Top 10 Things Your Wife Doesn't Want for Valentine's Day

Once a couple has been married for a few years, it's easy for the gifts to get more and more practical, and less and less romantic. Valentine's Day is not a good time for the practical to win out over the romantic. Take for example these gift ideas, which have been tested, tried, and found wanting*:

10) Clothes a size or two larger than she wears.

9) A kitchen appliance--a new blender may be nice, but it isn't terribly romantic.

8) New tires for the car.

7) Any sort of exercise equipment: "To help you meet your New Year's resolution to lose weight."

6) Tickets to see your favorite band, unless it is also her favorite band.

5) A book on "How to Understand Your Husband"--unless you are reading the companion book about understanding your wife.

4) A vacuum cleaner.

3) A cookbook: "Honey, I was thinking maybe you need a little help with your cooking."

2) Repairs for a  household appliance: Go ahead and get it fixed, but don't call it her Valentine's Day present. Spring for a box of chocolates or some flowers.

1) A hoodie-footie, even if it is in a pretty valentine print. The sister product, forever lazy, is also not a good idea.

* Just for the record, my husband does pretty well with gift-giving. He's only given me a few of the things on this list, and I don't think any of them were for Valentine's Day.

Wordless Wednesday

Tips for a Happy Marriage #4

My favorite married couple has been married somewhere around 25 years. They've had some hard things come into their lives in those 25 years. But I tell you what, they have a great sense of humor about life. They are able to laugh about those days where nothing is going right. The kind of days when the dishwasher breaks, spreading water all over the floor, and a child throws up in the next room while they're cleaning up mess #1. They laugh together about the fact that it takes the husband a week to notice the wife's new haircut. Somehow they rise above the moment, gain a long-term perspective, and see what's funny about a bad situation.

So here's marriage tip #4: laugh together. a lot.
Laugh at the goodness of life when things are going well. Store up happiness.

Laugh even when things aren't so good. Watch a ridiculously funny movie if you have to, but find something to laugh about.

Laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation when you're trying to fix the washing machine together and you can't get the last screw out.

Laugh together when one of you makes a meal that is just terrible.

Laugh when you can't carry on a conversation in the car because your kids are yelling in the backseat.

Find something to laugh about when you're in the middle of an argument--it really diffuses the situation! My husband is so good at this, and though it used to aggravate me, I've come to appreciate what a gift this is.

Laugh when your car breaks and your computer breaks and your dishwasher breaks--all in the same week.

Laugh about the past.

Laugh about the future.

Laugh about your differences and misunderstandings (when the heat of the moment has passed).

Laugh because life is hard, and the only way to get through it is to have a good sense of humor.

The key here is that you're laughing together, facing life hand in hand. You're not laughing at one another, as though you were on different sides of the issue. You're working as a team to enjoy the good things God has given you. And it makes life so much more fun in the process!

Mondays with Martha: Bible Reading Inspiration

If you read Katie's guest blog post here on Friday and clicked over to find mine, you may not have found it. But it's there now. 

I was at a fabulous women's retreat with my church all weekend, so housecleaning wasn't on my mind. It was glorious. I don't know about you, but I come back from a retreat all excited about the new spiritual truths I learned, ready to face the daily grind with deep spiritual insight and discipline my children with grace and an understanding of their hearts. And then reality hits. We dropped my friend off after the retreat and she was greeted by her little boy in a diaper and t-shirt, crying at the door. She called me about an hour later and told me he had just stopped crying. What was he so angry about? He wanted to go outside, but he didn't want to put on pants before leaving the house. Some parents are just so unreasonable.

I came home and found a clean house, a baby sleeping peacefully, the 4-year-old and 7-year-old putting together a truck . . . and no one else. My hubby had left the 7-year-old in charge while he dropped the other two kids at their grandparents' house across town. I know she is a responsible 7-year-old, but seriously?

At the moment my 22-month-old is screaming in her highchair because she wanted oatmeal, which I made her, but she did not want bananas on top of the oatmeal. And I thought I was giving her a treat.

So today's Mondays with Martha we'll switch gears a little bit and answer the question of how to organize a quiet time when real life strikes. These are some ideas, see if one of them might be something for you to try.

1) Get up early. I'm starting with this one because it's conventional wisdom, but I've got to admit that it doesn't work for me. The ladies over at girltalk have a 5 o'clock club of women who have decided to get up at 5:00 to have a quiet time before the rest of the house is awake. I tried it for a while, but whenever I got up early I was grumpy and my toddler woke up early too, thus defeating the purpose. But lots of people find this works great, so maybe it's worth trying.

