Keepin' It Real - The Generous Husband

Talk, Plan, Schedule

by The Generous Husband | Dec 1, 2022 | Audio, Communication, Do It For Her, Keepin' It Real, Links to good stuff, ZIMAGE

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What do you want to do between now and Christmas? What do you NEED to do? What about your wife? What’s on her want-to and need-to accomplish lists? If you’re always slammed right before Christmas, may I suggest you start scheduling things now?

Talk with your wife and decide what must be done, what you would like to do, and see if it’s all realistically going to fit in the next 24 days. If it’s not going to fit, with time to spare, cut something out. Keep cutting till it all fits easily.

The goal here is to avoid being so busy and stressed you miss out on what is important – God, family, giving to others…

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey Carlisle | On privacy and secrets ◄ Not the same things!

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Will You Wait, Talk, Or Take Action?

by The Generous Husband | Nov 13, 2022 | Audio, Communication, Good Marriage, Keepin' It Real, Links to good stuff, Spicy Quote, ZIMAGE

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If your marriage is stuck you can either try something new or wait for your spouse to try something new. #MarriageTip ~ TMB Twitter

No one likes to change. But if you don’t like how something is, making a change is the only way out. If something about your marriage is not to your liking, you could wait for your wife to change. But then she has all the power and you may not like the new situation either. Besides, she might be waiting on you.

You could sit down and have a nice discussion about it. Tell her what you’re feeling and ask her how she feels about it. Tell her what you would like and ask her what she would like. Make a plan together and then work the plan. If you don’t think your wife will discuss it, it will end in a fight, or she won’t do anything, then make some changes on your own.

If you just sit in it being unhappy about it, then you have chosen to continue in what you don’t like. If you do that, don’t put it on your wife!

“If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”. ~ Henry Ford

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey Carlisle | Craving substance ◄ Are you doing this in your marriage? Or maybe in your sex life?

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Blazing Your Own Trail

by The Generous Husband | Sep 13, 2022 | Audio, BE THE CHANGE, BecomingYourself, Change, Keepin' It Real, ZIMAGE

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I end each XY Code post with a flippant tagline. I don’t put a lot of thought into them, but sometimes they say a lot about who and how I am. My Monday signoff was “I’m XY, and I often take the path not offered.”

When I recorded the podcast, those words hit me as a deep truth about myself.

Now I’m not opposed to doing something the way others do, but I refuse to be limited by an incomplete set of choices. I generally think there are choices beyond those on the table and I want to consider all the choices before I settle on a direction.

One place I’ve gone “off trail” is in our marriage. What Lori and I built doesn’t look like what our parents or those around us showed us. We wanted a great marriage and we were willing to blaze a trail to do that. We did the same thing with our sex life.

That said, there are hard limits. God’s Word, and the law of the land when it’s not asking me to violate God’s Word, are mandatory for me. But even that is tricky. God’s Word is one thing, what a group of humans claim God’s Word means, or add to it in His name, are always suspect until confirmed. Or found to be false. This is why I’m not down on a variety of sex acts some Christians call questionable – or worse. It’s why we packed up and moved 2,000 miles on what many considered a whim.

Am I saying it’s wrong to accept the choices on the table? If the best choice isn’t on the table, picking from what’s there means you get something less than the best. For yourself. For your life. For your marriage. For your sex life. For your walk with the Lord. And so on.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I made a third path,
And that has made all the difference. ~ With apologies to Robert Frost

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey Carlisle | Forged through chaos ◄ We don’t like it, but it brings growth.

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What Does Enough Mean? What If It’s A Choice?

by The Generous Husband | Jul 17, 2022 | Audio, Keepin' It Real, Your Needs, ZIMAGE

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Everyone wants enough. Or maybe more than enough if we’re honest. But how do we define enough?

If it’s something like food or sleep we can actually measure and determine if we have enough. If you lose weight or fall asleep driving, you aren’t getting enough. But what about other things?

What if “enough” is more about choice than some amount or standard? The Apostle Paul said, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” I’ve liked that Philippians 4:12 passage for over forty years, but it hasn’t become my reality as much as I would like. I have found myself counting my blessing when I am stressed or down, so that seems like a step in the right direction.

We don’t want it to be true, but how we feel is far more about our choice than our circumstances. There are people far worse off than you are who feel better about their lives than you do. And there are people much better off than you who feel far worse about their lives.

We could apply this to our marriages…

Oh, but then we would have to stop blaming our wife for our unhappiness and frustration and who wants to do that?

Sorry, this was a bad idea. Just ignore what I said today. See you tomorrow!

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Appreciate the Effort and the Cost

by The Generous Husband | May 23, 2022 | Audio, Keepin' It Real, Understanding Her, ZIMAGE

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It’s human nature to judge things by how they impact us. If your wife does something little for you, that gets less application than if she does something big for you. But what if how you judge big and small doesn’t line up with the effort your wife had to put into those things?

