Make the Time to Love Her

Many a time on this blog I’ve talked about the difficulty many of us have in finding enough time for our wives. Modern society puts a lot of strain on our schedules, making it hard to have time for anything but work and sleep. If anything, the current prolonged financial crisis that the country has been facing has made it worse. Employers are demanding more of their workforce, taking advantage of the fact that people can’t afford to leave their jobs.

I feel the pinch just as much as any of you do. I’m running a business and a ministry as well. That’s about like holding down two jobs, and still I try and make sure that I have time for my wife and kids. It’s a challenge, but I’ve never heard a man lament on his deathbed that he didn’t spend enough time at work. No, they all lament that they didn’t spend enough time with the people that mattered to them.

Finding time for your wife requires two things: creativity and determination. That’s it. If you have those two ingredients, you can surely find ways of spending time with your wife. Creativity is necessary because you might have to come up with some unusual ways to spend time together, something more original that Saturday night date night. Determination is important to make you put other things aside, in favor of the more important act of spending time with your wife. Without determination, there are a million things which will come along to steal that time.

What brought this subject to mind for me once again is thinking about preparations for another trip. When I travel for the ministry, the week before is one of hectic preparations. Not only do I have to try and work ahead in my business, so that I take care of my clients before leaving town, but I need to make books, CDs and DVDs to take with me. So, once again it’s like working two jobs, but instead of working normal hours, working overtime in both.

In the midst of all that activity it can be easy to ignore my wife and kids. But, they need me just as much before I leave on a trip as they do when I’m home. Actually, if anything, they need me more. So, I have to make a special effort to be there for them.

If you were to leave on a business trip and something happened to you while you were gone, what type of memories would you want to leave in the minds of your wife and kids? Would you want them to remember that at that last minute, you didn’t have time for them? Or, would you want to leave them with one last happy memory of the time you spent together? Okay, the answer to that is obvious.

Well, what about the trip you take to work every day? Isn’t there just as much a chance of an accident on that trip as there is traveling across the country? Couldn’t you die of a massive heart attack any day of your life? So, what type of memory are you leaving in their minds when you head off for work every day? What was the last time you spent together like? Will it create a lifetime of happiness for them, or will it leave a bitter taste in their mouths?

I can’t forget the testimony of a woman who told her husband she wanted a divorce over the breakfast table one morning. Her husband never made it home from work that day. The last memory she has of him, was telling him that she wanted a divorce. What a sad memory to have the rest of her life.

If there’s one memory which we should leave in the hearts and minds of our wives and of our kids, it’s the strong memory that we love them. Every time we head out the door, we need to make sure that’s the memory we leave them with. That way, we will have nothing to regret.

They’re Playing Your Song

Did you and your wife ever have “your song?” You know, a song that was special to you, which portrayed your love for one another; even one that reminded you of one another. When we’re dating, it seems like those things just happen naturally. It could be because you heard it on your first date; or that it was the first song you danced together to. Regardless of where it came from, things like having “your song” are an important part of keeping your love for one another alive.

When was the last time you heard “your song?” Has it been a while? I guess for most of us, it has. While that song was probably popular when you were dating, it’s long since fallen off the charts. You can’t just click on the radio and expect to find it playing any more. But, you can still find it; just by searching online.

Actually, there’s something deeper at play here than just having a song which the two of you identify as yours. It’s the idea of having reminders of your dating years, how you fell in love and the love you have for one another. That’s what having “your song” does for you.

You see, life has a way of trying to steal your love for your wife. There are enough things going on all around us to make us feel as if we are unwanted and unloved. There are also more than enough things going on to try and keep us negatively focused towards our spouses. The combination of daily problems, stress, disagreements, changes that we all go through and the bombardment of sexuality that the media shows us all work together to try and destroy our love.

We need things to help bring up our love level. A song, a place, a particular type of food, are all things which can be associated with positive memories, renewing both the memories and the feelings that go with them. Those types of things can actually serve to help restore the feelings of love which the world is trying to rob from us.

So, have you played “your song” lately? Maybe it’s time to do a little searching online and download it to your computer. Surprise your wife by playing it sometime when the two of you are alone, and see what effect it can have on both of you.

Picture You Perfect

It seems that in just about every family photo album I look through, there’s always one family member that’s conspicuously absent. It’s usually the man, although that isn’t always the case. Why is that so? It’s almost as if every family has one invisible member, at least if you look at the photographic evidence.

Women love to “make memories.” For those of us who don’t know that that means, it means having things which they can later look at, which will invoke pleasant memories. I’m really not sure why they do this, as I’ve always thought if something was important enough, I’d remember it on my own; and if I couldn’t remember it, it must not have been all that important. Of course, that logic isn’t really valid.

Was your first anniversary important? Okay, what did you do to celebrate it? Let me guess, you don’t remember. Well, neither do I. According to my invalid logic, that would mean that my first anniversary wasn’t important to me; however, I guarantee you, it was important.

Women tend to remember things like that much better than we do as guys, yet they still want to “make memories.” Maybe that’s because they have a much greater desire to make sure they don’t forget. It probably has something to do with the fact that women are more relationally oriented, while we guys are more action oriented. They want those memories, because to them, relationships are what make up their lives.

So, if that’s important to your wife, like it is to mine, why don’t we do something about it, like making sure that we’re in some of those pictures? In fact, let’s get extreme about this; make sure you are in a lot of those pictures, preferable with your arm around her. That should help invoke some positive memories.

When was the last time you had a portrait done of the two of you as a couple? Unless your kids have grown up and moved out of the house, the last time was probably before your kids were born. Why is that? Is it that you don’t like to be seen with your wife? Or is it just that you don’t think those pictures are all that important. Well, guess what, they are. Your wife needs a picture like that and you do too.

Do it right, now. Get a haircut, trim your mustache and get all dressed up. There’s no sense going out to get a picture taken, looking like a bum. You can put your jeans and t-shirt back on later. But, your wife will enjoy seeing you dressed up for the photo. Then maybe you could take advantage of being all spiffed up to go out somewhere together. 

Once your pictures come in, be sure to buy a nice frame, preferably something with hearts on it, to put your portrait in. That way, everyone will see you two lovebirds, looking like a couple of lovebirds.

Every time one of your wife’s friends sees that portrait, with the two of you together like that, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll say something positive about the picture, or the two of you together or even just about you. That’s good, because every time that happens, you’ll get a point for that picture.