September 10, 2009

Thank You Dr. Laura

Keeping up with the thankful Thursday theme...

I Now Know How to be a Smart, Happier Wife


About a week and a half ago I posted that I began reading “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” and I was a little skeptical. I wasn’t raised in a “serve your man” household but I ended up “serving” my man anyway, or so I thought. I really went in to this book thinking, “I already do so much, what about me? What about my needs? What’s he going to do for ME?” Which is exactly the attitude Dr. Laura wants you to have. Never did I think that this book would actually make a difference in ME, let alone my relationship with my Future Mr.

I will not bore you with every single detail of this book, you will have to buy it, read it, and experience it yourself. I urge every woman, married or engaged, to pick up a copy and see what it will do for you and your relationship. It’s only 180 pages and I read it in less than 2 weeks. In less than 2 weeks I have noticed tremendous changes (for the better) in my relationship. I haven’t even felt like I’ve been different but clearly I have been. Everything that normally drove me crazy (dishes in the sink, socks on the floor, boring man movies) have just rolled off my back. I have not been a nag, I have not complained, I have not brought work problems home. These have all been subconscious actions on my part and I have seen Future Mr. respond just as quickly. He has been a lot more attentive, helpful, and considerate. I hate to say it but we are being so nice and pleasant to each other that I’m surprised flowers aren’t coming out of our butts! It’s sickening. I love it.

I read this book with a highlighter in hand, I knew the information I was about to be presented with was going to be valuable. Boy was I right. I will just point out a few of my favorite parts.

“Wives need to love their husbands as though they’ve never been hurt before. Otherwise they destroy today.”

-Boy does that hit home for me. My last relationship was a real doozey. I won’t go into the gruesome details but it was not healthy. This was right before I met Future Mr, talk about perfect timing. I definitely was hurt and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t reserved about getting into another relationship; and when I thought I had let Future Mr in, I hadn’t. It wasn’t until about 4 or 5 months into the relationship that I realized what I had in front of me. Future Mr went on a family trip to the OBX while I stayed in his our apartment alone. At first the thought of being alone freaked me out; this was something I wasn’t good at. Once I got over that I started thinking, “I haven’t heard from him all day! Is he hanging out with other girls?” This kind of thinking came from my previous relationship, one in which I was always a second thought and cheated on countless times. I did a lot of self discovery that week and I learned then that I couldn’t let the past affect my present or future. What my ex did to me is no indication of what will happen with Future Mr. Once I realized that I never looked back, I wasn’t going to let the past destroy my today.

“And your basic male is a decent creature with simple desires: to be his wife’s hero, to be his wife’s dream lover, to be the protector and provider for his family, to be respected, admired, and appreciated. Men live to make their women happy.”

-Future Mr’s face should be next to this definition. Seriously this man would move heaven and earth for me. I don’t even have to do much and he would give me the stars if he could. It’s funny because women are so complicated. We make everything so emotional and dramatic. Men really ARE simple creatures. They want to know what’s wrong and how to fix it. Don’t bore them with the details. We are the ones that try to make them out to be more complicated than they actually are but at the end of the day they just want to feel like a man. Future Mr loves being the protector and provider; he shows me this by working 3rd shift for an entire summer, regardless of how much strain it put on our relationship. That sucked. But it was something that had to be done and he did it with little to no complaints (until the very end).

“Men don’t gossip; they are more private. By and large, they tend to get a sense of approval from their success at work and from their wives’ happiness”.

-How many times have you been with a group of girls just ragging on their significant others and you can’t help but chime in with you gripes too? I know I am guilty of this from time to time. But why? What are we proving when we do this? I have one answer for you. Nothing. All we do when we engage in this type of conversation is bring our men down. Why would we want to cast the man of our dreams in such an ugly light? Because it’s popular? Because we “fit in”? It’s really sad. And when we do this all our friends remember is the negative things you said, they never seem to remember any of the positive. I have made a vow to myself to stop all this “bad talk”. From now on when I speak of Future Mr it will only be in a positive light. I want nothing more than to raise him up and praise him, he is worth it, and I want the whole world to know it.

