without challenging their manhood when they do.

Maybe I’m an odd duck, but I rather enjoy being married to a strong, authoritative man. I like feeling protected and I find his decisiveness rather sexy. I like that he has an opinion about what I look like. At least I know he’s looking. I think it a credit to his resourcefulness that we rarely have to call someone with something breaks, even something major. He works well with his hands, and his hands often bear the scars of hard work.

I love that, but beneath all of that armor is a man with a heart, and sometimes he needs to be able to be vulnerable enough to reveal that heart to me without worrying that I will view it as a weakness. One of the things I learned early on in my relationship with my SAM was to appreciate that my husband, who is very overtly masculine, has feelings. He gets sad. He has fears, hopes, and dreams just like me. Not to mention tear ducts. I’ve known my husband for 19 years and I’ve only seen him shed a tear twice, but I’ve seen it.

It’s very easy for a woman married to a harder man to forget that a man’s reluctance to express his vulnerability doesn’t make him invulnerable. Sometimes it takes a bit longer for him to trust his heart to anyone, and marriage won’t automatically make him comfortable doing that. But when he does,  his wife should do all she can to make it clear that his vulnerability doesn’t make him weak in her eyes.

The church’s swinging pendulums in reaction to the culture are actually dangerous and detrimental, in my opinion, and I see this as one area where we need to tread lightly. We should be able to stand on the truth as revealed in Scripture and work out how that looks in each family. We can do that without having to discard the truth just to function, which is what far too many “believers” have decided to do.

We seem incapable of being balanced, don’t we? We react to henpecked men by encouraging them to seize their authority or attempting to browbeat wives into becoming boring and docile. Isn’t it better if married believers can just trust that God’s ideas of masculinity and femininity are light years better than anything we can come up with and live that out? When we do that, our men can rest in the knowledge that we trust them to lead not only because it makes us feel secure, but because we trust that God knows best. He commands us to submit to our husbands, and we’ll do that to honor Him, and we’ll do it for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

A while back I alluded to some care repairs that SAM walked me through when he was injured and couldn’t do them himself. His injury was actually quite serious creating a scenario where I had to step up and do a whole host of things I wasn’t used to doing for well over a month. I was  relieved when he got better but I was thankful for the opportunity to learn to do something new and surprised at how quickly I picked up the skill in a few instances. My husband’s temporary period of injury didn’t make him any less strong or capable than he was before. He was still the same person; he just needed a little help from his helpmeet. That’s what I’m supposed to do.

During a season of economic turmoil, when many men (particularly those skilled  in male dominated fields of work) are attempting to reset and start over, it’s more important than ever that wives not undermine their authority in the family. To do that while allowing them to share their vulnerability is a delicate balancing act, but one that every wife, regardless of her husband’s personality, needs to strike.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Appreciate Your Husband’s Personality

I am a married to a man with exact preferences. He has definite tastes compounded with an eye for details. Not to mention the fact that he believes confusion is best avoided by expressing your thoughts clearly rather than assuming your intended is a mind reader. Since I was raised by an outspoken man with strong preferences, I quickly accepted my husband’s personality as “just the way men are.”

Additionally, the women I spent the most time with are the wives of SAM’s brothers, men who also have exact preference natures. I saw that as more “evidence” that this was just the way men are. Also, it was easy for me to accommodate my husband because he does not expect to be acquiesced to while ignoring my preferences. It worked quite well.

Until my older children started school I began to meet other women whose husbands “didn’t care” what they wore, how they wore their hair, or what they cooked. When I met mothers volunteering at school functions, I seemed to overhear it all the time: “Oh, my husband doesn’t care what I cook.”  “My husband doesn’t care how I do this or that, or the other.”

Like most people, I was vulnerable to the grass is greener mentality and wondered why it mattered to my husband whether I wore my hair curly or straight, or whether I wore jeans or skirts. His preferences suddenly seemed petty and oppressive. These other women had it so easy comapred to me. We women loved to feel oppressed don’t we?

