how to Love your Woman better part small intentional sacrifices

i’m not a big fan of commercialised Christmas vibes and in particular Christmas carols – woergh – kinda hate them with a passion…

my wife, TBV, is a big fan of Christmas and Christmas-related stuff though (although she says carols aren’t huge for her either!)

and i realised the other day that in my adamant ‘we will fight carols on the beaches, we will fight them on the shores, we will never surrender’ and ‘i have a dream of a Christmastime where all carols will be banished to the basement of society’ and ‘you want Christmas stuff? I think i’m entitled to it. You want Christmas stuff? I WANT THE CAROLS! You can’t handle the carols!’ speeches she may have got the vibe that i don’t want any Christmas stuff.

fortunately i figured it out just in time and, even though i’m not the hugest fan of all the Christmas stuff i realised this is important stuff to her, because it means more to her to have it than it does to me to not have it i quickly messaged her and told her ‘of course we’re going to have stuff and start planning and if we need to buy any stuff then let’s do it’ – let’s just say that it went down well.

one of the secrets to loving your woman well is to know what means a lot to her and even if it does mean some small sacrifice (and this one really isn’t a huge sacrifice, something i’m less interested in getting around to or making an effort for as opposed to being set against so really not a big deal) to take many opportunities to go out of your way to provide that for her.

i think sometimes in relationships we can caught up in doing only stuff that benefits both of us – so buying a slab of chocolate or bag of chips or renting a dvd that i like so it feels like i’m doing something for her, but actually i’m just selfishly including her in something i wanted for myself… and then never sacrificing anything for the benefit of something she is actually very much wanting because it doesn’t do all that much for me.

there is an amazing picture of this kind of love in the story of King David at a time when he has sinned and God is busy punishing Israel with a huge destructive plague and David goes to this man Araunah to offer a sacrifice to God on his plot of land and Araunah offers the place and the wood and the offering free of charge to the king and David refuses to take it for free saying, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” [2 Samuel 24.24]

how much sacrifice exists in the love you have for your wife or girlfriend?
is it time you changed the way you ‘love’?
when last did you buy her some flowers?

for the next part of ‘How to Love your woman better’ – Verbal Blessing – click here.

How to Love Your Woman Better part the Defining of Love

Hollywood (and the greater media) pretty much says (intimates) that love is a feeling and that the expression of that feeling is sex, and also pretty much once the feeling goes love has gone and you should walk away (and get a divorce). Which is why we have such a huge divorce rate where one out of three (or is it two now) marriages end in divorce.

But there is another, better way…

A way that says ‘Love is patient’

Love is kind…

It does not envy…

It does not boast…

It is not proud…

It is not rude…

It is not self-seeking…

It is not easily-angered…

It keeps no record of wrongs [read that one again!]

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects…

It always hopes…

It always perseveres [read that one again!]

Love never fails! [it makes mistakes, but it doesn’t fail]

A lot of you will no doubt recognise this passage from the Bible in the letter Paul writes to the Corinthians [1 Cor 13.4-8] but i have yet to see a better understanding and explanation of what love is or should be about.

But for those of you who are familiar with the passage you probably recognised it and went ‘ah, i know that’ and skimmed down to see what i would say about it. Don’t do that. Go back – in fact all of you, if you are serious about loving your woman (man, parents, kids, friends) better then work through these points one by one and ask ‘is this true for me?’ and if not then what am i going to do to change it?

One way that might help is by substituting your name for every time it refers to love and seeing how much you laugh or cringe at the statement…

So brett is patient… [laugh? cringe?]

brett doesn’t keep a record of wrongs… [laugh? cringe?]

brett always protects, trusts, hopes… [laugh? cringe?]

brett never fails…?

Love involves choice, it involves being intentional, it involves sacrifice. True love involves lifting up the other person above yourself (needs, wants, desires) and taking care of them/theirs first.

Love your woman better! It’s so much bigger than a feeling. It’s so much greater than just sex. It’s never worth walking away from just cos either of those run out.

