Brag on your man!

I was thinking about thanksgiving day and I came up with an Idea.

Some of us will be at other peoples homes or have our homes filled with people.I had the idea that this is a good time to brag about our husbands to others infront of him. Yes, brag on him, praise him. It is soo fun and does huge things to his self image. You would not believe how much it means for a man to hear his wife boasting about him like he would a new car. There is nothing a man cannot accomplish if he believes his wife believes in him.

I know he may not return the praise and thats ok for today. Just let it be a time where your giving him the gift of encouragement.

Are you sitting there thinking...What is the world would I say? Well here is some ideas you can use and revamp to fit your man. We will use the name Sneed, because I am fairly sure I do not have a Sneed reader or married to a reader.

Sneed has been working so hard for our family. It means so much to me that he is willing to do that.

Sneed puts in hours of over time for us to have nice things.

Sneed is such a great Dad he is always willing to ________________.

Sneed knows so much about _______________ I am amazed.

Sneed still makes me take a second look when I see him.

Sneed makes me laugh all the time. Its so nice to have laughter in your life.

Now remember dont start the praise with a qualifier, "Sneed isn't a very good cook but he sure tries". Not quite it!

Dont say "Sneed tries to be a good Dad". That seems empty.

Don't use scarcasm, say it plainly.

Do it several times over a visit and watch your mans chest puff up bigger then the Turkey on table. If you happen to see me, do it infront of me, it will surely make me smile. Let me know how it goes!!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving, I want to thank you all for the secret inbox messages and the opportunity to help many of you with little problems you have had and insights you have shared with me. I am enjoying writing the blog.

Almost deleted the blog!

I was reminded by a dear sweet friend that I had not blogged in awhile. I told her I would write that day, but I did not. I even sit here today trying to figure what to write. I think its because last week I tried to delete this blog, but I couldn't figure out how. I sat at this computer with Tom standing over my shoulder telling me I was being ridiculous and to wait and give it time. I had no choice since I didn't know how to delete it.

I had had a terrible evening as a wife. I lost it with Tom and yelled and acted like a total fool. He was upset too and for the first time in ages, I mean ages we went to sleep mad. (Not biblical, not good) I went to work the next day still feeling the seperation between us. I just felt terrible all day long. Tom texted me the sweetest message and it sort of broke the frost so to speak.

We are perfectly fine now. I just felt like,who am I to be writing about being a good wife when I was so aweful. I am reminded now of the "Love Bank". A love bank is a way to describe how people fall in love and stay that way. When we do nice things for our husbands or they for us they make deposits into a love bank. Things that we do that hurt our spouse or neglect them they are like withdrawls. Marriages get in trouble when the withdrawls are more then deposits.

I was awful to Tom and definetly made a withdrawl that night, but thankfully because usually I am trying to be a good wife and meet his needs there was plenty in the account for us to easily forgive, forget and move on.

I wanted to delete the blog when it happened because I was feeling so hypocritical, but perhaps it is good to be more real.

I would love to hear your struggles, maybe we can all help each other be the best wives we can be.

I am thankful that he doesn't pick his nose.

A little detour from the norm. I was thinking about Thanksgiving. Many people I know are posting things on their facebook each day saying what they are thankful for until Thanksgiving.I am doing it too. It is always a great ideas to count your blessings.

When I thought about it I suddenly remembered a time in my life when intentionally finding the good in my husband saved our marriage. Yes thats what I said, it saved it.
You didn't think I learned all of this the easy way did you. There was a time many years ago that Tom and I were not doing so well as a couple. I don't want to go into details but bascially I was disenchanted by him. I had lost some of the love along the way.

The day I decided to fix our relationinship I realized that a big portion of my problem was not him, but me and my expectations of what I thought he should be as well as my inability to appreciate his gifts.

So, I began to make a list of all of Toms qualities, his gifts and good things he did and I gave thanks for them. I told myself I had to come up with 100 before I could stop. I got to about 10 and sort of got stuck for a day and I prayed to God to help me see my husband in a new light. So I got the idea to list little things. Numbers 11, 12, 13, 14 went something like this.


He doesn't pick his nose.
He likes my food.
He doesn't mind grilled cheese night.
He doesn't chew with his mouth open.

It was funny at first but a weird thing happened everywhere I went I saw men that picked their noses or chewed with their mouth open. I heard wives telling me they had to make big meals every night or their hubby was not happy. I realized these little things were not little, they were all important.

The farther on the list I got the more I had to pay attention to what he was doing and it causes me to see more and more.

He loves his children with all his heart.
He adores me.
He is sad because I am sad.
He never looks at other women.

Somewhere between 75-100,I fell in love all over again. I don't even remember what it was that caused us to go through the difficult months but I do remember the feeling of falling in love more deeply then ever before.

If your going through a time where the sparkle is gone, your having difficulties or the relationship feels flat, perhaps taking a few days to be thankful for all your husbands good qualitites would be just the thing to help you.

If this is one of my male readers why not do the same for your wife.
Wouldn't it be great to have the sparkle back by Thanksgiving.

Make him glad your the one waiting inside.

One time Tom was sweetly calling Cubby to come to him, simply to pet her and play a little. When she came up the stairs the smell came to greet us first. She had rolled into something outside and was smelly and dirty. All of Toms desire to spend time with her, pet her, was done. He had to take her outside and give her a bath before he could even conscider petting her again. In fact he loves when she is really clean and shiney. No one really likes a Dirty Dog.

One of the things that happened to me when I had my second child was I got really busy. I had so much to do and so little time. I wanted to spend quality time with my kids, make yummy meals, keep my house clean and continue to do ministry. I dont know how, but in all of that I put how I looked on the back burner. I didn't intend to, but it happened! I would look good if I went out, but not in my home day to day.

Tom would come home and I would have my hair pulled back, no make up on, sweat pants and usually a t-shirt that had something on it that indicated what the kids ate for lunch or what was planned for dinner. He didn't care he loved me and knew I was busy. Right? Maybe he didnt want to drag me out to the yard and bath me, but I began to wonder if comeing home to a shabby wife day after day was discouraging to him. I decided to change this after a visit to his office.

I went to his office to bring him something one afternoon. He had several IBM visitors there as well as regular office staff there. All of the women I came across were dressed for work. They were cleaned,they were well made up, they looked very nice and put together. I thought to myself he spends all days woth these women and comes home to Mrs. Sweatpants and pony tail. I came home feeling like I was an old mom. I momentarily had a thought that I missed the work world and that was the problem. However, that was not it, I loved being a wife and mother and would not ever want to do anything else. I just knew that I wanted to look more put together, partly for me, mostly for Tom.

I didnt want Tom to have any reason to look anywhere else. I wanted him to walk in the door and think, there is my beautiful wife. So, that next day I looked at the clock and knew Tom would be home in a few minutes. I flew up the stairs, ran a brush through my hair, put on a touch of make-up, perfume, and a nice shirt to go over my jeans. To be honest it was nothing at all like the buisness women I had seen at his work the day before, but it was A LOT better then what I had looked like.

He walked in and as I smiled and greeted him he said, "Wow you look great, where did you go today?" He had assumed that I only looked that way because I had been somewhere special. "No where, I just wanted to look nice for you" I replied.

I have continued to do a little primping if necessary, right before he comes in since then. Trust me there are days that no one looks good, but I wanted to look better for him on a more consistent basis. I wanted him to be glad he came home, glad he came home to me.

Its so easy to let ourselves go, its easy to make excuses, but its just as easy to do 10 minutes each day before they come home to make them glad your the one waiting inside.


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