2) Have all your quiet time "stuff" organized and ready, maybe near your favorite comfy chair. I find that if I've organized my Bible, prayer journal, and whatever devotional book I might be reading, I'm more likely to get to the chair and read. Somehow that step of gathering my stuff together can make having a quiet time a daunting task and there are so many opportunities to get distracted by other chores in those two minutes of finding my Bible.

3) Find a Bible reading plan that works for you. If reading through the Bible in a year seems too hard because you get behind and then give up, try something else. Here are some ideas for different ways to read the Bible:

This one from Ann Voskamp has a few links for free downloads of reading plans including a through-the-Bible in a year plan that has 25 readings per month and a through-the-Bible with your children plan.

This one encourages a slow approach of reading the same book several times in a row. One of my friends is trying a similar method where she reads the same book 20 times in a row, with the goal of reading one book per month. The book of Numbers sounds a little daunting with this method, but the epistles would be great to read this way. I love the idea of going deep into a section of God's Word.

This one offers such refreshing insight from Noel Piper. Love it!

How about a two-year Bible reading plan? (Intentionally two years, not "oops, I'm not done yet" two years!)

Sometimes I do read the Bible in shorter sections and ask three questions: What does it say about God?; What did it mean to the original readers?; and What does it mean to me? J.I. Packer has a slightly different take on this idea here.


4) Have a pad of post-it notes near your Bible. When I sit down to read my Bible, my mind starts to swirl with things I need to do. If I have a post-it note right there, I can make a note to myself and then stop thinking about it and focus on what I'm reading.

5) Sometimes we need a good devotional book to read to help us apply the Bible to our daily lives. I cannot recommend enough the book A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Also, One Thousand Gifts is worth a read, although you may have to slog through parts of it. I also love a good classic: Charles Spurgeon, Oswald Chambers, A. W. Tozer, C. S. Lewis, Andrew Murray, and Christian biographies are very inspiring.

6) Relax your standards. Bible reading requires discipline, yes, but it is about relationship. It's not about getting things right or reading the right amount or meeting someone else's standard. It's not about finding the perfect time when the house is absolutely silent and there are no little people around to distract us. That may never happen. Maybe you'll have to distract the little people with play-dough or a video or a stack of books and settle for "mostly quiet and a few minutes when I can sort of concentrate."

In the end, it's not about meeting our goals or getting through the Bible in a year. It's about spending time with our heavenly Father, our best friend, our bridegroom. It's about communing with the Person who knows us better than we know ourselves and loves us more than we can imagine. It's about coming home.

What are your best Bible-reading tips? Leave a comment!

Tips for a Happy Marriage #3

Today we have a guest blogger, my cousin (okay, really she's my husband's cousin), who blogs over at poemapromise. And guess what--if you pop over there you'll find a guest post from yours truly!

Tip #3 Have Each Other's Best in Mind

 If God is for me, how can we be for US?

Even though I was in China during my engagement and up until the week before getting married, I went though the required College Church premarital course (distance ed:). There were chapters about various topics and even though we poured over the material during our 3 month engagement and thought we took in a lot, there's a lot more to be learned while you implement it! Marriage is perfect storm where theory and practice are tested to the extreme.

The chapter that has stayed with me, and one that I don't think we completely finished the homework for, encouraged the couple to write a purpose statement for their marriage. As an educator and program developer, I resonated with purposeful planning. If you're spending the rest of your life with someone, shouldn't you have a purpose for what to do in that marriage? My own love story was a direct answer to prayer. I had waited for years to find a life partner, and when we were literally placed together as partners in teaching and ministry, it took 7 months from beginning to work together to our wedding day. There was an amazing intensity and sense of God's power and purposes working in my life. I had no doubt that God had my best in mind when he chose Dave to be my husband, and I felt a keen sense of God's purposes for good being worked out as our lives became one.

That was almost five years ago. The starry-eyed words of intention we mapped out for our lives together has now has been tested with all the unforeseen demands of that life together. We have a one+ year old and a two year and a half year old. Dave is a full-time student and works part time. I stay at home full time with the kids and have a part-time job.

We live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and our two salaries put together exactly (to the exact dollar amount!) cover our rent each month. School tuition and our grocery bill gets covered by monthly miracles and generous acts of kindness. We live across the continent from our families, which means grandparent help with kids is impossible. And so we manage, carefully calculating pennies and minutes to get by. Google calendar has become our best friend in synching our schedules, and I've never before spent so much time planning my days.

