Keep the Challenge Going

Today’s the last day of the CMBA’s (Christian Marriage Blogger’s Association) half marathon. Since the beginning of the month, Christian marriage bloggers have been striving to put up a post a day for the 13 days of the half-marathon. Being the last day, the thought occurred to me, “Why stop now?”

Granted, this is supposed to be a daily blog, and sometimes I actually manage to keep it that way. Although I’ll have to confess, I don’t always succeed. Trying to come up with new ways to be romantic each and every day can be a bit of a challenge; especially with all the other challenges of a busy life, work, and ministry.

However, my thinking didn’t stop with thinking about the blog, but went on to how that same attitude of continuing on needs to be in our marriage as well. Many of us guys are willing to give being romantic a try, at least for a few days or weeks; but that’s not the point. You see, just being romantic for a little while really isn’t going to get you what you want. That’s like the guy who is only romantic when he wants sex, and then once he gets what he wants, goes back to ignoring his wife and her needs.

Being romantic has to be a lifestyle. It’s not about doing something so that you can get what you want, or doing something to satisfy her, or even doing something to get her over being mad or upset. Being romantic has to become a way of life; a constant expression of your love for her, in ways that she will understand as loving. That’s a horse of a whole different color.

One of the things I’ve learned through my personal journey is that emotions follow actions. So, the best way for me to make sure that I stay in love with my wife, is to do loving things towards her. Love breeds more love. As I keep myself doing romantic things, I help myself to keep my mind focused on her, so that it isn’t distracted by other women.

The other important lesson I’ve learned (there have been many of them) is that a loving marriage can only happen when both parties are focused on the other, rather than being focused on themselves. Now, here’s the rub, one of the two has to make the emotional investment to start it.

You see, because I have invested in my wife’s emotional state, she is more interested in investing in mine. But, at the beginning of this adventure, neither of us was doing a whole lot to invest in each other. Yes, as strange as it may seem, we’d gotten to a place in our marriage, where we were both so busy with other things, that we didn’t have the time or energy to invest in each other. Somebody had to break us out of that, and I (with a big push from God) decided it had to be me.

It took a while, but my investment paid off. Funny thing is, it paid off first in me, long before it paid off in her. Like I said, emotions follow actions. So, because I was acting romantic and loving, I started feeling romantic and loving. Eventually, that rubbed off on her as well. Now, we’re both romantic and loving towards one another.

So, whatever you do, don’t give up! The journey of romance is a lifelong journey. You may find a few bumps along the way, but you can overcome them. Challenge yourself to do something romantic towards your wife each and every day, even if it’s just something small. You’ll be glad you did.

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. 

Be an Encouragement

It’s very easy to get into a mode of being negative about everything. Many couples suffer from this negativity, where they are putting each other’s ideas, actions and accomplishments down, instead of building each other up. Yet, of anyone in the world, the one person we should each be able to count on for encouragement is our spouse.

Now, before you go off on a tangent, grumbling about how your wife isn’t encouraging you; I’m not talking about her, I’m talking to you. Whether or not your wife encourages you is another issue entirely. What I’m concerned about right now, is whether or not you are encouraging her.

Actually, the best way to get her to encourage you is to start encouraging her more. Women are created to be responders; that means that they will respond to what we do as men. If we are constantly negative, it will make them all that much more negative. However, if we are positive, it will pull them towards the direction of being positive. You may not be able to change her all the way, but you will be able to give her a gentle push in the right direction.

Not only that, but the more positive and encouraging you are, the less likely you are to be bothered by any negativity she displays. The worst thing in the world is two negative people, who feed off of each other, making each other more and more negative.

Once upon a time, you thought that woman you married was the most wonderful woman in the world. There was something there which you liked so much, that you ended up falling in love with her. I’d venture to guess that whatever that was, it’s still there. Maybe it’s been covered up a bit by the busy-ness of life, but that doesn’t mean that she’s changed; it just means that you need to draw that out of her.

The problem most women face is that they are inherently negative. If a man passes a mirror in a department store, he looks at himself and says, “Yeah, I’ve still got it” (whatever “it” is). When a woman looks at it, she sees Medusa. All she can see is that she isn’t as pretty as she wants to be, her hair doesn’t look like she just came from the hairdresser, she’s not as thin as a supermodel and her clothes aren’t designer specials. Society tells her that she has to be pretty and to do so requires all that. So, when she sees herself, she doesn’t see anything that makes her think she’s pretty.

Okay, so she’s not a supermodel. There are only eight of those in the world anyway, and none of them look like their photos. Real life doesn’t come with PhotoShop. Even so, there are a lot of special things about your wife. It has to be true, or you wouldn’t have married her in the first place.

Remind yourself of those things which caused you to fall in love with her. Then, remind her of them as well. Don’t say, “you used to…” instead say, “I love this about you…” That’s what she needs to hear. She also needs to hear that she’s good at what she does. She needs to know that at least one person sees her efforts and thinks they are good. That person is you.