Gentlemen, step closer and I will give you the perfect gift for the mother of your children. Whether you can give it is your problem, but at least ignorance won't be your excuse.
Your wife, the mother of your children, has a list inside her head that she has to remember every waking moment. It contains the way you want your clothes laundered, or folded, or pressed, or starched, or not starched. It is full of the things you will and won't eat, or have to have cooked a certain way or be served with certain other foods or at a certain time of the meal or you will refuse it. That list contains the brand names you like best because you will toss anything else in the trash with disgust. It lists all the things you want put in a certain place or left in a certain place, regardless how it makes her house look, not only to her but to a few judgmental others. It holds the things you happen to tell her you are nearly out of, even if she is up to her elbows in a messy chore and cannot possibly write it down that minute—and even if the shopping list is right in front of your clean hands with a pen next to it. That memorized list hold the times you don't want to be bothered, the subjects you don't want to hear about, and the small chores you refuse to do because you don't like them. I could probably keep going, but by now I imagine you get the point.
So for her present this year do this one thing: remember one thing she likes and the way she likes it, and do it. Now I realize this will be a difficult task because you never pay attention to what she wants done a certain way or a brand or style or color she really likes (especially if you don't like it). You tend to let those things go in one ear and out the other. It will be difficult because she may have already given up on even mentioning things she really likes—why bother? But you have two days to start listening and figure it out. No fair taking her to a restaurant and saying, "Be sure to get something you really like but never get because I don't like it." No. The point is for you to do something that takes an effort. The point is to listen and do for her just one time what she does for you 24/7.
She remembers a big old list all the time, and do you know why? Because she loves you, yes, but also because you are usually not very nice about it if she doesn't. Can't you remember just one thing for her? It just may start a whole new list for her, a list of presents she will never forget.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, (Eph 5:28-29)
Dene Ward
Your wife, the mother of your children, has a list inside her head that she has to remember every waking moment. It contains the way you want your clothes laundered, or folded, or pressed, or starched, or not starched. It is full of the things you will and won't eat, or have to have cooked a certain way or be served with certain other foods or at a certain time of the meal or you will refuse it. That list contains the brand names you like best because you will toss anything else in the trash with disgust. It lists all the things you want put in a certain place or left in a certain place, regardless how it makes her house look, not only to her but to a few judgmental others. It holds the things you happen to tell her you are nearly out of, even if she is up to her elbows in a messy chore and cannot possibly write it down that minute—and even if the shopping list is right in front of your clean hands with a pen next to it. That memorized list hold the times you don't want to be bothered, the subjects you don't want to hear about, and the small chores you refuse to do because you don't like them. I could probably keep going, but by now I imagine you get the point.
So for her present this year do this one thing: remember one thing she likes and the way she likes it, and do it. Now I realize this will be a difficult task because you never pay attention to what she wants done a certain way or a brand or style or color she really likes (especially if you don't like it). You tend to let those things go in one ear and out the other. It will be difficult because she may have already given up on even mentioning things she really likes—why bother? But you have two days to start listening and figure it out. No fair taking her to a restaurant and saying, "Be sure to get something you really like but never get because I don't like it." No. The point is for you to do something that takes an effort. The point is to listen and do for her just one time what she does for you 24/7.
She remembers a big old list all the time, and do you know why? Because she loves you, yes, but also because you are usually not very nice about it if she doesn't. Can't you remember just one thing for her? It just may start a whole new list for her, a list of presents she will never forget.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, (Eph 5:28-29)
Dene Ward
RSS Feed