In this cauldron of time and money management, along with child-rearing, I sometimes wonder, “was the purpose of this marriage to heighten my awareness of my own sinful nature and exasperation?” The daily chores (which having no dishwasher or in-house laundry magnifies) can sometimes be so overwhelming that I feel buried under the pile of the immediate needs. I struggle to remember that there is a greater purpose to all of this--that this life is part of God's plan and that he has my best in mind for my life. When, in brief moments of sunshine and fresh air I remember of that, I am challenged that I also need to have the best in mind for my husband, and he for me.

About 99% of our arguments stem from feeling uncared for by the other, or misunderstanding their best intentions. I will be the first to admit that as a passionate person, my own articulation of feeling uncared for can reach a passionate pitch and I lose the ability to see that indeed, Dave has my best in mind even when I don't feel it in a particular moment. If asked, I would certainly agree that I have his best in mind too, though I am certain there are moments that would cause him to wonder if that was true. But deep down, I do know that these things certainly are true, and my greatest marriage tip would be to create space in your lives which keep in mind “the best” for one another.

For us, over-communication, making sure we understand one another, and planning our schedules to accommodate one another is essential. A really good thing for our marriage was a Couples Communication course that we took together while we were still in China a little over a year after getting married. It taught us how to communicate, to understand where the other person is coming from, and specifically, to be able to ask questions in such a way that we can understand why the other person is reacting to a certain circumstance the way they are. This course made a space for each person to share all of the different angles of emotion that a certain circumstance would bring about. (It literally created a space as each person was required a stand on a mat that had certain categories of speaking and listening, helping the couple commuicate and understand one another's needs.) That short course really gave us a framework of communication so that in heated moments one of us (usually Dave) can can step into the listener role and say “what I hear you saying is..... is there anything else?”

Once we actually hear each other, it's easier to implement strategies in our day that help meet one another's needs. For example, I might be exhausted, having a fat day, annoyed at the never-ending mess of crumbs in our living/dining room, and feeling at the brink of going crazy because I haven't had a minute to myself to make sense of the day. I may be feeling the pressure of my other commitments coming at me and be completely unprepared for them. Dave might be overwhelmed because he sees our bank account and wonders where groceries are coming from in the next month, plus he has 3 final papers coming down the pipeline and library hours he still needs to put in along with caring for the kids while I work. We're both stressed and both have legitimate needs that in our current state of mind we are unable to meet for one another.

So, how do we deal with that?

Pause. (We actually have a “Pause” symbol for when our words become weapons and our arguments are headed south fast.)

Get the kids fed and in bed.

Sit down to talk with a cup of tea.

Show genuine care and listen to one another. What are the joys, hopes, frustrations, needs, and wants each person has for themselves and for the family?

Articulate what the other is feeling so that they know you understand them.

Really have one another's best in mind and trust that is reciprocated. (What really is best for this person?)

Remember that God has a purpose for bringing you together and seek God for the particular purpose (and it can change!).

Communicate what you feel you need and what you really need. (There's a difference between needs and wants--but sometimes these are one and the same!)  I might want a full-time nanny and a membership to a classy gym, but maybe running with friends 4 mornings a week and investing in a good jogging stroller might still allow me to get the exercise I want and need!  Dave might want to run a marathon and then sit in the library for 10 hours per day soaking in the Regent experience, but maybe making space for him to run a couple mornings a  week and scheduling study time at regular intervals can also work.  

Pull out the calendar and start plugging in the necessities. You might have to cut some things out before adding anything more. Maybe overcommitment to various things--even if these are good things--is taking a toll on your marriage.

Keep the other's best in mind as you try and implement your calendar (i.e., Pull your spouse out of bed when your alarm goes off so that you can have that scheduled quiet time before the kids wake up -- and don't get cranky when your spouse reminds you that you need to do what you had put as a "must do" on the calendar!)  

Cheer each other on because what you are doing—being married and dependant on one another, living life together, raising a family together, following God together, and trying your hardest to discern what He might be asking of you in a particular moment isn't easy. But it's worth it.

And guess what, God has your best in mind too!

Tips for a Happy Marriage #2

I only get my hair cut about twice a year. So when I go to the hair salon, I come back looking fairly different. My hair is a few inches shorter, and the stylist always makes my hair look very different than it does when I do it myself. When I come in looking what I think of as dramatically different (and presumably better) than I did an hour before, I'd like a compliment. I'd like to feel like the $50 was money well spent.

