Building Her Up

Let’s face it, women are constantly under attack these days; and I’m not talking about the supposed “war on women” that liberals made up to try and make Republican’s look bad. No, this goes much deeper than any political propaganda or jockeying for position. This is a deeply buried problem in the fabric of our society; one that is determined to destroy women.

Part of this attack is how today’s society has demeaned the classic woman’s role in the family to the point where it is given the appearance of not having any value. Women are constantly told that to “be someone” they have to have their own career, their own money and their own success.

Another part is how modern society has defined beauty. To be beautiful, a woman has to be anorexic, have plastic surgery, buy designer clothes and a team of makeup artists and hairdressers working on her for hours per day. That’s not counting the geeks in the back room who are Photo-shopping every image of her that is allowed to go out in public.

God has created women with intrinsic value, value that goes far beyond the board room or the beauty parlor. It’s a value that is built into their character; the way that they live, move, feel and act. Yet, society has ignored these values, saying that their own values are much more important.

Sadly, this leaves most women fighting depression and problems with self-image. Actually, it’s not surprising. If the message they’re receiving all day long is that they aren’t good enough, it’s no wonder that they feel that they aren’t. If you tell someone the same thing over and over, they’ll eventually believe it, no matter how big a lie it is. This is even more true when nobody is telling them the opposite.

That’s where you and I come in. We can’t help all the women in the world, but we can sure make a difference in the life of our own wife. If nobody else is telling her that she’s special, we should. If nobody else is telling her that her talents and abilities are valuable, we should. If nobody else is telling her that she’s beautiful and sexy, we should. We may not be able to overcome all the garbage that’s being thrown at our wives, but we sure can overcome some of it.

Our wives need for us to be building them up. It’s not just a nicety, or even a desire, it’s a genuine need. There is so much that is beating them down, that if we don’t pick them up, there’s a good chance that they’ll spend the rest of their lives down and depressed. I don’t mean just a little depressed, either; I’m talking about full-blown clinical depression.

It’s really not hard to compliment your wife. All you have to do is focus on what she does well. Whoever she is, and whatever she does; I’m sure that there are some things which she does extremely well. Maybe she doesn’t do everything all that well, but then again, neither do we.

Focus on the good stuff, not the bad. Quite telling her how she needs to change, and tell her how great she is, just the way she is. There are enough people telling her how she needs to change, don’t let your voice be added to theirs. Let your voice be the one which stands out from the crowd, telling her that you’re glad that she’s the one you picked. 

Patience Man, Patience

I never knew it, but women are incredible sports fans. That’s right, every woman, around the world, has her favorite sport, which she practices every chance she get. I find it amazing how devoted they can be to their sport, especially since I’ve always thought that women hate sports. Of course, that’s because I was thinking of more conventional sports, you know, the kind that we guys like.

No, women don’t like the same sports we do; that’s why we don’t often see their love affair with their sport as meaning anything. I say sport intentionally, because there’s really only one sport that women love, not an assortment of them, like men.

So, I suppose you want to know what sport I’m talking about… it’s shopping. Yep, shopping is the woman’s sport. Every women I’ve ever met plays that sport; some better than others; but they all play. Although I’ve never seen a shopping pool in an office, instead of a football pool, that doesn’t make it any less a sport. Nor does the fact that the Sports section in the paper ignores their sport; after all, that’s written by men. For that matter, the fact that there are no professional shopping teams doesn’t limit it as a sport, because every woman considers herself a pro-shopper.

Of course, the epitome of the women’s sport is clothes shopping. Have you ever noticed how department stores put the women’s clothing section, which is huge, right in the front of the store? By comparison, the men’s clothing section is tiny and usually hidden in the back corner. You see, those stores recognize women’s sport and are all supporters of it.

Okay, now comes the hard part. Since we’re all looking for ways to spend time with our wives (at least I hope we are), here’s a great way (in her mind) for us to do so. That’s to go shopping with them. Yes, I’m serious; I’m also glad that I’m doing this through the Internet, so that nobody can throw rocks at me.

As much as we all hate shopping, the Bible tells us to “Love our wives as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her.” I know of no way that a man can lay down his life any more effectively than to go shopping with his wife. Yes, it’s hard, but that’s how it qualifies as laying down your life.

