This quote is a keeper. I read it and love it. I need to care for and nourish my wife’s love and it was a great quote that I read at the right time. I hope it speaks volumes to you as it did to me.
A man does not own a marriage; he is only a steward of his wife’s love.
From Manhood 101: How to Be a Man of Courage and Integrity in a World of Compromise
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Our pastor taught my wife and I that we had to learn to make the “cake” together. It was the hardest thing for me to do as a man, was to allow someone else to tell me how to bake the “cake”. The cake in this case is a figure of speech that goes to all the things we do.
We struggle with that. The best we can do at times is I’ll make the turkey, you make the gravy. As a man, I was taught to “Go be in charge” of you house. It is easy to mistake that as ‘tell your wife how to do the dishes’. I wish the biblical part of Man, love your wife as Christ loved the church, came with a few more details.
Blessings…
What you just said was so fitting for my relationship with B! I am a task oriented guy; list, schedules, etc…. We have had some disagreements with regards to how things are done. I can’t stand water spots on clean pots and pans. I clean them off when I empty the dishwasher. B puts them away as is.
The thing I struggle with is, Don’t we both need to help each other with the things we do? If it bugs me that water spots are left on the pans or that the kitchen counter is dirty after she makes a quick snack, can’t there be a give and take? When is is a bad habit? I guess I don’t know how to phrase my thoughts on this.
Thanks for the insight. It has made me realize that I need to just take care of things without “coming down” on my wife about how she did them or was raised. I guess it may be a constant struggle for me.
Boy oh boy can I empathize with you guys (and I’m sure we aren’t even close to being alone).
As the husbands, we’re supposed to be the spiritual leaders in the family, but oh the details. To what extent do we take it?
I used to compare it to being a manager in business, but I realized it’s not the same. We can’t fire our wives because they don’t fill out the “TPS reports” (Office Space reference:) the way we like it.
Like you M, I’m a list, schedules kinda guy. But after trying to get my wife to adopt those practices, I realized that I can only make suggestions where God leads me and then leave it between Him and her if she uses them. I had to come to terms with deciding if certain things were a big enough issue to continue to “manage” my wife. Funny thing is…after I stopped harping on certain things, she started changing her mind about some things (and I also came around to some changes myself). I just need do my part by showing love and leave it at that.