Good afternoon ladies. I am feeling as though there are a lot of smiling hubbies out in the world today. Maybe not all of them, but more than usual. Am I right? I have enjoyed reading all of the comments & emails on the successes that many of you had last night. Keep them coming. I was fortunate enough to meet a new friend & blog follower for coffee this morning. She is a day behind, so she just read challenge #13 this morning. She decided not to wait until tonight to move forward. She went into the bedroom & took action! Go her!
Think about how your husband's day might be different today than it normally would be. Not only does your "new" behavior affect you & your marriage, but his co-workers might be positively affected, his boss, his employees, fellow drivers on the road (no road rage today), & everyone that he comes in contact with. I am so proud of all of you for embracing what could have been one of the most difficult challenges. Praise God!
Over the past week or two I have been compiling great quotes from friends on Facebook or Twitter whenever I come across one. I would also like to invite you to email me over a quote that may have been powerful in your life. I will be sharing them over time as they are appropriate to the message. There are some REALLY good ones so far. Since today is our last challenge for this series I want to share one that grabbed me the other day. While many of you have succeed each day & made drastic improvements in your marriages, there have been many women coming up with every & any excuse to fail.
"Quit making excuses for the way you are & let God transform you into the person He created you to be!!" - Thank you Larry Brey for your amazing words. Your Twitter posts often stop me in my tracks!
Doesn't that make you think? What are you making excuses for? Not just in your marriage, but in your personal life. Often what runs us down personally interferes in our marriages. What can you change today that will give you the courage to work on your marriage a little harder than you were before?
We seem to think that we can work on our marriages only when we want to, or in my case, when it fell apart. Unfortunately, there is so much more damage to be undone by looking at things from this perspective. It needs to be a priority, a requirement, to work on your marriage EVERY SINGLE DAY. You have to make a decision that you marriage is important to you. Remember, feelings follow choices? Most of you don't have the luxury of only going to work when you feel like it. Right? If you behaved that way you would most likely lose your job, right? Well, making a conscious decision to NOT work on your marriage can cause you to lose your spouse. I am sure that most of you can agree that it is easier to find another job (even in this economy), than finding another suitable husband. Why is it then, that we give our jobs more attention than we give our husbands?
I am extremely proud of all of you for taking this 14 day challenge. I can't praise you enough. Based on the poll question on the left sidebar, it looks like 96% of you have found this information helpful in your marriages. That is amazing! Adam & I are so excited for what is to come for each & every one of you. My biggest fear is that you will feel that tonight is the end, the last day. My prayer is that you will look at today as the beginning of a journey that will strengthen your marriage in a way that you never thought possible, but have always dreamed of.
Today's lesson is the lesson that changed everything in my marriage. It is the day that spoke to Adam in a way that I had not been speaking to him before. It was not a miracle pill that caused him to come home the next day, but it opened a door. I did this challenge at a time when I didn't like 90% of what Adam was doing. He had moved 3 1/2 hours away & was creating a life that clearly didn't include us. However, when I sat & thought about it, I came up with about 15 things that I appreciated about him. Things that I respected, regardless of his behavior at that exact moment.
Lesson #14
Say to him, "I was thinking today about all of the things about you that I respect, & I want you to know that I really respect you." Exit the room. When he asks, if he asks, be prepared to give him at least three things.
Note - Since Adam was not "home" with me, my options were over the phone, text, or email. Telling him on the phone didn't seem workable to me, email could take days, so I figured that a text was as close to the challenge as I could get. I sent him a text asking if he was busy. He told me that he wasn't & he asked what was up. I did the challenge. It worked exactly as Dr. Eggerichs said that it would. Adam wanted to know what I respected about him, especially since I seemed to disagree with everything that he was doing at the time. (his words) I text him, yes I text, 15 things. It took a while, LOL. He thanked me for saying those things but he let me know that it hurt him that it took me until he left me for me to acknowledge them. It hurt me too. Why did I let it happen this way?
Here I had this list of 15 things, but I wasn't really showing him that I meant or even noticed any of them. What a wake up call that was. I made that list in about 10 minutes. I felt at that moment that I had taken advantage of my husband. I took him for granted, assuming that he would always be there. Of course, this was not intentional, but that didn't matter. Ignorance is not bliss. Much damage had been done. Ladies PLEASE, don't let this happen to your marriage. Don't lose a man that you love & respect simply because you aren't showing him what he means to you. You might be thinking that he is taking advantage of you as well, & you might be right. Remember, this is about changing YOU.
Tonight I am begging for a favor. I have asked before but tonight I will resort to begging. Please send in your comments & testimonials. Let us know how this whole process has made a positive impact in your marriage, tell us about the success of a single challenge, or tell us which day you resisted the most & how it went past your expectations. I will be sharing your stories over the next few days. (I will leave out names, of course) Let's give back & get some of these other wives excited that are on the fence about if this can REALLY help them. Let's encourage other wives to try a little harder. Let's show them that this CAN work. It certainly can't hurt. Right?
"Lord, please give us the encouragement to complete tonight's challenge with sincerity. Please soften our husband's hearts & open their eyes to the work that we have been doing for 2 weeks. Please speak through us & help us to chose the correct words. We can't do this without you Lord, we need your help. Please hold our hands as we begin our journey into the rest of our lives. May our marriages be as great as you intended. Thank you Father for my husband. I am blessed that you chose him for me. Amen!"
2 comments:
My very favorite quote... "Anyone can give up its the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart...that's true strength"
Respect. It's often the least recognized part of our relationship. I so want my husband to know that I respect him so much-I am in awe of him in so many ways, too many to even count. This exercise has made me aware of how important it is that I not keep these things a secret that I only tell my journal--I need to be telling my husband.
Tonight when we go to bed I want to reach over to touch his arm and tell him just how much I respect him and all that he does for me and for our family. Tell him that all the ways he serves me are special to me and I would literally be lost without him.
Thank you again Aimee for opening doors I hadn't really even known were closed. They were though.
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