Now, if you are actually brave enough or foolish enough to try this, let me give you a few hints to make the process a little less painful.

• Take a good book to read. That way, you’ve got something to do, while you’re wasting… err, investing all that time in your marriage.
• Make good use of Starbucks, the Food Court, Annie’s Pretzels, Baskin & Robins and other cultural attractions. Believe it, or not, she even enjoys those half-time breaks from shopping.
• Wear comfortable shoes. Women are the only one who think that uncomfortable shoes are a fashion statement. Hey, you’re going to be spending hours on your feet, you may as well be comfortable.
• Speaking of hours on your feet, most stores don’t put chairs for husbands. Personally, I think this is prejudiced against men, but that’s the way it is. So, if you are going to need to sit down, and don’t want to sit on the floor, you might want to consider bringing along a folding camp stool.
• Find things for her to try on, that you’d like to see her in. Hey, part of shopping is playing “dress up,” so you may as well help her along. Who knows, you might actually find something that you both like.
• Be prepared to carry. I think this is the biggest reason why women like their husbands going shopping with them. That way, they don’t have to carry all that stuff. After all, why should they, when there’s a man to do it?
• Sneak out to the sporting goods or hardware department. This trick doesn’t always work, but if you’re in a department store that has a “man department” you can get a break by telling your wife that there’s something you want to look at. She doesn’t have to know that it’s a new fishing pole.
• Whatever you do, don’t schedule something else afterwards. If you are planning on going shopping for three hours with your wife, then watching the game afterwards, forget it. Women can’t tell time when they are involved in their sport.

It would probably be best for your blood pressure if you don’t pay any attention to how much she is spending. Actually, most women go shopping without spending a whole lot of money. Their enjoyment doesn’t come from spending, but from the looking and trying on. So, don’t let the money get to you. If you do, you’ll ruin the whole thing. A moment’s explosive outburst can make a whole day of sacrifice go up in smoke.

Finally, always remember that to be a successful cheerleader for the women’s sport, you need lots of patience. This is a very time-consuming sport; one in which the true pros carefully examine every option, before putting off making a decision. The goal really isn’t about spending money, but rather about spending time involved in the sport. So, you may as well relax and do what you can to enjoy it.

On the positive side, your wife will think that you’ve spent lots of quality time together, while you’ve mostly ignored what she’s doing. Don’t totally ignore it though. To gain romance points, you need to make the occasional comment, preferably positive ones. “When are we going to leave?” doesn’t qualify as a positive comment. Nor does, “That makes you look like a cow.” This is a good time to engage the brain, before the mouth.

Take the time to go shopping with your wife, and maybe she’ll be more willing to take the time to do something that you want to do. 

Be Her Encourager

Just in case you haven’t noticed, the world is full of people who are quick to put you down, tell you that you can’t do something and otherwise just bring negativity into your life. Actually, I don’t think that there are all that many of them, but they seem to be good at popping up at just the wrong moment; and when they do, they’re so noisy that it sounds like a crowd. Everyone else is pretty much content to sit on the sidelines and see whether you succeed or fail. Even if they’re wishing that you fail, they don’t get in your face about it.

Those few loudmouths can really mess up your day though. Actually, they can mess up anybody’s day; like your wife’s. If you and I have to put up with those sorts of people, don’t you think that she does as well? Of course she does. She might even have more of them to put up with than we do.

Unfortunately, we can’t really do much of anything to shut them up, at least not within the limits of what the law allows. So, we’ve got to come up with something else to do, something to help overcome the negativity that they are sowing in the hearts and minds of our wives.

Fortunately, we can do something about that. We can encourage our wives, letting them know that there’s at least one person who stands behind them, who believes in them, who’s willing to go to bat for them. We can be the ones that lift them up, when others are dragging them down. We can tell them that they can, when everyone else is telling them they can’t. We can encourage them, when everyone else is trying to discourage them.

The key to this is understanding what your wife needs and when she needs it. That can be a bit challenging at times. Most of the time, trying to figure out what a woman is thinking or feeling is beyond a male understanding. However, that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless; just that we have to find new ways of doing it.

