Do You Appreciate Your Spouse?
Today is National Spouses Day. A day to appreciate your spouse. This has nothing to do with gift giving. In fact, it’s a non-gift giving day. It’s a day to take stock of things you appreciate about your spouse and TELL THEM at least one thing you appreciate about them. Give them at least one compliment. Life gets busy and sometimes we forget, hence the day was created.
The Caveat
The caveat here is that you don’t expect anything in return. Not one thing. Not one word. Not a hug. Nothing. Love at its core is giving without expecting anything in return.
On this Day…
On this day you appreciated your intended
On Your Wedding Day…
On your wedding day, you loved so many things about your new spouse.
What Gets You to this Stage?
How Do I Learn to Appreciate My Spouse?
There’s always something to appreciate about your spouse. A-L-W-A-Y-S. You might be at a place where everything looks bleak and you can’t even imagine what you saw in your spouse when you married them. But there are things to appreciate.
Make a List
Yes, make a list. Write down everything you appreciate about your spouse. One of the items on my list: “I appreciate how he works on my car when it’s freezing cold outside (like today) and blistering hot.”
This may seem like a nothing. He could have said it was too hot or too cold or he was tired or any other excuse. But he was out there working on my old car so I was safe.
When I wrote my list, I was able to write 25 things pretty quickly. It wasn’t hard after all.
Why Write a List?
Life gets busy. Life gets difficult. Social media makes it SO easy for all your “friends” to tell you not to put up with one thing or another. But marriage IS about putting up with one thing or another (I’m not talking about abuse here). It’s about supporting one another. It’s about building one another up. It’s about encouraging. Writing a list helps us remember the things we appreciate.
What Do I Do with the List?
I made many copies. I put one in my devotional book. One in my Bible. One in my journal. Another in my day planner. These were places he wouldn’t see. One woman (the “older” woman I learned this from) said she posted one in her kitchen cabinet because her husband NEVER went in the kitchen cabinets. Having it many places allowed me to see it multiple times a day and run through the list. This reinforced all the good things about him.
Why Rehearse them?
When you rehearse the good things, you override or cover the bad. We all want a better relationship with our spouse. We all want to feel goo about our life. Doing this helps with both of those. It’s like the old story about feeding the wolf:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
Author unknown
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
”It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
We want to feed appreciation and every other good trait. If you do this I promise you that you will see a change in how you feel about your spouse and they will feel a newfound love eminanting from you.
Do It Today…and Every Day
None of us are promised tomorrow. We don’t want to live in regret. We want to make the most of every day we have with our spouse. Besides, when you encourage and build up your spouse your marriage will probably be better and you will be happier. Just not focusing on the bad will make you happier, I can guarentee that!
Other Posts
I have written quite a bit about marriage and love in previous posts. You can search marriage and relationsips to find them. A few that come to mind as being related to this are:
- What is Love Anyway?
- How to Talk to a Man
- The Wise Woman Has Kindness On Her Tongue
- The Wise Woman Has a Gentle and Quiet Spirit
#NationalSpousesDay #Appreciateyourspouse #spouse #marriage #encouragement #compliments