Unfortunately, my husband is often busy when I get back and may or may not even notice that I look like a movie star. And he doesn't know that I need him to say something nice about how I look whether or not he notices. In short, he can't read my mind. So I've learned that when I go to get my hair cut, I need to tell him as I'm leaving, "I'm going to get my hair cut. When I get back, you need to tell me that I look nice."

The same principle applies in other situations as well, which is what makes it marriage tip #2: Don't expect your spouse to read your mind.

You want something done around the house? Spell it out. Make a list. You want her to communicate respect? Tell her specifically what that would look like. You want him to tell you he loves you more often? Ask him to. You think she's misunderstood something you've said? Talk about it. You have your schedule all planned out? Tell your spouse--they won't know you want to spend all of Saturday on a long bike ride if you haven't told them.

I'm not saying this is a magic bullet or anything. Your husband may still not think to tell you he loves you or that you look beautiful. Those chores may still not get done. But they certainly won't get done if you're waiting around for him to figure out what you want done by reading your mind.

I think sometimes we wait around for our spouse to figure out our needs and meet them because we're afraid. that once we've communicated a desire or need, if they don't meet that need we may feel unloved. It is a little scary. We could end up getting hurt. But I think it's a risk worth taking. Chances are, if our marriage is reasonably healthy our spouse wants to make us happy. And learning specifically how they can do that will be a relief to them. After all, trying to read someone's mind is exhausting and doomed to failure, so after trying that for a year or two they've probably given up. Communicating what you want is a breath of fresh air in a marriage--for both of you.

Final word of warning: don't corner your spouse while they're in the middle of something and dump your top 50 desires and needs on them in one fell swoop. Take it one thing at a time, and communicate, communicate, communicate.

Tips for a Happy Marriage #1

I've been thinking a lot about marriage for the past few weeks. My husband (with my input) is leading our Sunday school class through Tim Keller's book The Meaning of Marriage. We're not far enough into it yet to recommend the book, but we assume it'll be good like all of Keller's other books are.

There are a lot of "rules" for successful marriage. All those things the experts tell us: go on dates. Don't settle for watching a movie/TV as a date--make it interactive. Make sure you have a lot of shared interests. Pray together every day. Take divorce out of the equation as an option. Never go to bed angry. Never fight after 10:00. (Those last two often conflict, I've noticed.) The husband should compliment his wife at least once a day. The wife should greet her husband with a hug and a kiss every day after work.

All good advice. And yet I think it's possible to have a good marriage, even a great marriage, without following some of those rules. Dates? We've had young kids for almost 12 years now, and as a result we don't get to go out very often. Our dates usually consist of watching a movie on the couch, and if we're feeling very adventurous we feed the kids early and eat our dinner while we watch the movie on the couch. Compliments? Not terribly common around here. Shared interests? Not so much. My husband loves biking and making music. I love scrapbooking and jewelry-making and antiquing. Last time we went on a bike ride together I got terrible ITBS pain about 5 miles into our bike ride and was slow and miserable the rest of the way. Daily prayer? Not exactly. I wish we prayed together more, and I think that's a common refrain among the couples in our Sunday school class. Maybe our marriage would be better if we had more real dates or shared more hobbies.

 
But somehow our marriage works without following all those rules. We're really, really happy together most of the time. And now that I've stopped stressing about those rules, our marriage is even better. (Note that I was the only one stressing about the rules--but in the process I was making marriage less fun for both of us!)

So here's my marriage tip #1: Throw out the rulebook. Be happy about what's working well, and don't worry about it if you're not following all the rules.

Those marriage rules are designed to be helpful, but I think they can stress us out sometimes. If we're not doing something "right" we feel guilty, and if our spouse isn't doing something "right" we feel frustrated.

So throw out the rulebook and take a look at what works well for your marriage. Maybe you need more dates to rekindle the romance. Maybe that movie on the couch will serve you just fine. Maybe you would benefit from finding a shared interest, or maybe just listening to your spouse's excitement and supporting their interest is enough.

When we read books or go to conferences about marriage, we can glean great ideas to try. We have to work at this process of getting along and loving each other for the long haul, and it's smart to get all the help we can. But if those rules are causing you stress, maybe they are hurting more than they are helping. In the end, I think you have to find a way to make your marriage work for the two of you. It won't work the same way your parents' marriage worked (although you probably learned good lessons from how their marriage worked or didn't work). It won't work the same way Tim Keller's or the couple you most admire's works. Even following all the rules won't guarantee a great marriage (although it can't hurt). Your marriage just needs to work for the two of you, not for anyone else.

I'm interested in some input here: what do you think? What "rules" seem unnecessary to you?