Start with the basics. You know when your wife is depressed or in a bad mood; nobody has to tell you that. Most of the time, when a woman is in a bad mood, you can tell as soon as you walk in the door; even without seeing her.

From there, the next step is to find out what happened. She may not be in the mood to tell you what she’s upset or depressed about, but she’ll usually be more than ready to tell you about her day; so, ask about her day. If you pay attention to what she says, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to figure out what has put her out of sorts.

Once you know what caused the problem, you’re in the home stretch. All you have to do is the opposite. If somebody has been telling her she can’t do something, tell her that she can. If somebody has been talking bad about how she does things, tell her how good she is at doing things. Whatever it is, give her the opposite, and keep giving her the opposite until you see that it has made a difference.

That doesn’t mean to sit there and badger her with it. What I mean is to tell her, then come back to that again a little later, from a different direction. Keep coming up with new ways to encourage her, until you can see that she’s actually encouraged. That’s going to take several comments, not just one.

She may not accept what you say the first time, especially if what the others have said has hurt her. It takes a while to overcome that. But, your words will make a difference. So, don’t give up. She needs that encouragement and she’ll appreciate it.

More Love

Pretty much everyone, men and women alike, claims to love their spouse “no matter what.” We make it sound like our love is truly unconditional, regardless of whatever might happen. However, I’d have to say that we’re fooling ourselves when we say that. Oh, we’re right in the sense of being able to love them through whatever we have in mind at that time, or we wouldn’t be saying it. That’s not the same thing though. Just because we’re convinced that we could keep loving them through some serious sickness doesn’t mean that we love them unconditionally.

Love is only known by its expression. If there’s no expression of love, then there’s no love. There might be something we think is love, but it’s nothing more than a feeling inside of us. For it to be recognizable as love to another, it has to come out of us and be expressed to that other person.

Unconditional love is only such when it is expressed at times when the other person doesn’t deserve it. If our expression of love is dependent upon the other person’s actions, then it isn’t really unconditional love. For us guys, that often means being able to continue expressing love, even when she is denying us sexually. That’s hard to do, but if we truly love our wives, we are able to do so.

So, what gets in our way of being able to express love at all times? More than anything it’s our emotions. When we don’t feel loved or appreciated, we have trouble expressing love towards others. To put it another way, when nobody is filling our love tank, we don’t have anything to give away.

Actually, although we live by that statement, it’s untrue. If we need our love tank to be filled, in order to have love to give to another, then there’s something wrong. We should be able to create love out of nothing, regardless of what others are doing to us. If we can’t do that, then human will doesn’t mean anything.

Okay, so what should we do? We should act in love towards our wives, no matter how our wives are acting towards us. Have you ever stopped to think that she may be acting the way she is, because she feels unloved?

Herein lies a great secret; loving when we don’t feel like it. Many have said, “Love isn’t an emotion, it’s a choice of the will.” I don’t totally agree with that. Try telling your wife sometime, “I don’t feel anything towards you, but I still love you.” I guarantee you, she’s not going to be thrilled. There is an aspect of love that is a feeling, but there is another aspect of love that’s a choice of the will. The will part comes into play when we act in love, even though our emotions are in conflict with that action.

Did you get that? We still need to act in love, even though are emotions aren’t in agreement. I’m not talking about pretending to love here; I’m talking about doing loving actions, even though we don’t feel like it. That’s a level of loving expression that most people never reach.

You know the crazy thing? If you act in love, even when you don’t feel like it, your emotions will follow your actions. In other words, if you don’t feel loving, act in love anyway; that will change your feelings.

As crazy as that sounds, it’s absolutely true. I have had a number of times where the best thing I could do to overcome negative feelings towards my wife was to do something loving for her. Every time I did that, it worked; she felt loved and I felt better towards her. My emotions followed my action.

A child is controlled by their emotions. As mature men, we need to learn how to control our emotions. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t feel anything, but rather that we should use our emotions as a tool, shaping them to meet the need. One great need is that of acting in love towards our wives, so we need to shape our emotions towards love.

