Don't stop showing love for your spouse
OK guys, it’s safe to come out now. Valentine’s Day is past.
I can’t say that I’m a big fan of Valentine’s Day. While I think it’s nice to have a day to celebrate love and romance, I dislike having someone else telling me to romance my wife. I don’t like the pressure of having to buy cards, flowers, gifts, dinner out, etc., especially when it doesn’t fit in the family budget.
I think I continually express love to my wife and am very capable of providing my own bouts of romance. On the other hand, there are plenty of women who hold onto Valentine’s Day with a death grip because it’s one of the few times a year their spouse or significant other gives them the attention they deserve.
Guys, loving your wife is something you should do continuously. Most women need to have regular assurances and demonstrations of your love. Most of us think of love as a noun, as a feeling. While that’s true, love is also a verb. You have to put it into action. You have to make the choice every day to love your spouse. Even if you don’t feel like it, you have an obligation to demonstrate your love.
Too often, right after the wedding, most guys relax and treat their wife as a trophy they have just won and placed on the mantle. They quit investing emotionally in her. She becomes part of the furniture or a tool for intimacy. A real man will never stop pursuing his wife’s heart. He will put her interests and needs before his own.
In case you haven’t noticed, wedding vows are not some ceremonial mumbo-jumbo you say at the altar. A vow is your word, your promise and commitment. Marriage vows are meant to be permanent, an unbreakable bond between husband and wife. A wedding vow is “’til death do us part”, not “for as long as I feel like it” or “until something better comes along.”
Christian author Dr. Gary Chapman has a popular book out called The Five Love Languages. In it he has discovered that most people speak a primary love language. When you speak your spouse’s love language, you fill their love tank, keeping that “in love” feeling alive. Failure to do that can lead to anger and resentment.
The five love languages are: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Most of us will have a primary and secondary love language. A lot of good marriages go stale or sour because spouses fail to speak the proper love language. A guy can shower his wife with a big house, nice cars, and fancy jewelry or perform all kinds of household chores and honey-dos, but she still won’t feel loved by him if her primary love language is quality time. The time spent buying those gifts or doing those chores would be better spent snuggled up with her and engaging in conversation.
Another thing that I have learned is that, outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ, the relationship with your wife is the most important one you will ever have in this life. You need to treat it like it was the most important thing on earth, because it is. Your relationship should take precedence over that of parents, children, friends, family and career. It should be subordinate to only one relationship – the one you have with the loving God who created all things.
This does not mean you should focus on your wife to the exclusion of all others. That much of an obsession is not healthy. Relationships need to be kept in perspective and priority. You are not going to grow old with your golfing buddies, but you need those relationships to add balance to your life. If you have to make a choice between wife and buddies, your wife should be the clear winner.
While your relationship with your children is vitally important, they also need to see and feel the strength and security of the relationship of their parents. That is the root from which they spring. As children grow up and marry, they are expected to leave their parents and cleave to their spouse (that’s cleave, as in cling or adhere, not split or separate).
To me, demonstrating love to my wife is a never-ending thing. That’s why I find it mildly offensive to be prodded by a holiday to do what should come naturally. I should note, however, that failure to do something special for your wife on Valentine’s Day could have dire consequences … like the next time you want to go golfing with your buddies or the four-fold restitution you will have to make the next year on Feb. 14.
I can’t say that I’m a big fan of Valentine’s Day. While I think it’s nice to have a day to celebrate love and romance, I dislike having someone else telling me to romance my wife. I don’t like the pressure of having to buy cards, flowers, gifts, dinner out, etc., especially when it doesn’t fit in the family budget.
I think I continually express love to my wife and am very capable of providing my own bouts of romance. On the other hand, there are plenty of women who hold onto Valentine’s Day with a death grip because it’s one of the few times a year their spouse or significant other gives them the attention they deserve.
Guys, loving your wife is something you should do continuously. Most women need to have regular assurances and demonstrations of your love. Most of us think of love as a noun, as a feeling. While that’s true, love is also a verb. You have to put it into action. You have to make the choice every day to love your spouse. Even if you don’t feel like it, you have an obligation to demonstrate your love.
Too often, right after the wedding, most guys relax and treat their wife as a trophy they have just won and placed on the mantle. They quit investing emotionally in her. She becomes part of the furniture or a tool for intimacy. A real man will never stop pursuing his wife’s heart. He will put her interests and needs before his own.
In case you haven’t noticed, wedding vows are not some ceremonial mumbo-jumbo you say at the altar. A vow is your word, your promise and commitment. Marriage vows are meant to be permanent, an unbreakable bond between husband and wife. A wedding vow is “’til death do us part”, not “for as long as I feel like it” or “until something better comes along.”
Christian author Dr. Gary Chapman has a popular book out called The Five Love Languages. In it he has discovered that most people speak a primary love language. When you speak your spouse’s love language, you fill their love tank, keeping that “in love” feeling alive. Failure to do that can lead to anger and resentment.
The five love languages are: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Most of us will have a primary and secondary love language. A lot of good marriages go stale or sour because spouses fail to speak the proper love language. A guy can shower his wife with a big house, nice cars, and fancy jewelry or perform all kinds of household chores and honey-dos, but she still won’t feel loved by him if her primary love language is quality time. The time spent buying those gifts or doing those chores would be better spent snuggled up with her and engaging in conversation.
Another thing that I have learned is that, outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ, the relationship with your wife is the most important one you will ever have in this life. You need to treat it like it was the most important thing on earth, because it is. Your relationship should take precedence over that of parents, children, friends, family and career. It should be subordinate to only one relationship – the one you have with the loving God who created all things.
This does not mean you should focus on your wife to the exclusion of all others. That much of an obsession is not healthy. Relationships need to be kept in perspective and priority. You are not going to grow old with your golfing buddies, but you need those relationships to add balance to your life. If you have to make a choice between wife and buddies, your wife should be the clear winner.
While your relationship with your children is vitally important, they also need to see and feel the strength and security of the relationship of their parents. That is the root from which they spring. As children grow up and marry, they are expected to leave their parents and cleave to their spouse (that’s cleave, as in cling or adhere, not split or separate).
To me, demonstrating love to my wife is a never-ending thing. That’s why I find it mildly offensive to be prodded by a holiday to do what should come naturally. I should note, however, that failure to do something special for your wife on Valentine’s Day could have dire consequences … like the next time you want to go golfing with your buddies or the four-fold restitution you will have to make the next year on Feb. 14.
posted by Joe Southern | 10:28 AM
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