TheLiar - The Generous Husband

Retire? No Thanks!

by The Generous Husband | Oct 6, 2021 | Faith walk, TheLiar, ZIMAGE

Yesterday, I talked about the empty nest. You may not have noticed, but I avoided words like retired and retirement.

I have never found the idea of retirement in the Bible, nor have I ever seen myself doing it. If I did, the picture here is how I would look on a good day.

When I was doing landscape and irritation I watched several long time male customers after they retired. And most of them aged a decade in a few years. God did not make male bodies to retire. When we stop doing, our bodies decide we’re done, and they shut down. On the other hand, I watch three brothers who live between our place and the paved road here in Eastern Washington. They all have at least a decade on me and they’re all still going. They raise, cut, bail, and sell hay, and a couple of them still run some cattle, with all the work that entails. One of them redid his septic this year – by himself with a bit of help from his brothers. In their seventies, they are more fit than a lot of men who are young enough to be their sons.

I’m not saying keep working for income for the rest of your life. If you can and want to, then ditch the job. But find something else to do. Volunteer in some way. Get involved with Habitat for Humanity or a local food bank. Offer cost of materials only repair jobs for folks who can’t pay for repairmen. Become a chaplain or other support person for a hospital, prison, hospice, or your local police or fire department. Take up a physical hobby. Move out in the country, set up an RV, and spend a few years building a home (we know a guy who started this when he “retired” and he had a blast.)

If you stop, you’re done. And you have so much to offer!

A post worth reading:

The Generous Wife | Different Kinds of Exhaustion ◄ How about you?

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The Liar: God Has Abandoned You.

by The Generous Husband | Dec 1, 2019 | TheLiar, ZIMAGE

I’m finishing my year of lies with a big one. It’s not a marriage lie, but it certainly can affect or even destroy your marriage. That lie is that God has abandoned you.

The last few months have been hard for me physically. A stroke, with ongoing tingling, abdominal surgery to remove thirteen lipomas, and as I write this I have a hernia that will require surgery. Despite this, I don’t feel at all abandoned by God. On the contrary, I feel closer to God and more sure of his love and care than I have for a very long time. The reason for this is several things, and I recommend these things to you as a way to fight this lie.

Daily time with God. I have been doing Paul David Tripp’s New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional every morning. I am also reading through the New Testament a chapter a day.
I spend time with solid believers who help encourage me, and when necessary, keep me on track.
I am praying more.
I am getting better at counting my blessings.
I am looking for (and finding) more and more ways to bless others.

A few years ago this run of health issues would probably have gotten me down. Today, while it’s certainly an annoyance, I’m not depressed and I’m not questioning God or my existence. If anything this is moving me even closer to God.

God has not abandoned you. If you think He has, you need to stop listening to the voice of The Liar!

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The Liar: “Things Would Be Different If…”

by The Generous Husband | Nov 1, 2019 | TheLiar, ThePast, ZIMAGE

“If only…” can destroy your marriage.

If only I had said ____. If only my wife would ____. If only we had _____. If only she was more ____. If only she was less ____.

It’s easy to say “Things would be different if…” and actually believe it. But in truth, that’s a lie meant to help us deal with our choices or an attempt to blame shift. In reality, all those “if only” thoughts just steal our focus from doing what could bring about change. Going over the ifs causes us to look at the past when we need to be looking at the future. We satisfy ourselves with a fantasy about what might have been rather than working to build what can be.

“If only” is both a lie and a trap. Let the past go and focus on what comes next.

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The Lies We Tell Ourselves

by The Generous Husband | Oct 22, 2019 | BE THE CHANGE, TheLiar, ZIMAGE

The other day at church, the worship leader prayed that God would help us see “The lies we hang on to” and the “Lies we fabricate to comfort ourselves.”

Been there and done plenty of that.

While these lies may seem to make it easier to cope with life, all they really do is keep us from living life. We hide, we withdraw, we don’t take chances. We can’t grow, we can’t improve. Our lives don’t get better, they get smaller.

Lies can also cause us to see others in a way that is not true. When we do this to our spouse we cripple our marriage in a way she can’t fix. If I believe a lie about my wife, nothing she says or does will change my mind because I have decided she is a liar. I don’t trust her voice or her actions, and I will see everything as reinforcing the lie I have believed.

The first step to dealing with these kinds of lies is to admit to yourself you might be living some lies. Next, you have to be willing to have the lies exposed, no matter how painful or scary that is. If you can do both of those things, then start praying for God to expose the lies you are believing.

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The Liar: Sex Is for the Young

by The Generous Husband | Oct 1, 2019 | Rethinking Sex, TheLiar, ZIMAGE

Both society and media tell us sex is for the young. Old folks don’t have sex or shouldn’t have sex. It’s not like they can do it well or enjoy it much, so why bother.

I’ve been having sex with the same wonderful woman for three and a half decades now, so I have some real-life experience to counter this lie. I’ve also talked to a lot of folks about sex over the years, including plenty who were older than I am now when we spoke. And much of that backs up what I have learned in my marriage.

Yes, sex at almost 60 is different than sex at 25. In some ways it’s better, in some it’s not as great. But overall I would say sex now is better than at any time in our marriage. We both want it, we both seek it, and we both enjoy it. It’s still plenty good physically and it’s way better emotionally.

