by The Generous Husband | Oct 8, 2024 | ~ list info
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One of my post tags is “fight nice”. Maybe “argue nice” would be better, but let’s be honest, most of us fight once in a while.
Fighting is not a problem. Some couples in solid, healthy marriages do it regularly. What matters is how you fight, because that determines how you feel afterwards. It doesn’t matter if you think you won or lost if you feel beat up by the horrible things your wife said to, or about, you. Likewise for your wife.
Have you ever tried to back out of something nasty you said with, “It was the heat of the moment, I didn’t mean it.” If your wife says that to you about something ugly she said, does it make feel better? Don’t you suspect she meant what she said, at least a bit?
Then there’s yelling. Some couples scream at the top of their lungs at each other and walk away feeling fine. But some folks, and more women than men, feel violated when they’re yelled at. Unless you’re 100% sure yelling doesn’t hurt your wife, you need to avoid it.
More on Thursday.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE: The devastation from Hurricane Helene is horrible! Want to help out? The West End Bakery in Asheville, NC is doing what folks used to do, helping their neighbours out of the goodness of their hearts. They decided to use what supplies they had on hand to make bread to give away. There is a Go Fund Me to provide them money for more supplies so they can keep helping. As I write this, they are just short of halfway to the $100,000 goal. Please consider donating!
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by The Generous Husband | Oct 7, 2024 | Gratitude, Simple Ideas
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Thank You.
It’s two little words. But it can communicate so much.
Have you become so “comfortable” with your wife that you no longer say thank you for little things?
Say thank you every time it’s appropriate. It’s a little thing that could bring big results.
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by The Generous Husband | Oct 5, 2024 | Rethinking Sex, Sex Positive
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So what’s wrong with the image for this post? I mean aside from AI’s confusion about human anatomy.
After finishing their Bible study, this couple got frisky without hiding the Bible in a drawer! Even worse, they might have interrupted their Bible study to make out! The scandal!
I made this image after trying to get an image for last Friday’s XY post. Finding an image of a couple reading the Bible together in bed was difficult, and the only image I found had them fully clothed and above the covers. Even AI, which is limited by what it’s been trained on, struggled with this.
The obvious message is God and sex don’t mix. What’s more, God probably sees sex as a necessary evil.
Even those of us who think we’re not this way are usually effected by it. You ask God to bless your food before you eat, but have ever asked God to bless your sex before you make love? Do you pray to God about your sex life the way you pray about other needs or areas of stress? Do you do that as a couple? Have you ever asked a close friend to pray for some sexual problem the way you would other health issues?
Does an image of a man removing is wife’s bra inches from an open Bible make you a bit uneasy? Do you think God wants you to have wild, passionate, frequent sex with your wife? Or do you think your interest in sex is beyond what God wants? Have you ever thought the sexual frustration in your marriage is because you want too much?
Give this some thought and prayer. And then bring it up with your wife. God is wildly pro-sex in marriage. If that’s not how you see it, that error is limiting your sex life.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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by The Generous Husband | Oct 4, 2024 | ~ list info
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Fall has arrived in our little corner of the world. We’ve had two frosts (I’m getting tired of covering and uncovering things in the garden) and we’ve stopped leaving the windows open all night.
Today on Facebook I saw some local friends discussing the need to run their heat for the first time this morning. However, at the Byerly home we’re a couple of weeks from a bit of bedroom heat overnight, and perhaps a month from cranking up the wood stove. It’s not because we take the cold better than others do (I’m from Texas, they were born here!), rather, our house is very well insulated. Aside from the basement being almost all below ground, the windows are double pane and there is a ridiculous amount of insulation in the attic. Because of this, the house does a great job of retaining heat; we don’t need to add heat as early as many, and when we do need heat we do not need to add as much.
This got me thinking about marriages. To be healthy, a marriage needs to maintain a good temperature; if it gets too cold, it’s in trouble. The two ways of keeping a marriage’s temperature high are to generate heat, and retain heat. I think we need both parts; we can’t generate enough heat to keep an uninsulated marriage warm, and no amount of insulation will keep your marriage warm if you’re not generating any heat. Without adequate insulation, you have to work too hard to keep your marriage temperature where it needs to be, and sooner or later you’ll get too tried to keep it up. Without good insulation, even a short period of not generating heat will result in a cold marriage. With better insulation, the little problems of life that interfere with generating heat are far less of an issue.
How do you insulate your marriage? What could you do to better insulate it?
[This post first appeared Sept 12, 2012.]
Image Credit: © Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash
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by The Generous Husband | Oct 3, 2024 | Her Needs, Seeing Clearly
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Last week, Lori and I were at a thrift store. We’d found several things we wanted, and I sat down in the furniture area with the cart while Lori browsed a bit more.
A young couple with a baby and a toddler was looking at the offerings near me. From their discussion, I learned he was the primary pastor of a church.
Then I heard this exchange.
HIM: What about this?
HER: I don’t like it.
HIM: What if we put it in the basement?
Her: I don’t like it.
HIM: But it’s only $20!
Her: I don’t like it.
At this point I was fighting the urge to say “Dude, she doesn’t like it!”
And then he said, “How about we leave it, and if it’s still here next week, we can reconsider?”
And then I had to fight the urge to give him my card and suggest he needs a bit of marriage coaching.
I never turned around to see what the woman didn’t like. But it didn’t matter what it was. She had given her opinion, and nothing he said was going to change that. I suspect she felt he didn’t care about how she felt. I mean, I felt that way.
If your wife says “I don’t like it” to you, does that carry as much weight as it should? I’m not saying she has the right to veto anything regardless of how you feel. But ignoring her preferences should be rare, and for good reason.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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by The Generous Husband | Oct 1, 2024 | Change, GRACE
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Last week I did a couple of posts in which I said hurting our wife is always harmful to our marriage. Today the caveat.
Sometimes the truth hurts. And sometimes we need to share a truth that hurts. I think some of us are way too quick to share such truths. It’s far better to make sure God wants us to share it, and to do so at this time. We also need to share with as much love and humility as possible. But even when we do it perfectly, it still hurts.
When we rightly share a truth that hurts, it may do harm to our marriage. If that happens, it is hopefully a temporary harm that leads to change and growth.
Be wise, and don’t rush to do something you know will hurt your wife.
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by The Generous Husband | Sep 30, 2024 | Change, Good Marriage, Simple Ideas
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My wife is a big fan of baby steps. Make one small change in the direction you want to go. Then another, and another. Baby steps are a powerful way to change your marriage.
Please note, I said steps, not step. The occasional step in a random direction won’t accomplish much.
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by The Generous Husband | Sep 28, 2024 | Marriage Killer, Seeing Clearly
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On Thursday, I said hurting our wives always harms our marriages. Today I want to give a real life, bedroom example.
You want sex. You ask if she is interested in having sex. She says no. And you get angry, or moody, or ignore her for the next 24 hours.
Any of these reactions hurts your wife. But they do more than that. They make you seem selfish, or childish, or manipulative. And any of these things makes you less sexy, which decreases her interest in sex in the future. And that harms your marriage.
I suspect most of us can identify with this example. And we could argue it’s a natural reaction. But it being natural doesn’t make it right or good. Being natural doesn’t change how it makes us look, how she feels about that, or that it makes us less sexually desirable.
If you’re trying to make her feel bad, or guilt her into sex, odds are she knows that’s what you’re doing. And that’s even worse for her and for your marriage.
Doing things that hurt your wife is destructive. Learn to do better.
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