“A woman would do well to understand that an honest, faithful husband who goes on a 3 week hunting trip is not telling her he doesn’t love her. He just wants to kill something. Nothing more complicated than that.”

-I’m not sure if I have shared this on my blog but Future Mr, and his whole family, is an avid hunter. He loves nothing more than waking up before the sun, tip-toeing into his tree stand in 20 below weather and waiting. He honestly gets a thrill out of this. I don’t get it. I hate being cold. I don’t have one single desire to kill anything, but he does. When we first started dating his friends all warned me about hunting season, “Shannon, we didn’t see him all fall. Get ready!” I didn’t realize how serious they were. At first it bothered me; I’m not going to lie. “Why do you want to do that? I don’t understand. Don’t you want to hang out with ME?” Of course this had NOTHING to do with me and had EVERYTHING to do with him. This was something HE loved to do, before I came into his world even. Why did I expect this to change because he got a girlfriend? I knew what I was getting into and if I wasn’t going to accept that why did I chose to be with him? I didn’t “get it” until he got his first deer last November. I have never seen this man so proud and so happy. He was on cloud nine, showing everyone his pride and joy and telling the story of how it happened. It was then that I realized this was something he LOVED to do and if it means I get to see him with that look on his face, he can do it every weekend for the whole season because THAT was priceless.

Are you still with me? Those were some of my favorite parts of the book. I am off to read “The Proper Care and Feeding of a Marriage” next. Future Mr will be reading that one too since its not one-sided. Hopefully he will do a guest post about his reactions to that one…

12 comments:

  1. I think I should get that book. thanks for the post.

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  2. I am sooo glad you posted about this. Knowledge is power and if it gives me more balance, I will take it! I will blog about my findings after I read it.

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  3. those are some great points!! I may have to pick this book up.

    Carolyn

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  4. i loved this post. i actually want to read the book now. I wish more women would realize things like this.

    My last relationship was a doozy too, the whole nine yards of cheating, verbal/mental abuse etc. You meet the right guy and you get to let that whole world go. :)

    thanks for posting!

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  5. First, I totally appreciate your honesty on this post and can relate. I was with a real loser before I met the hubs and it wasn’t healthy. I went into my new relationship so guarded and that really wasn’t fair to hubs. In time, I learned to trust and separated the past from the present. I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t hard to do.

    On the second point, I agree with this too. Whenever I have an issue and get into dramatics about the whole thing, he just wants to simplify it and fix it. My girlfriends and I talk about this often and feel that it truly is just in their nature to be the ‘fixers’ and ‘protectors’.

    Last, I will say that I think a lot of us are guilty with the whole gossiping and griping. I agree that this is not something that is ever a good idea. I think that girlfriends tend to remember the negative and not the positive things that we divulge to them when it comes to our men. It would be easy next time a conversation like this comes up to shift subjects or just not participate.

    Sorry for the long comment! I think this is a really good post and definitely reminded me of a few things I could work on.

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  6. This is an amazing post! I am so reading this book. Thank you so much for posting about it!!

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  7. Wow! What a post!!! I really need to read this book, I think. Sounds wonderful!

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  8. Thanks for the book review!! - I'd love to borrow that! I agree, they are so simple and I admit that I loose sight sometimes of just how wonderful G is and his desire to please and make me happy. :) Especially when I get tired of doing chores! - Sounds like this is a book we should read and reread occasionally, to remind us! - I've been looking for a good "Relationship" book for some pre-marriage reading.

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  9. well YOU KNOW how i feel about the book! i picked it up right when you started talking about it. and im soooo glad i did. the tiniest efforst on our part get returned 10fold by our loving men. its fun to do the little things now that make him smile. LOVE IT :) youre the best girlie! thanks for hte recomendation.

    TWENTY TWO DAYS...holy moly

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  10. i have to read this book now!
    i'm a nag...i've been much better lately but i can be better and my last relationship was a real joke...horrible memories.
    thanks for sharing your thoughts on the book and being open and honest.

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  11. This was the first post of yours that I read, its great.
    I'm going to get the book, I'm not engaged or married, but in a serious relationship and would like to just keep up.
    Loved it!

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