A Love-Ish Post

bryan and i have been married for 8 1/2 years...we have very dissimilar personalities - which is why it works :) but part of the problem with the personalities and also our genders is that our communication isnt always what/how it should/could be. which is funny since i was a communications major in college...which i always think of my professor Dunn who would remind people that said Comm majors should be the best communicators that the judges who judge the Olympic figure skating can't do what the skaters could do...but they knew the difference between proper and poor technique...this is beside my point...as usual...

so i have been recommended this book by several well respected people. plus a speaker spoke on the principle in this book last year and it intrigued me...The book is Love and Respect by Dr. Eggerichs. You may have heard of it. It is based on Christianity - some verses in the Bible and Christian principles. I think any couple regardless of their religion should read it...its based on the premise that a woman needs love and a man needs respect and there is a certain cycle laid out where a woman who feels loved shows respect and a man who feels respected shows love...there is also the crazy cycle where the opposite happens.

My "aha" moment came this week when i was reading part of the book out loud to Bryan. The author lays out 6 ways in which a man feels respected. One of the ways was shoulder-to-shoulder friendship. it talked about how men like it when their woman just sits there and doesnt talk. i thought it was so funny...but bryan was agreeing! what? you feel this way? the book goes on to cite a study of girls v. guys. the study was several ages of pairs of girls and boys and 2 chairs in a room side by side and the people were asked to sit in the room for 15 minutes. in an alarming percentage the women changed the chairs to face each other and talked where the men sat in the chairs silent, sometimes glancing at the other but that is about it.

i  guess i knew this about male relationships...that makes sense...but with their mate too? it started to make so much sense. bryan always asks me to do the most remedial things with him and him and the boys and sometimes when it doesnt make sense - when i have other things to multi-task - when i am the middle of cleaning the house or answering emails or whatever to stop what i am doing and go with him to the post office or whatever. but now it makes sense. he wants that shoulder to shoulder time. and though it may seem unimportant to me and a "waste" of time...it actually matters a lot....to HIM. and it is a very simple way to show him respect.

again - this is probably totally "duh" to some of you...but i am so happy to have read this chapter because it has really shown me the different ways in which we process and receive love. I love it that i am still learning new things about him after 8 1/2 years of marriage.

its probably not cool to talk about respecting your husband...but if you think it isnt cool, just do a little test tonight and tell your husband 3 or 4 different reasons on why you respect him and see what happens! i was a little amazed in our case...