Love and Respect - Vol 2

This is the second post in a marriage series I'm doing called Love and Respect.
You can catch up by reading the first post HERE.

My husband and I have been married for almost eight years. He honestly is my very best friend and I love him with my entire being. He works in ministry, and has for our entire marriage.
For the longest time I thought that made our marriage safe from divorce and infidelity.
But as I grew up, more and more people I knew were having serious marital problems and more and more of those people were people that we knew in various "church jobs".
That rocked my world a little bit. You know, broke my rose colored glasses.
Now let me say, Chris and I have a great marriage. But, I have been burdened with the need to safe proof my marriage a bit. And then I struggled with the whole thought of "is any marriage really safe?"
Stressful to think about, let me tell ya!

As you know I've been reading two books: Love and Respect and For Women Only.
These two books, and how've they've convicted my heart, are what led me to do a blog series on marriage. Ladies, there are just too many of us out there with trouble lurking around the corner!

Let me note a few things before I get too far in:

• I am not perfect, nor do I have the perfect marriage.
• I make lots and lots of mistakes.
• The adventure I'm on is to change me, not my man (although he may have areas that need work lol). My goal is to become the wife that God directs me to be, and through that, changes may occur in my husband. His change is not what I'm after...my change is.

Ok let's get started!

It's all about Respect.
That simple.
And God laid it out simple for us, but like me, I think many of us skipped over that part.

Ephesians 5:33 tells us that the man should love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

As women, we are created to love. And we need to be loved. So we love. However, men were not created the same as women and they crave respect. That one's a bit harder for us women.

Now here's the kicker for me -
It does not say that I should respect him when he deserves it. It just says to respect him. I expect him to love me unconditionally - even when I'm not very deserving of love. So there can't be a double standard here. I have to respect him even when I don't think he deserves it.

Wow.
And to take it a step further - I should respect my husband just as I respect God.
If I look at the way I treat the two.......polar opposites.
Punch me in the face!!!

Marriage has always been "iffy" in my family. There have been lots of bad times and lots of divorces.
We learn from our surroundings and to be honest, I've never really seen a whole lot of wifely respect to their husbands while growing up. Now this is not a knock on my family - it's me realizing that I have carried on some of those traits. And well, it's time to break that cycle. I've got a long way to go - I mean I've got 29 years of damage to fix here. Very damaged ways of thinking.

So, this couldn't hurt to try right?
I encourage you - let your hubby know you respect him.
Tell him. Pray for him. Hold your tongue when that snide/hurtful comment isn't really necessary (I'm working very, very hard on this one, lol)

Each week we have 2 main items for homework from our study group:
1. Don't say anything negative to or about your husband each day.
2. Pray for your husband daily

Try it for just a week and see if you notice any changes in your hubby or yourself. I feel confident that you will!