Anyone who says that they’ve “fallen out of love” with their wife has just confessed that they’ve stopped trying to be loving towards their wife. They are expecting their wife to make them feel loving, rather than making that decision to love. I’d have to say, they probably never truly loved their wife, they only thought they did. Ouch!

So, the next time you find yourself thinking negatively about your wife, it means it’s a good day to buy her flowers, or maybe a box of chocolates. Perhaps you should cook her a special dinner or help her out with some chores. Whatever you choose to do, make sure it is something that you will both interpret as an act of love. That will help you overcome those negative thoughts and feelings, and feel the love that you need to feel for your wife.

All that Glitters – Part 2

I normally don’t do two part posts, but after yesterday’s, I came up with a little more that I wanted to say. While I’m sure that most of you didn’t run out and buy your wife a piece of jewelry last night, I’m also sure that at least some of you thought about it. I took my own advice and did.

I find it interesting that the mating ritual of the human being includes jewelry. In our modern society, it’s customary for a man to give a ring to his intended, when he asks her to marry him. Thinking about this, I realized that there was a practical aspect to this, in addition to the normal collection of symbolic ones that we talk about.

First, the symbolic; the ring is a sign of commitment, of affection and a as a circle shows the unbroken cycle of life and love. That’s all great and actually rather important; but there’s an even more important symbolism in the ring. In Old Testament times, the ring was actually cut into the couple’s flesh, forming a scar, a ring that couldn’t be removed.

The concept of cutting the ring into the flesh comes from covenant ceremony. In pretty much any covenant ceremony, the two parties cut their hands or arms, clasping their two cuts together and mixing their blood. The idea is, “Your blood now flows in my veins and my blood flows in yours, we are one.”

We’ve replaced the idea of cutting with a band of gold or other precious metal. But, we’ve also replaced something else with that ring as well; that is, the idea of dowry. While many people hold the idea that paying a dowry was “buying” the bride from her father; that was never the case. If so, it would make for very poor business, as the cost of raising a girl to marriageable age was much more than any dowry ever paid. No, the dowry was intended to show that the young man had the wherewithal to support his new wife.

A diamond engagement ring fulfills this practical aspect as well. As these rings are rather expensive, being able to buy one for her is a way of showing that one is ready to marry; at least in a financial senses. A young man who can’t afford to buy a ring, probably can’t afford to support a wife, either.

In our time, more and more couples are getting married, without there ever being an engagement ring. Oh, they have wedding rings, but not an engagement ring. The wedding ring still carries the symbolic meaning of commitment and the unbroken circle of life and love, but not the significance of dowry. As wedding bands are much cheaper than engagement rings, that proof of being able to support her is missing.

Did you buy your wife an engagement ring? I must confess that I never did. At the time we got married, we were struggling to make ends meet. We jointly decided that there were more important things to spend our money on. Had my wife had the understanding of the ring’s practical value as a demonstration of my ability to support her, we may never have gotten married. Nevertheless, she overlooked that, just as I did, and we married.

We’ve been married 25 years and a few months now. Yesterday, my wife had her birthday. I celebrated it by paying off a 26 year old debt to her. She finally got her diamond. It was something I’d wanted to do for years, and this year, I was finally able to do so.

If you’ve never bought your wife a diamond engagement ring, I’d like to propose the idea to you that you owe it to her. Maybe you can’t do it this year, but there’s no reason you can’t start squirreling away a few dollars here and there as your diamond fund. When you get enough, buy her that ring. I’d say that you owe it to her.

All that Glitters

As Shakespeare once wrote, “All that glitters is not gold.” When the great bard of England wrote that, he was referring to the fact that not everything that looks like gold is gold. Iron pyrites, otherwise known as “fool’s gold” gives credence to that statement, as it has the appearance of gold, while being virtually worthless.

Even though not everything that glitters is gold, that doesn’t take anything away from the glitter of gold, silver, precious stones, or any of those other bobbles which women love to have. There’s something about jewelry that fascinates women. I’m not sure if it’s the intrinsic value of it, or the lasting beauty, but whatever the reason, women love receiving jewelry as gifts. That’s a fact you can take to the bank; to the safe-deposit vault to be exact.

