Love My Husband Well

To love with a whole heart is to love well. This begins with loving my husband well.

For me, loving my husband, Adam, well (or at least, trying to) looks like never stopping in my pursuit of him. They say that women need to be pursued, but I say that men need to be pursued too. I want to be a wife who shows an interest in my husband. I want to be open ears during the times that he chooses to share. (He’s usually the one listening to me.)

Loving my husband well also means bragging about him when I am proud of him. Telling others the good things about Adam in front of him, and also when he is not around.

My tone of voice and body language matter. The way I choose to take care of myself and the decisions I make help me love Adam well, too. If I over-commit, or stay up too late, I tend to take out my exhaustion on him, and that is not loving him well. (In our home, we call this “slumpy: sleepy + grumpy.”)

I also need to give Adam space when he needs time to reflect and recover from a busy day.

Above all of that, the two biggest ways I love Adam well include words of affirmation and quality time.

The five best phrases of affirmation I can give to Adam are:

“I love you.”

“I am proud of you.”

“I am thankful for you.”

“I appreciate you.”

“I believe in you.” 

Adam appreciates it when we can spend time together. For us, this involves binge-watching a favorite television series on Netflix, reading at a coffee shop, taking a walk, going out to breakfast on Saturday mornings, and having a dinner conversation with our phones put away.

Although I try to love Adam well with these actions and words, I still fall short in every area. And, I have a confession. A major area in which I need to love Adam better is to pray for him even more than I do. I want to be a praying wife, and I want the habit of praying for Adam to permeate my thoughts and actions, every single day.

So wives, let’s live and love with our whole hearts. Let’s be women who love our husbands well.

I love this quote by Shauna Niequist that I heard at one of her talks in the Stronger series at Willow Creek:

 Love at first sight has nothing on love over decades. I want decades, I want depth. I want durable.