For the next part of ‘How to Love your woman better’ – Small Intentional Sacrifices – click here.

How to Love your Woman Better part arguing well. Part I (of III)

This one goes out to those of you who have girlfriends or wives (and if you’ve been paying attention and using your brains all along this series you will realise that most of what i say would fit into a ‘how to love your man better’ series or be applied to family and friends and work colleagues to differing extents so i hope no-one has been put off by the titles – i am specifically wanting to help guys be better men which is why i am addressing it to them) because as amazing and incredible and heart-fluttering and life-transforming and silly-grin-forming and so on as it is, there will come a time…

Being married is not easy. Well i mean it is. A lot. A lot of lots of easy. A lot of the time. But not all of the time. Sometimes it is not easy. Sometimes it is work/effort. Sometimes it is sacrifice and compromise. And sometimes it is arguing…

Because inevitably that will happen. If you never ever argue or fight in your relationship then chances are you are not being real with each other. In fact i’d stake the farm on it. I don’t have a farm, but if i did this is the bet i’d gamble it on. And i don’t think it is much of a gamble. There may be some couple reading this who go ‘oh but we never fight’ – if you’re a long distance couple and see each other for two days once a month then that is likely to be true because every night is date night and mxit or facebook or sms or phone call only reveal the good positive happy fun side of your person. But if you are in ongoing relationship (and especially if you are married when you have to stick around – and more importantly choose to – you can’t not be there when you don’t feel like it or when you’re cranky or she’s cranky or you both are) and see each other a lot, there will be conflict. [or one of you or even both in our grande dislike of confrontation might suppress and argument and back away or withdraw and so it may look like you’re not fighting, but the fight has just moved to an internal battlefield with far worse consequences eventually]

And so arguments will happen. To love your woman better you can choose to argue well.

To continue to the next part click here

love your wife… and get caught!

i remember some kids song that went ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself, oh-oh love your neighbour, but don’t get caught’ and thinking as i write that, i may very well have added the ‘don’t get caught’ on to what was a nice kiddies song of which i still have the tune playing in my head… so maybe scrap that…

but it brings to mind the one thing that is hugely on my mind at the moment – loving your wife, and better – been blogging a series on Facebook called ‘how to love your woman better’ which is aimed at getting guys (and everyone really) thinking about how they love their wives, girlfriends etc (and the other way round of course but directing it at the guys) – the other night i was at a function with some of my people and tbV overheard the one woman speaking to her man on the phone giving him some directions or something and then getting irritated with whatever he was saying on the other end and finished the conversation by screaming “I HATE YOU!” and hanging up…

wow, that breaks me… it was not a Christ-following relationship, but i don’t doubt even in some of those people dive across the boundaries of what should never be said or done and God has put it HUGELY in my heart to see Christ-following relationships improved to the thousand percentile (no, i don’t, it just sounds like a nice word) and especially to see the bar raised…

when i got married to tbVal in my speech i spoke to married men and single guys about that and put myself totally out there in terms of how Paul does with his ministry – follow me as i imitate Christ kind of vibe – but follow me as i role model good relationship… on the one hand i guess it can appear arrogant, but it is completely not. it is the desperate plea of someone watching a lot of people in relationship (Christ-following and not) and saying “there must be more than this” [my life theme song] and stepping up to the plate and making myself hugely accountable and vulnerable and there for the shots to be fired at and committing (cos it is completely a commitment as opposed to an arrogant statement) to loving my wife better.

i do think that loving tbV is one of the things i do best in life. not saying i have it perfect or close to that and not saying i am necessarily better than anyone else, but in terms of everything i do in life, it is one of the things i work at the most and try to intentionally get a lot more right than i did yesterday. we still do have a way to go before we are any kind of perfect couple, but in terms of what is out there, we have a lot to teach and model and call people towards already… and NOT just because we have “only been married 5.5 months”

one of the things is to love my wife publically – not to a sickening “please stop” “get yourselves a room” level of grossification, but to an extent that lets people know i love this woman, i am committed to her, and i want to express it.

so love your wife… and get caught! a lot.