How to Love your Wife more, and be more Loving
By Jeff Haskell
I often get asked how long I've been married. The answer (thirteen years in a few weeks) often surprises people. The most common response is, “but you act like newlyweds”. I know we do, do you know why? Because we make a conscious decision to be in love.
I think in this day an age of love, lust, sex, and desire, it all gets muddled and thrown together in this sort of, “as long as it feels good” society. Humans have been around a long time and our brains may decide what feels good in the moment, but our minds decide what feels good in the long run. Let me explain.
‘Feeling good’ is a chemical reaction. I 'feel good' when I pwn a fool in League Of Legends. I 'feel good' when I drink a coke, or eat a piece of cheesecake. I 'feel good' when I sleep in or put off doing hard work for later. There’s lots I can do to 'feel good'. I imagine, if you’re the kind of person who only does what ‘feels good’ you don’t commit to a lot of things, or people. After all, you just do what ‘feels good’.
When you’re married that idea of ‘what feels good to me’ can become complicated. After all, you're married to a woman who has her own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Her own idea of what feels good, and what doesn't. How do you know what feels good to you, feels good to her?
What do you do when they aren't the same thing, and you go in search of your own thing and so does she?
In the world I think this would be called divorce. You hear all kinds of excuses for this, “It just didn't work”, “We grew apart”, “we fell out of love”. Now I’m not saying there isn't ever a real, legitimate reason marriages don’t work. But none of the reasons are accidents. They begin with you, the husband, not loving your wife enough.
Why am I not saying she isn't loving you enough too? Because you can’t control her, you can’t decide for her to be more in love with you. You have to change you, and only by changing you, can you change her. If you're here, its because you have accepted responsibility for making your marriage more than work, you can’t then blame someone else if it doesn't. The only one to blame is looking back at you when you shave.
It sounds harsh, I know. Especially when were used to hearing how ‘things just happen’. But I’m telling you, man-to-man, things just don’t happen. You either make them happen, or let them happen. Look at your life and relationships, and evaluate it based on two things.
Things that I let happen.
Things that I did.
Now let me ask you this… do you love your wife, or at least, do you want to love your wife? If the answer is yes, then there’s hope for you. If the answer is no, then you need to make it yes. How do you do that? The same way you love her more.
In your head, every day, as often as possible, you say “I love my wife”. Or some variation of this. It can be, “I love Jennifer, or I love my little imp,” whatever means your wife to you.
Do you know what's going to happen? Virtually overnight? Nothing. That’s because change, in all its forms, takes time. Time and will. You exert the will, and overtime things will change. You will love her more. And with more love comes a willingness to understand her, and to see things from her perspective. A willingness to put aside what ‘feels good’ for you, and do what ‘feels good’ for her. That is another subject though, were just talking about step 1.
We use our mind, to override our brain, we make what someone else feels more important to us than what we feel. Before long this will be second nature. You will find yourself saying and doing things for your wife that before had to be forced. More “I love you’s” will appear, more acts of kindness, more gestures of love.
This is the first step in loving your wife more. You have to tell yourself to do it. Because love is a choice, not an emotion. Only by choosing to be in love can you get to amazing emotions that are so far beyond love, we don’t have words in any language for them.