I wasn’t oppressed at all, of course. I just liked the idea of feeling like a victim. Not to mention the fact that it’s easier to get up and brush my hair straight than it is to get up and curl it. The path of least resistance and all that. But my husband has never been a jerk about what he liked and didn’t like. He was just honest about it. As we’ve gotten closer to other couples over the years we’ve found that many husbands have preferences as well, but they learn to keep the peace by being silent about them.

Still, there are men who really are the easy going, laid back types; they’re easily pleased and “don’t care” about the little things that my husband expressed his opinions about. I’ve come to appreciate his personality over the years because I realize he’s not being controlling. This is just who he is. His eye for detail and exacting specifications fits perfectly into what I know about him, into how he makes his living, and into the care he puts into everything he does. Including the attention he pays to me.

When I change my hair, he notices. When I started getting into shape, he noticed right away. He knows what colors look good on me and what looks good on my figure. I always love it when he gives me clothes for a birthday or Mother’s Day gift because I know whatever he gets will look great on me. His penchant for studying things closely applies as much to me as it does to the technical nature of his work. It took me a while to appreciate this part of his personality, however, because it required that I pay attention to what he likes. In other words, I’m not comfortable just doing whatever I like without considering him. Not because he’s a control freak, but because he’s wired in a way that causes him to notice things that other people overlook. Interestingly enough, Paul admonished singles wishing to marry that this is part of the deal: caring for what interests your mate.

The biggest lessons I’ve learned about having a harmonious marriage, second only to Biblical Truth, is to accept my husband for who he is. Trying to change him is not only an exercise in futility (he will not be molded by me anyway), but it will fail to get me what I think I want. If I believe that God put us together, and I do, then I have to accept that He put us together because there are things each of us needs that the other can provide.

And while I used to find my husband’s candor problematic, I’ve come to embrace it. In fact, I welcome it and am grateful that he expects the same level of candor from me. No guessing. No games. No need to wonder what he thinks about something. It is far more freeing to know what his preferences are than to wonder what he’s going to think about something.

If you’re married to a man with strong preferences, rather than view it as a negative, ask yourself what you can gain from that instead of what it costs you. If your husband is more laid back, rather than viewing it as license to ignore any preferences he truly has, ask yourself how you can fulfill those needs he has clearly expressed.

Another thing I have noticed in women whose husbands are less forthcoming is a sense of dissatisfaction that he isn’t “strong enough.” Resist the urge to do that the same way I had to resist the urge to desire a more passive husband. Be thankful for the man you have been blessed to spend your life with and learn to live with him according to the knowledge you’ve gained throughout your life together.

The grass always looks greener from a distance.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila  at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Everything I Know About Marriage in 200 Words or Less (and related links)

It’s Wednesday, but I don’t have any profound marriage thoughts today. This will be short and sweet, followed by a few interesting marriage related links. What do I really know about marriage? Not much. Despite my 76 posts on the subject I’m learning a bit more every day. However, I’ll give you what I’ve got in 200 words or less:

1. Husbands want to be respected as the man of the house. This lines up pretty well with Scripture’s admonition for a wife to see that she respects her husband.

2. A child-centered marriage is a recipe for disaster. Teach children early that their “happiness” is not Mom or Dad’s reason for living.

3. Cooking or baking a favorite treat of my husband’s always lifts his mood at the end of a long day.

4. Husbands like it when you get dressed thinking more about what they find attractive than what you find comfortable. I’ve found that with a little thought, it’s not that hard to manage both.

5. When I want to explore certain theological questions or Biblical passages more thoroughly, I go to my husband first (Yes, I pray). It never ceases to start an interesting discussion that we both grow from and he knows I appreciate his Biblical knowledge.

6.This isn’t Scriptural, and I know there are some who would quibble, but this post is about what I’ve learned: Good sex, and lots of it, makes the most difficult seasons of a marriage infinitely more bearable.