Most men use flowers as their fail-safe gift, when they don’t know what to buy for their wives. While there’s nothing wrong with that, giving the same thing over and over again can be a bit repetitive. We need a bit of imagination in our gift giving; if for no other reason than to show our wives that we really do think about the gifts which we buy.

Jewelry is a great option, when you want to give a gift to your wife. I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t like to receive jewelry. I know, you’re thinking, “Ouch, that’s an expensive gift idea he came up with.” Wait a minute, though; jewelry doesn’t have to be expensive.

While jewelry can be very expensive, there are a lot of things you can buy which aren’t. A pair of earrings isn’t all that expensive, neither is a freshwater pearl necklace. For that matter, lots of women like costume jewelry, which isn’t expensive at all.

Remember, the idea isn’t how much money you can spend. You don’t get more points for spending more dollars; women just don’t think that way. What gets you points is the number of different romantic acts that you do, not how big each of them is. So, buying your wife a $500 necklace isn’t going to get you any more points than a $20 pair of earrings.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy the $500 necklace if that’s what you want to do (and can afford to do). All I’m saying is don’t let the lack of funds to buy the big gift keep you from buying any gift. It’s not about the money; it’s about you thinking of her and thinking of what she would like.

That brings me to another important point. You want to be sensitive to her style. If your wife is all about modern simple lines, don’t buy here something that has enough filigree to make it look like it was made back in Elizabethan England. Likewise, it doesn’t work to buy ultra-modern styles for a woman whose dresses all have lace on them. You need to find jewelry which matches her style.

Okay, so how do you do that? It’s actually quite simple. Start out by finding out what her style is. Look at the jewelry she already has. Look at her clothes. Look at the furniture she buys for the house. What type of style is all that displaying? Is it modern, Victorian, Rustic? Whatever style she is buying the most of is her style. All you have to do is find something that matches that style and she’ll love it.

If you’re still now sure how to define her style, go to the jewelry store or jewelry counter in a department store and describe that to them. They’re used to men who don’t know their wife’s style. All you have to do is describe what your investigation uncovered and they’ll be able to recommend pieces that match her style. So, you see, it’s really not all that hard.

If you really want to make more impact with your gift, give it to her sometime when you take her out to eat. That will make it even more romantic. 

More Than Her Lips

Have you ever watched a movie where some European guy kisses the woman’s hand? That probably seemed a bit strange to you. After all, why kiss her hand, when you can kiss her lips? Of course, if she’s not your wife, that’s a whole other story. Then again, with the way women react to it, there might be something to kissing hands after all.

Kissing is wonderfully romantic; but it doesn’t have to be limited to just her lips. The thing to remember here is that a woman’s skin is much more sensitive than a man’s. So, while a kiss on the hand may not seem like much to us, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t much to them. In fact, a kiss on the hand is a great way to find your way to her lips.

I’m obviously not recommending that you go around kissing every woman you meet on her hand. While they might like it, I’m sure that your wife wouldn’t. What I am recommending is kissing your own wife on her hand.

Actually, I’m recommending much more than that. Why not start on her hand and work your way up her arm, kissing every inch or two. So what if it takes a while to get there, you can both enjoy it. While you’re at it, a few kisses on the back of her neck wouldn’t hurt either.

Yesterday, my wife and I were on an airplane, returning from Mexico. We like to express our love to one another frequently, in a number of different ways. However, it’s a bit difficult to kiss when strapped into an airline seat; not impossible, just awkward. So, instead of kissing her on the lips, I kissed her hand and her arm. That had as much positive effect on her as if I had kissed her on the lips.

One thing that makes this type of kissing effective is that it is one-way kissing. What I mean by that is that it is an expression of love, without the expectation of reciprocation. If I kiss my wife on the lips, I expect her to kiss back; but when I kiss her hand, I just expect her to enjoy it.

Kissing in not only wonderfully romantic, it’s incredibly intimate as well. It’s a form of marital intimacy that can be practiced in public, without problem. Actually, there’s something about a kiss that can’t even be expressed by “more intimate” forms of touch. Perhaps that’s because a kiss doesn’t have to be overtly sexual, it can just be extremely loving. Women want that expression of love, without the sexual overtones, just for the sake of being loved.