I’m taking a break on posting about the 31 Day Challenge because I ran across a great post about marriage and communication. After I read the post, {no worries, I’ll post the link at the end} I remembered a comment that someone recently made to me that left me speechless, “So & So thinks your husband waits on you hand and foot.”
After my momentary shock, my husband and I both laughed at the comment. He was just as stunned as I. There were some implications in the comment that we didn’t appreciate, but considering who so & so were, it wasn’t surprising. Here are the assumptions:
- I don’t do anything therefore my husband does everything.
- I make all the decisions in our home.
The people that know me best would laugh at what I just wrote. Nothing could be further from the truth, but sometimes those that are jealous don’t want to see the truth.
Truth is my husband and I have a marriage based on serving each other and open communication.
Yup, there’s the secret.
We serve each other.
My husband has a servant heart. He plays with his children, sometimes makes us breakfast, brings me coffee, and works hard. He also is a servant outside our home. He serves our church, he mentors other young husbands, and he helps people when he can. That is who he is and I am a very blessed woman.
In return, I serve him. I make him meals, clean our house, run errands for him, and take care of our children while he goes and serves others. I tell him how much I appreciate him and what he does for our family whenever I can. I tell our children they are so blessed to have him as a Daddy in front of him.
Because he serves me, I serve him. It’s amazing how that works out. When someone serves you with their heart, your immediate response of gratitude is to serve them in return. I also found that when I tell him how much I appreciate what he does for me, he tends to do more.
We communicate.
The one thing that was most attractive to my husband was my blunt honestly. I don’t beat around the bush, I don’t try to hide my feelings, and I am honest about everything. That opened up our communication skills immensely.
Growing up, my husband was exposed to a fair amount of manipulation. Emotional manipulation was the key to make someone do something. Guilt, silent treatment, gossip, uncommunicated expectations, self-imposed martyrdom, all were a part of that game. When he met me, he was surprised I didn’t play those games. And I still don’t play them.
The reason we have a great marriage is that we talk through things. Our home is not a dictatorship where only he makes the decisions or only I make the decisions. We make decisions together. Actually, we talk through things together and I let him make the final decision. I defer to his leadership in our household. I trust him in this because I know he bases all his decisions on what is best for our family.
It might be hard for some wives to give in to this type of leadership, but I will tell you it is very freeing not to be responsible for the backlash of certain decisions. Ironically, sometimes the backlash is directed towards me because people on the outside thought I made the decision. In this instance, this just shows us how little those people know about us and proves their unwillingness to get to know us.
A strong, healthy marriage is possible.
It all depends on what you want your marriage to look like. My marriage was not always like it is now. We had to work hard to make it work. We each had to let go of our individual self and unite as a couple. My husband sacrificed some of his passions for a season to focus on our family. I had to learn to let go of control and let him lead our family. We both had to get over ourselves in order to grow our marriage. And we had to put up boundaries around our marriage to stop others from trying to attack it. {Sometimes that means we limit contact with couples who are toxic. Jealousy from others is not healthy in your marriage.}
When people see us they see a good relationship. When they get to know us, they know it’s a healthy marriage. We don’t put on an act or pretend things are perfect. There is no perception we need to hide behind. It is not perfect because we are not perfect.
The reason we were able to get out of debt was because we were able to communicate and sacrifice together. Going through that challenge strengthened our marriage. We were able to align our goals and work towards them together.
Make a goal together that you will have a healthier marriage in 2012. Here are two books I always recommend to young couples:
And the link that started my thought process on this post:
