Marriage
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Write her a love letter. I think I’ve beaten this dead horse enough, but seriously, just sit down and do it.
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Clean the house. If your wife takes point on the domestic affairs of your household, Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity for you to turn the tables. Give the house a good cleaning from top to bottom. If you’re like me and are responsible for the cleaning of the house, just do it anyway. There’s something wonderfully refreshing about a clean house.
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Make dinner. This one requires advance planning. Don’t just make the mac and cheese that was on the menu. Do it up big! Don’t waste your time going out to eat with everyone and their brother. You know what your wife really likes! Plan the meal, buy the food, and make it fresh. Now THAT’S a Valentine’s Day!
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Draw her a bath. We men like to take as little time as possible when it comes to bathing, which is why showers are perfect for us. Most days, your wife doesn’t have time to devote to the luxury of a bath and some downtime. So, wrangle the kids, draw her a nice bath, give her a snack to nibble on and leave her alone!
Drop Everything for Her
When Benedict is in the family room playing, anytime he hears the locks on the front door turning, he’ll stop and say, “Mama.” This cute response to an all too familiar sound is based on his experience of daily life. In the evening, when Alison comes home from work, soon after hearing that sound, his mother appears in view and he gets very excited. No matter what he’s doing or how engaged he is with his current activity, he’ll stop, say “Mama” and then crawl to the baby gate, waiting to catch a glimpse of her.
Benedict’s response shows a real eagerness to see Alison. He clearly misses her during the day, especially on days when he mills around saying “mama.” I’m most impressed by his response of dropping everything because it really illustrates the place that Alison has in his heart; nothing is more important to him than she is.
The same should be true for us. How many times have you been working on a project, reading a book, or watching TV when your wife asks for your attention, only for you to keep her at bay until you finish that step, sentence, or scene? What does that say about how you view your wife? Certainly you don’t value her less than what you’re doing, so it’s important for your actions to show it.
You most likely spend most of your days separated from your wife by work. Thankfully we have communications technologies that make it a much easier separation to bear. We’re able to text, call, and tweet to find out how our days are going, what’s on our minds, when we’re leaving to come home, and what we’re having for dinner.
When practicable, answer her texts promptly. A text, though not a premium form of communication, is a rough equivalent of your wife standing next to you. When she texts you, take a minute and respond. Even better, send her kind words randomly throughout the day. These random texts serve as little reminders of why you love her and how great she is.
The real struggle that you’ll face when implementing this “drop everything for her” program is going to be when you do so at home. You can wait a minute to read a text message, your wife won’t wait a full minute to speak with you. When she speaks, listen. Pause the game, mute the TV, put down the book, turn away from the computer, look away from the phone. Whatever you’re doing in that moment, it’s not nearly as important as whatever your wife has to say. Further, when she asks you to do something, do it. It’s ok to put it off for a few minutes, but not much longer than that. Even more than just taking a time out, if you’re asked a question, give a thoughtful answer. It’s tempting to give her the quick answer that gets you back to whatever you were doing. Answer truthfully and give your honest opinion. Serving your wife and helping her with whatever she needs help with is the most important thing you can be doing in any moment of your day.
When you’re playing with your kids, this habit is even more important. Your kids, as you undoubtedly know, are always watching you. When you press pause at the drop of a hat to help your wife, they see what being a good husband means. When they see that you’ll pause whatever game you were playing or stop everything when your wife asks for your attention, it’ll make an impact.
The habit of dropping everything for your wife is a difficult one to master. It takes a good deal of effort to break out of the cycle that we’re currently in. However, with practice and discipline, you’ll soon be communicating to both your children and your wife that she’s the most important thing in your world, at every moment of the day.
Missing Alison
Alison’s work schedule is, at times, a real challenge for me. On her month of nights, she’d be at home and awake from about noon to 5pm and then gone or asleep for the rest of the day. Some mornings I’d even crawl back into bed for a nap while she was sleeping just so we could be together.
I know that with her chosen profession there are going to be a lot of hours required on her part. I also know that, in a way, it helps us to be more diligent about spending time together. We don’t take hours for granted because they’re not stable. We can’t count on 5pm being the end of the work day.
We have a limited amount of time with our wives. Perhaps in your home both of you work, thus further limiting the amount of time you have to spend together. It’s important to find alone time to keep your marriage strong. You both must balance all of the demands on your time and carve out both family and couple time. The bottom line is that if you’re not intentional about making time to be together, it just won’t happen.
Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. In our case, I do all that I can to work while Alison is at work. That means that when she’s home, I don’t have anything weighing on my mind or a to do list that’s demanding immediate action. I’m able to give myself permission to just relax and do whatever Alison wants. This is why Sunday is the perfect day to spend time together. When you work hard for six days of the week, you get to rest on Sunday. When both you and your wife have a down day, you’re able to literally spend the whole day together if you choose.
Steal little moments. Make dinner together or clean the kitchen together. Work on a craft project, yard cleanup, or home improvement project. Adjust your children’s sleep schedule to give you time for a movie before bed. Look for new opportunities to be alone together so that when you’re apart, you can be satisfied knowing you made good use of the time you did have together.
Being away from your wife is hard. By being a good steward of your time together and by completing tasks and projects while you’re away, you can make the time that you have together truly special.
Be Full of Surprises
A few days before Valentine’s Day, my sister texted me asking what my plans were. “Are you going to write Alison a love letter and draw her a bath?” Of course, I responded yes. I also noted how hard it is to surprise Alison because I give away my best ideas on the blog and she edits every single one of them!
Surprises add a nice flair to life. A little pick-me-up or a gentle reminder of one’s love and affection can make a big impact on someone’s day. More than that, it keeps things fresh. By not following the script that’s been written, an element of excitement and newness fills the air. If you’re not surprising your wife on a regular basis, in ways big and small, you’re not trying.
Marriage is built on and fueled by sweat equity. When you put in a lot of sweat, your marriage benefits. When you slack off, your marriage stagnates. It all goes back to the principles of physics: an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Being full of surprises takes innovation and effort. It takes thoughtfulness and creativity. Not only is it fun for your wife to be on the receiving end of these surprises, but it’s fun for you. The fun comes from your ability to do something entirely new without her suspecting a thing. The fun comes when you see the look of shock on your wife’s face when you’ve broken down another preconceived notion that she has of you. You’re an amazing man with many talents. Show her.
Surprises are the perfect expression of love. They take prior planning, an element of positive secrecy and commitment. When you take the time out of your life to plan and execute on a surprise, you’re telling your wife just how much she means to you. It’s a bright spot in her day. You took your precious time and resources and spent them on her. That’s a big deal!
Surprises should be unexpected, but not infrequent. The nature of surprises has little to do with time and everything to do with variety. You could surprise your wife with flowers on Monday, a clean house on Tuesday, and a candlelit dinner on Wednesday. She could be surprised each day because each instance is a different way of being surprised. Think outside the box! What is a totally new, inventive, and amazing way to surprise your wife? Hot air ballon ride? Handcrafted spice rack? Salsa dancing? Mix it up and do it often.
Surprise is the spice of life. While there are plenty of great ways to keep your marriage alive and strong, few things are more effective than surprises. Add some adventure and thrill to your wife’s life by incorporating a habit of surprising her into your life.
An Undivided Heart
When I was in college, I loved dating. I went on dates with many women, was in a relationship with a few, and married one of them. It’s a difficult transition to shift your mindset from one of dating to one of a committed relationship. A marriage, being the lifelong commitment that it is, requires your full, undivided heart.
Dating is fun, as it should be. Getting to meet a multitude of people, learning what traits you desire in your spouse, and making rookie mistakes are all good and healthy things. There’s nothing wrong with a young man or young woman dating many people. Not only is each date a quasi-interview for a potential future spouse, it’s a safe and fun environment to get to know people on a deeper level. Your children should be encouraged to engage in an active dating life that’s both age and relationally appropriate. By encouraging healthy dating at home, you can give them the tools they need to continue healthy dating when they move out.
Once you’ve chosen your spouse, and they’ve chosen you, it’s imperative to have an undivided heart. Your spouse deserves and needs your full love, as do your children. 99% of spouses expect exclusivity in their marriage and the practical implications are clear when one considers the survivability of a marriage when one spouse cheats. An undivided heart is the best tool for maintaining and growing a vibrant, healthy marriage.
Marriage isn’t about just avoiding evil. It’s also about doing good. It’s not enough to shut out distractions. Rather, in addition to avoiding distractions and temptations, a spouse must actively pour themselves and their love into the relationship. It’s precisely the exclusivity and permanence of marriage that gives it its stability. Give your love only to your wife.
The benefits of exclusivity are self-evident. Men don’t want to materially support the rearing of another man’s children. Women don’t want to compete with other women or unrealistic fantasies. On a deeper level, both husband and wife want to be respected. On your wedding day, you promised your love exclusively to one another. Based on those promises, we each simply expect our spouse to follow through.
The problem is that we live in a world of distractions. Pornography, careerism, excesses, fantasy media, and other distractions divert precious energy, time, and resources away from marriage. When one spouse struggles, the whole family suffers. When distractions start to plant unrealistic expectations in the mind of a spouse, the marriage starts to crack. These are not harmless distractions and they’re anything but “normal.” It’s vitally important that we cut through the lies and the posturing and recognize distractions for what they really are. These distractions are the single greatest threat to your marriage and are the gateway drug to infidelity.
Again, life, especially marriage, is not simply about avoiding evil. Instead, we should be actively choosing to live the good. There’s a great strength in an undivided heart. One is not a prisoner of his own passions has a clear mind and an open heart. They are able to navigate around temptation, recognize truth, and love fully. When you’re able to give fully of your self, your marriage will benefit immensely. Like a carefully tended garden, the flowers will blossom and the fruit will be rich.
As Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” In the same way, a heart divided cannot support a marriage. Let go of the things that are holding you back from fully and freely loving your wife.
Forget About Being Right
There are many commonly held beliefs about marriage that I refuse to subscribe to. Over the past two years, they’ve been weaved into many of the posts that have appeared on this blog. I don’t believe that marriage is about someone being in control. I don’t believe marriage is about someone being nothing more than a rubber stamp. I believe that marriage is more than a partnership or a co-venture. Marriage is about a husband and a wife, both pouring themselves completely into relationship and reaping the rewards together.
I’m so tried of people telling me the way to have a happy marriage is for the husband to only say, “Yes ma’am.” You might think people are being hyperbolic, but I don’t. If I were a wife, and my husband was an empty suit like that, I’d be furious. Who wants to be committed for life to a person who’s completely spineless? Just as egregious, I don’t think that your wife is always right and you’re always wrong. I’m so resolute in my belief that I first addressed this topic in my 4th blog post to appear on this site, way back in March of 2013.
Yet, despite my protests, it’s true that being obsessed with who’s right only prolongs conflict. Fights don’t have to last long. In fact, they can end very shortly after they begin. All you have to do is stop being emotional and forget about being right. It’s a hard concept to execute in the heat of the moment, but it’s still very possible.
In the final analysis, who was right in any given conflict is not nearly as important as the relationship itself. Conflict is never resolved by assigning blame. Conflict is resolved when core problems are identified and remedied. Once the core issue is taken care of, everything else resolves itself. Assigning blame is treating a symptom- remedying the underling issue is treating the disease. Beware of pride in fights. When we let our pride take over and continue to posture, we only prolong a conflict and let it do further damage to our marriage.
It’s important to be more concerned with mending the broken fences. No one likes an unpleasant conflict in their relationship. The situation is even worse when the impediment is in your marital relationship and you have to see your spouse every day! When you forget about who’s right, you can start asking yourself what you can do to heal the relationship. If you have any role in the conflict, make immediate adjustments to remove the road block to peace. Then, be sure to ask yourself the perennial question, how can you prevent a repeat fight over this same issue?
When you’re able to set aside your emotions in a conflict with your wife, you’re able to get a better understanding of the situation that you find yourselves in. Remember to be kind. Kindness, humility, and servant leadership aren’t concerned with winning. Instead, they’re concerned with loving. Make the resolution a win-win. By acting with kindness, you ease the pain of conflict with your wife and you also replace negativity in your own mind with gentleness.
If you want to drive your relationship off a cliff, by all means, full speed ahead with the blame game. If you want to strengthen your marriage and reduce suffering just forget about who’s right.
Three Ways to Improve Date Night
Now that Alison’s internship is starting to wind down and she’s finished with her examinations and their associated preparations, we’re finding more and more time to spend as a family. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still crazy busy and working long hours, usually far from home, but now that she has less on her plate, her home time really is our own.
When we first got married, I read a study by the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project. In the study, researchers found that there was a real, tangible benefit in having regularly scheduled date nights. Couples were not only happier, they had higher quality sex lives, a significantly lower rate of divorce, and well above average marital satisfaction. Upon reading that study, I decided to do my best to implement the practice.
Life happens and the opportunity for date night ebbs and flows, but there isn’t a week that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about the importance of a weekly date night and a desire to have one. The other week, Alison and I finally were able to have a date night after many months without any. We played “The Office” board game, had a drink, and enjoyed the time to just be silly and have fun.
Our choice to play a board game is just one of the infinite possibilities for your date night. Although date night should be regularly scheduled, it should be anything but routine.
Having new experiences with your wife is a key component to happiness. The unknown and the excitement of surprises play right into our curious nature. Although you and your wife may be expert mountain climbers, there’s always something exciting about a new trail. Although you may be professional bowlers, there’s something new about going to a different bowling alley. Each week, try to change some aspect of the date night and make it something that you’ll both look forward to.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You must have sex on date night. Our society has gotten way out of control with expectations about sex. Sex and dates have become so intertwined in our minds that we stop trying to separate them. The fact remains that while they can pair nicely and appropriately in a marriage, they shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion. You and your wife should be able to be intimate without having sex. Even more important, intimacy, fun, and together time shouldn’t be exclusive to sex. You and your wife should be able to have fun, be intimate, and be together for an enjoyable evening without having to have sex. This is especially true when you’re spacing pregnancy with valid cause. In the times when you abstain, you still need to be connecting. Sex is important, but don’t make it the foundation upon which you build date nights.
We spend way too much time being serious. Let date night be your hall pass to let loose. Put the kids to bed or hire a babysitter and just enjoy being the people you are. Don’t bring emotional baggage, stress, or technology. Give yourself permission to have the night off and not worry about life. Be free to be silly like you were when you were dating.
As we travel through life, into marriage and onto the journey of parenting, we change. We rise to the occasion and live our lives responsibly. Date nights are a weekly opportunity for you and your wife to focus on what is the center of your family’s life, your relationship. Your family’s happiness, wellbeing, and ultimately the success of your children rests largely on the quality of your marriage. We spend most of our days looking out from our marriage and caring for the needs of our family. It’s critical that you regularly take time to look in on your marriage and care for your relationship’s needs.
By doing something different, avoiding the trap of making it all about sex, and giving yourself permission to let loose, you can dramatically improve your weekly date night, and, by extension, your marriage.
Don’t let another week pass you by.
Your Role As Husband
The role of husband is perhaps the most challenging role that any man faces. As a single man, the world was your domain. You chose your coming and your going. You chose what you ate, when you ate. You did all of your own social planning, shopping, and travel. As we stepped into the role of husband, and subsequently the role of father, all of that changed.
Some may decry the lost freedom that a married man experiences. Some men long for days of old when they needed no one’s permission, when they had their entire living quarters to themselves, and all was at their direction. What is perceived as a loss is actually a gain.
Man is fulfilled in the married life, whether that be through a permanent marriage to a woman or to the Church. There’s something about the social constructs of both marriage and Holy Orders that not only spurs a rapid maturation in men, but also remarkable stability. Vocation brings us into the fullness of what it means to be men.
The role of husband is so challenging because it requires all of our energy and effort; others depend on us. Our wives depend on us to provide for their emotional needs. They depend on us for stability and strength of character. They depend on us to help guard them from threats against the family. As fathers, our children are wholly dependent on us from their first moments in the world and continue to be through the long and arduous process of growing up.
While we are the head of our household and the leader of our family, these roles are not honorary ones. A husband doesn’t sit on his throne regulating the lives of his household. Rather, he must engage in the activities that real husbands engage in, namely, leading by example. He initiates family prayers, he proactively plays with his children, he finds ways to ease his wife’s pressures and burdens, and he promotes domestic tranquility by ensuring that his own emotions foster a low-conflict marriage.
What so many of us are tempted to do, especially in times of strife, is to shift the blame onto someone else. Husbands can be quick to blame their wives for whatever ill the family is facing, but that’s a recipe for disaster. We should recognize that injecting blame into any situation only exacerbates the problem. Everyone makes big mistakes and everyone makes little mistakes. So instead of focusing on who did what, focus on what we can do to fix it.
To this point, we haven’t considered the duties and responsibilities of the wife. In fact, reading with a certain bias, one might find these concepts to be completely sexist, painting wives as helpless without a husband. Not so. We’ve focused exclusively on the role of husbands because, frankly, we don’t seem to have a good grasp on what that role really is.
Not only are we facing record levels of absentee fathers, some fathers who live with their families are mentally or emotionally absentee. They come home from work, exchange pleasantries, and then engage in their own pursuits, wanting to be waited on hand and foot. If we don’t have a job description, if we don’t understand what being a husband truly means, how can we expect men to step into the role?
We’re innately coded to protect, defend, and provide for our families. When we have no direction or clear communication about what’s expected of us, that’s when our marriages start to crack.
As husbands, we must be proactive. We have to communicate with our wives about how she sees our role. We must understand what things we do that drive her crazy and how we can better meet her needs. This is an evolving conversation, not a one and done. On a daily or weekly basis we need to be checking in to make sure that we’re not only meeting her expectations, but exceeding them.
We need to be active in our children’s lives. We need to make diligent use of our time so we do the things we want to do while not stealing time away from our family. We need to turn off the TV and just roll around on the floor with our kids. We need to reintroduce family activities that reinforce family identity, values, and mutual growth.
Your marriage is not based on emotions or intensity. Your marriage is based on a mutual consent between you and your wife to love each other so fully and completely that it flows forth into your children and your children’s children. You can only meet that standard if you’re all in.
Do Valentine’s Day Right
—PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT—
WARNING! Valentine’s Day is in 4 days. WARNING!
As a man, you might be tempted to think that Valentine’s Day is all too commercial and certainly beneath you and your wife’s relationship. That would make you wrong.
While everyday should be Valentine’s Day in your marriage, or at least more than just once a year, I can tell you that your wife will be expecting something this Saturday. That doesn’t make her shallow or materialistic, that makes her a woman.
There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Valentine’s Day. Your wife certainly doesn’t want to be inundated on Facebook with pictures of love tokens that her friends received when she’s sitting at home with a big fat nothing because you were an oaf.
Not to worry, if you’ve just realized that you’ve got nothing, I’m here to help. Here are a few ideas that require no money but lots of sweat equity.
Valentine’s Day is all about giving, not about taking or receiving. So pour yourself completely into pampering her for just one day on February 14th, and then repeat daily.
There Will Be Stress
In marriage you share everything, including stress. You won’t find that little jewel printed on any brochure and you most likely didn’t hear it in your pre-marriage counseling, but it’s the truth.
Stress is a natural occurrence in the human experience. We recognize our fear of the unknown and our lack of control over many things in our world and that recognition leads to increased stress levels. We’re stressed as we wait for the results of a diagnostic test, we’re stressed over uncertainty in our company, and we’re stressed about political unrest. We say “let go and let God,” but that’s a very difficult catchphrase to put into practice.
Perhaps the greatest stress is being nearly helpless in easing the burdens on your spouse’s mind. A few weeks ago, Alison took a major test for licensure. It was incredibly expensive (thankfully we didn’t have to pay for it) and, honestly, a lot was riding on it. I couldn’t help her study, I couldn’t be with her for the 8 hour long test, all I could do was support her. I supported her through prayer, through giving her the space and time she needed to study, and by putting on hold all minor activities and decisions until the test was done.
Your role as the primary support structure for your wife is one of the great practical ways that marriage works for the family. Spouses are able to seamlessly transfer responsibilities to one another as needed. When Alison needs to study, I can watch Benedict. When I’m behind on work, Alison can make dinner. When the weather is bad, I can drive Alison to work. When I’m sick, Alison can do the laundry. When Alison is preparing for a major test or certification, I can handle the family’s administrative and financial affairs.
Family perfectly makes sense within the context of marriage because we need permanence in our lives. We need margin for grace and mercy. We need communication and connection so deep and so lasting that small quarrels stay small. We need that stability so that when the world around us is up in the air, we can rely on the Church and our wife to be the same.
The benefit of a strong martial relationship is that you’ll be able to sense when your wife’s stress level is elevated and you’ll intuitively know how to proceed. You’ll know what conversations and decisions can wait, and you’ll know what things to do to help make her day a little bit better, like getting water for her nightstand.
Sharing stress in your marriage is inevitable. Be alert, able, and willing to take on added responsibilities when your wife needs you to.
Love Letters from the Past
Recently, I went through all of my Facebook messages and deleted old conversations. I’ve never been big into using Facebook messages for communicating, but for some odd reason, Facebook preserved just about every message I’ve sent using the service for the past 8 years. It took me about 2 hours to get rid of all of them, but I did it.
Something very uncomfortable happened while I was deleting those messages-I was extremely embarrassed. The things I wrote, said, and did were, well, juvenile. Certainly they were somewhat appropriate for my age at the time, but older, married, father Chet blushed a little bit.
We all feel that way. We were all dumb when we were younger. I have no doubt that 10 years from now, as I read the early blog posts from Catholic Husband, the experienced writer in me will blush at the messy constructs, poor grammar, and reliance on the same old conventions in post after post.
I recently came across another set of writings, scribbled on random pieces of paper, many years ago. While the author is embarrassed about them, I actually treasure them.
In a small wicker box next to my bed is a collection of love letters that Alison wrote to me many years ago. While I’ve only started to delve into this trove of insights into the woman who would become my wife, I can’t help but be flattered, and, well, chuckle a bit.
Each letter focuses around the set of emotions and thoughts that she was exploring at any given time. There is talk of her crushes, struggle with friends, and even the occasional talk of becoming a nun.
What I find particularly comforting is her writing about praying for me. We grew up hundreds (and at times, thousands) of miles apart. Yet, many times when she wrote about praying for me, I know based on the date, that I really needed it.
She also has a pretty good sense of self-awareness and wrote up an excellent profile of me, 3 years before we met.
How can this make us better husbands, today? No doubt you already know your wife, so it’s a bit late to be writing down some notes filled with teen angst and impatience waiting for her.
I think that this brings me back to my commitment to love letters. They’re fairly infrequent these days because I want the element of surprise to be a part of it, only making their way into Alison’s hands a few times a year. Nonetheless, they’re still deeply important. As a man, I really like getting love letters, even ones from the past. As a woman, I know that Alison loves getting them ten times more than I do.
Love letters from the past are an amazing thing. For me, they’re just small reminders of just how much Alison really loves me.