As a rather personal example, there were several years at the start of our marriage when Lori often gave me a handjob because she was not emotionally able to do more. It was nice, but it was far less than I wanted and sometimes it was more than a little frustrating. But I understood that even what “little” she was doing required a great deal of effort. Often giving me a handjob cost her a good deal. She did it because she loved me and felt it was the right thing to do, but it still cost her.

As I came to understand the truth of the situation, I became much more appreciative of those handjobs. Not because they were suddenly better or because I was less interested in doing more. Rather, I was trying to show a level of appreciation that reflected her effort.

Aside from being the right thing to do, showing appreciation based on what something cost your wife encourages her to keep doing whatever.

#Couple’sQuestion: What is challenging or difficult about being a husband?

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Should You Reconsider Your Lifestyle and Choices?

by The Generous Husband | May 10, 2022 | Audio, Good Marriage, Keepin' It Real, Links to good stuff, Money, Series, ZIMAGE

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When my son was single, he had an Impreza WRX S201 STi – a Subaru sports car. It was a fun ride and it could deal with the snow and dirt roads around here. But it certainly was not a family car. They took it on their honeymoon and he sold it shortly after they got back. Reconsidering our lifestyle is something we should do regularly, but most of us don’t do it until something forces us to do so. If you’re thinking “Yeah, I need to do that” then do it. If you’re not thinking that, then doing it now might save you some trouble later!

Major life changes such as marriage, having a(nother) child, or a big job change all call for reassessing our life and ensuring our choices and goals still make sense. But it’s far wiser to examine this question at least once a year. A series of small changes are easier and less disruptive than one big one.

One thing to consider is how your outlook on life has changed. You’re not the same man you were a decade ago and your goals and what you consider important have changed. Your wife has gone through similar changes, as has your marriage. Odds are some of what you’re living today doesn’t fit well with who you’re becoming. Don’t allow auto-pilot to keep you on a course that no longer makes sense.

How we use our money is one big issue in this. I will look at a few other issues in the coming days.

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey | Being led ◄ Do you trust God is in the details of your life?

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What’s Driving You? Do You Need To Make A Change?

by The Generous Husband | Mar 24, 2022 | Audio, Keepin' It Real, Links to good stuff, Seeing Clearly, ThePast, ZIMAGE

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Most of our decisions are driven by love or fear. Figure out what’s driving you, then decide what you’ll do. ~ Live in Grace, Walk in Love: A 365-Day Journey by Bog Goff

I think that statement is rather true, especially in terms of what we do in our marriages. How much of what you do with your wife is because you fear she will get upset, be disappointed, or even worse might leave you? And how much of your sex life is driven by fears, both past and current?

It’s wise to understand that certain actions will result in reactions we don’t like. But being driven by fear is more than that. Fear can be irrational or unconnected to what is actually going on today. If a former girlfriend reacted badly to something, we might avoid doing that thing with our wife based on our old fear. Fear of looking bad can keep us from doing something that would really bless our wife. And the fear of failure can be crippling.

Love, on the other hand, can drive us to do amazing things. Love causes us to act for our wife, rather than out of our selfishness. It causes us to sacrifice for her good and encourage her to grow even when we’re not sure what that growth might mean for our marriage.

Odds are your marriage is driven by a mix of love and fear. What can you do to be motivated more by love and less by fear?

A post worth reading:

Seth’s Blog | Assuming other people have it too ◄ Especially true for marriage!

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Cascading Compromise Chains

by The Generous Husband | Mar 13, 2022 | Audio, Keepin' It Real, Margin, Marriage Killer, ZIMAGE

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Last week during the sermon, our pastor used the phrase cascading compromises. It’s a brilliant phrase and surprisingly Google only returned 24 hits for it.

I immediately thought of a cascading compromise chain that got Lori and me when we were dating and engaged. We started kissing, which was fine. Then we French kissed. I won’t say that is wrong, but for me, it was because it caused me to very strongly desire more. And we moved on to more, and more, one compromise at a time. When we were doing everything other than intercourse, I reasoned to her that if what we were doing was okay, then having intercourse was okay. My logic was sound, the problem was my assumption that what we were doing was okay with God. I had allowed a series of compromises to justify what I really should have known was wrong.

We do the same thing in many areas of our life. It might be taking things from our job or cheating on our taxes. It could be watching things we should not or drinking too much. Cascades don’t just move us to do what is wrong, step by step they can move us away from doing what is right. We can become less kind and forgiving. Or we gradually show less love and care for others. Because these things happen one small step at a time, it’s easy to ignore them or tell ourselves it’s not a big deal.

Slow negative changes in marriage can be especially bad. Your wife knows something is different, but it’s hard to make a strong case because it’s such a slow progression. When she decides to speak up, she is protesting something she has tolerated for months or years. That feels unfair to you because it’s gone on so long. One common area where men do this is by slowly having less and less time for their wives because they keep making other things more important. One little compromise at a time, they become too busy to give their wife the time she needs and deserves.

Spend some time thinking and praying about your marriage. Do you see any cascades of compromise? Where have a series of small changes made you less loving or more critical? When you see these, don’t just stop the cascade; undo the chain of compromises and move back to how you used to be.

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