Yes, my drive is less than it was when I was young, but really that’s a good thing. The fact is you don’t have to be desperately horny to have sex, and honestly, sex is generally better when you don’t start out desperate to finish. That, and when life prevents sex for a couple of days, my body is not screaming about it.

And women? I won’t TMI you, but sex is a lot better for Lori today than in the past. Once we got past the speedbump called menopause, it was smooth sailing!

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The Liar: You Have All The Time In The World

by The Generous Husband | Sep 1, 2019 | TheLiar, ZIMAGE

I suppose the timing of this post works well because of my recent stroke.

Honestly, I was never afraid of dying or of long term problems from this. And the only changes it’s caused me to make are diet-related. But it still shows we never know what’s around the next turn.

More than just death, I would like to get you to think about all the other places where you may not have the time you think. Your kids are growing up. Some of your friends will decide to move during the next year. The shifting of your life and the lives around you will make some relationships diminish and will end some opportunities. As you age, certain things become more difficult and eventually impossible.

The lie is that you have all the time in the world to do whatever, to get to know someone, or to heal a damaged relationship. The truth is any of those things could be gone tomorrow for any number of reasons.

This is also a very real thing in marriage. You are growing and changing and your wife is doing the same. This alters your relationship. It makes some things easier and others harder. In time, it will end certain opportunities and before that happens those things will become more difficult.

My advice is to stop putting things off because you assume you will be able to do them later. Maybe you will, but maybe you won’t. If it’s important, do it now. If it matters to you, do it now.

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The Liar: People Don’t Change

by The Generous Husband | Aug 1, 2019 | BE THE CHANGE, Change, Links to good stuff, TheLiar, ZIMAGE

I often hear married folks say people don’t change. Sometimes this is said by a person trying to explain or excuse their spouse’s bad behaviour; other times it’s said by someone trying to justify their own bad behaviour.

Thing is, this is a lie. And not just any lie, it’s calling God a liar! The Gospel is all about how we will change when we accept Jesus as our Lord.

I touched on this in Actions and Consequences, where I talked about it being difficult but possible to change, and how doing so changes our neural pathways, eventually making the changed way easier.

The truth is change is hard work and the longer you have done it one way the harder it is to change. This is why we tell ourselves it’s just how we are and we can’t change. We’re basically lazy, and change is hard work.

Part of the problem here is perception. We live with ourselves, and with our spouse, and that makes it hard to see the slow, creeping kind of changes that are most common. But over time those inches and feet add up to miles! Another factor is we assume we’re done changing. This is true for 25-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and 55-year-olds. And yet, in a decade, all those folks would say they had changed in the last ten years.

Science is even finding that people can change aspects of their personality if they make a real effort. Some things are more difficult to change than others and there are limits, but we’re not nearly as set in stone as we think.

I’ve linked to several resources below if you want more information. And I can’t leave this without pimping a resource that brought about a lot of change in my life – Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature. The Kindle version was on sale for $2.99 when I wrote this.

You can change or you can sit back and lie about not being able to change. Only one of those is good for your marriage and only one of them is okay with God.

Do People Really Change? | Psychology Today
We change more than we think, scientists say | LA Times
Can People Really Change? | PsychCentral
20 Simple Activities That Science Proves Can Change Your Personality for the Better | Inc.

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The Liar: Women Don’t Want/Enjoy Sex

by The Generous Husband | Jul 1, 2019 | Big Deal Post, Seeing Clearly, Sexuality, TheLiar, ZIMAGE

I know we would all like our wives to be as into sex as we are. The reality is women, as a group, are not as horny as men. However, this does not mean they lack a sex drive or an interest in being sexual. One of the big marriage lies out there is that women don’t want and don’t enjoy sex. And it’s not only men who believe this lie, plenty of women believe it too!

A big part of this is raw sex drive, which is why I used the word horny above. Most men feel a growing need for sex after a certain time. For young men that can be as little as twelve or fewer hours after an orgasm. For older men, it may be a day or several days. But most of us do feel the need if we go too long without sex. We don’t have to think about sex or be around our wife for this need to happen, it’s part of our biology. Most women don’t experience this same kind of time determined sexual need. Some do, but it’s not the norm.

Because women don’t have a recurring need for sex pushing them to have sex, it’s far easier for them to ignore it. When life is good and they have plenty of downtime, they may be all about sex. When they get busy or stressed, they can go days or weeks without sex and not feel deprived. Similarly, when there are relational problems in the marriage they may lose all interest in sex. For men, none of these things turns us off because our sex clock is still counting down and telling us we need to have sex.

This difference is significant, but it doesn’t mean women have no interest in sex, and it certainly doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy sex. It does mean sex is less “automatic” for women. She may not think of it even though she would gladly do it and enjoy it if you nudge her that way.

The best way to increase her interest in sex is to make sex great for her. Be all about what she wants and don’t push your agenda if she seems at all uncomfortable with it. Learn what she enjoys and do that. Eliminate things she does not enjoy or only do them once in a great while. When you try new things, be aware of how she feels about them; keep doing the things she enjoys and drop the rest.

God did give your wife a sex drive, it’s just not like your drive. Her drive has a lot more to do with emotions and how she is feeling about you and about your marriage. That means doing non-sexual things with her can result in her being more interested in getting naked with you. It also means not doing those non-sexual things is reducing your odds of having sex.

#CouplesQuestion: What recent news story caught your attention? Why?

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