Putting Her First

America, the land of looking out for number one; what a place to live. You know, while there are times when looking out for number one might be valuable, marriage isn’t one of them. If we’re busy looking out for number one in our marriages, it’s assured that we’re not looking out for the best interests of our wives.

Love is always giving, not taking. So, by its very nature it goes strongly against that great American attitude of looking out for number one. In fact, love is the direct opposite of that attitude.

It is easy to think about yourself, grab the best and be the one who wins, but that isn’t what marriage is about. No, in marriage, a true win is when you both win. Anything else is treating her as someone less than she deserves to be treated; someone who is just there for your convenience, a chattel, a piece of property; but not the wife that you love.

How do we do this? Here are a few examples:

• Grabbing the biggest slice of cake.
• Going through the door first; instead of holding it open for her.
• Leaving her to clean up the mess, while we go watch the game or take a nap.
• Not doing something we don’t want to, so she ends up stuck with it.
• Having to be “right.”

Being romantic goes beyond buying flowers and saying “I love you” to our wives; it’s an attitude, a way of life. If we are going to put all this effort into being romantic husbands, we need to make sure that we don’t undo our own work. Many men find it easy to be romantic for a moment, and then go back to being self-centered grabbers, just trying to get what they can for themselves. That definitely isn’t romantic.

If you’re going to be romantic for a moment, you need to become romantic for the long haul as well. Buying flowers, but treating your wife roughly isn’t going to work. Nor is grabbing the last chocolate candy, but trying to make up for it by saying “I love you.”

Let’s go back and review our original definition of romance. When I started this blog, I used the definition, “Romance is the little things you do to show your wife that she’s important to you.” That definition hasn’t changed. So, if we grab that last chocolate, are we letting her know that she’s important, or are we saying “I’m more important?”

That’s the problem. We’ve all grown up in a society that teaches us to “look out for number one.” Well, that doesn’t work in marriage, unless you take yourself off of that pedestal, and put her up there. Then, looking out for number one is really looking out for her.

I’ve got one even better than that, though. Since the idea is to build up your marriage, why not put the two of you on that pedestal, together. Whatever you do must build up the marriage. Yes, at times that means sacrificing yourself for the benefit of your wife. Just make sure that the ways you are sacrificing aren’t going to end up making you bitter towards her.

Don’t expect her to sacrifice herself for you. Doing that is just another way of looking out for number one. On the other hand, when you aren’t expecting it, and she does so, you really appreciate what she’s doing for you.

Going back to those little things; things grabbing the last chocolate, going through the door first or getting the bigger piece of cake. Are those things really all that important? No, they’re not. But, the attitude behind them is. When you have an attitude of putting her first in those things, it shows her that you truly value her; not just for the moment of that romantic act, but all the time. That’s truly being romantic.