I believe that’s 188 words of practical things I’ve learned about marriage and it’s all I’ve got for this week. Maybe I’ll do better next week. However, my good friend Jamala recently penned a series of posts on marriage (here, here, and here) and they are worth a read. No holds barred, politically incorrect posts full of truth, not to mention Scripture to back it up. She picked up my mantle while I was away it seems.

Additionally, a couple of the men on my blog roll wrote about the fact that they enjoy being married and why. I found their posts refreshing.

 I enjoy Dalrock’s blog because although it’s very secular, he is a master at looking at and breaking down the facts and hard data, often complete with charts and graphs, on how divorce has changed the societal landscape and with it our views about marriage and family. Not to mention how feminism has made women more unhappy and less satisfied.  He expresses more concern than I’ve witnessed on most Christian blogs. His post, Newsflash: My Marriage Doesn’t Suck, can be found here (* language alert at the start of the post as he excerpts an anti-marriage post that inspired his*).  Elusive Wapiti, a fellow Christian wrote, My Marriage Doesn’t Suck Either, which can be found here.

This post is a part Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over for more wifely encouragement.

Appreciating the Little Things

A while back I got a call from my a dear friend, who felt like bragging on her husband. That’s not her modus operandi as she’s not the touchy-feely type, so I was particularly interested in what she would share that day. She began with a statement that has stayed with me. What she said was this:

It’s the little things that remind you that you have a great spouse. People think it’s all about the big gestures, but it really isn’t.

After that she began to share the little thing her husbnad did that inspired this appreciation. She was right. We often think that grand romantic gestures are the mark of a good husband, but I discovered long ago that we’ve been sold a bill of goods that cost far more in family destruction than most of us realize until it’s too late. It’s the little things that matter most, and I found out recently that it’s the little things during times of big trouble that matter most of all.

Our family spent the first quarter of 2011 wading our way through one thing after the other, starting with the loss of my oldest brother. There were other mini-crises as well. When winds of April blew in and winds of crisis blew out, we were relieved and thankful that God had carried us through it all. One of the things that got me through, second to prayer, was the way Secret Agent Man took great care of me and my needs. It wasn’t in ways one would typically consider romantic, but he was especially supportive through it all, despite the fact that he was dealing with some heavy stuff during that time, too. I made sure to do all I could to be an encouragement to him as well.

It would have been easy for me to miss all those “tiny” acts of love and consideration or take them for granted as I focused on my feelings during that time. But I was looking for the good in all that was unfolding, and I saw that he was looking for ways to take care of me. Whoever said that life is all about perspective had a point, because it’s true.

The moral of this story is to look for the good in your husband and in your marriage. In all but marriages of the most extreme difficulty, there is something good to note. Maybe your husband hasn’t taken you out for a date in a year*, but he fills up the gas in your car every Sunday so you won’t have to do it during the week. Maybe he hasn’t given you flowers in ages, but he gets the kids down for bed every Tuesday night while you volunteer at church or school.  These things speak love as much, if not more than, a bouquet of roses.

Keep your eyes open for those little acts of love and support. Fix your eyes on things worthy of praise and turn away from cultural drivel that inspires discontent and unrealistic expectations. Do those two things and you may see that your marriage is far better than you realized. And it can only get better from there.

* I don’t mean to dismiss things like date nights because they do have value. I just happen to be one who’s as happy with a walk around the neighborhood at dusk holding hands as I would be with dinner in a romantic restaurant. In fact, our most recent anniversary was celebrated as we were wandering through the wilderness of bereavement, financial stress, and a couple of other things. My husband enjoys giving me gifts. I, on the other hand, am currently reading The Tightwad Gazette and was perfectly happy to steal away uninterrupted time with him however we could get it. The less we spent the better in my book. Help your husband meet your needs the best way he can but offer grace and a loving attitude during those times when things need to be scaled back.

This post is a contribution to Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love Honor and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

ETA: Emily’s comment below inspired me to add a request. If you’d like, please leave a comment detailing one of the little things your husband does  that you appreciate. Practicing the art of being thankful for those we love is a wonderful habit to cultivate. Chime in!