Tag: marriage

Tools for Love

This is the month for love. Why do we regulate love to just one month? Successful couples have learned to show their love throughout the whole year. They have tools for love that help them throughout the whole year. Valentine’s Day is a great time to show your love to your spouse. We should all take advantage of it. To truly take advantage of Valentine’s Day, it should catapult you, show that you can show your love to your spouse all year. It sounds easier than putting something in place.

Tools to help throughout the year.

  1. Calendar/reminders

If you have trouble remembering important dates. Your calendar should be your best friend. Every important birthday, anniversary, and holiday should be in your phone. To help you get ahead of the game, set reminders for those dates. Most calendars you can set a reminder a couple of days to a week or two ahead of time.

  1. Evernote

If you haven’t come across the Evernote app. I’m not sure where you’ve been. Most people use it for note taking and organization. I found a unique way of helping me remember things that my wife has expressed interest in, or things that she says in conversation.

I created a file with her name on it. So if we’re out at the mall and she wants to stop by a store and try something on, I will take a picture of her in what she has. I save it to my folder then if we don’t buy it,  then I will have a future gift I know she will love. No need to rack my brain for gifts. I have a folder full of pictures of things that she has tried on.

Don't limit your love to just a holiday. Show love all year long. Click To Tweet

The same goes for conversations. There will times throughout the year where she will mention something like a new hobby or skill that she wants to learn. Maybe a book that she wants to read. All of these things go into folder and can be ideas for gifts at a later date.

  1. Canva

Sometimes you come across a nice quote or a beautiful saying and you want to send it to your spouse. Instead of just sending a normal text message, get creative and jump in Canva.com. You can let your creative juices flow and you can create everything from a poster to a social media post and everything in between. If you’re not the creative type, don’t worry Canva has plenty of templates that you can use and just copy and paste your message.

 

These are a couple of things that you can do to turn the month of February into a year long expression of your love.

 

Discussion Question:

What apps or tools do you like that help you express your love?

Leave a comment below with your answer.

 

Are You Selfish

The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people. – Chadwick Boseman

 

Does being selfish in a relationship make us the villain? Not necessarily, but it’s a thin line that we can easily cross. It’s hard to not be selfish in a relationship. We have to learn to be selfless and selfish, otherwise our friendships, relationships or marriages won’t make it.

I was recently texting with a friend who I hadn’t been in contact with in a long time. Since it had been a while since we last talked I was asking him to bring up to speed on his family, job and other things. Sometimes it’s nice to hear from people you haven’t head from in awhile. What the conversation turned in was just about him. There wasn’t any reciprocal. That is selfish. A one sided conversation. As a thought about our past conversations and times hanging out I realized that a lot of our friendship was one sided.

How can we go from being selfish to selfless:

 

  1. Think about your spouse’s favorite things and work on being a more thoughtful giver. A lot of times we as men don’t always think ahead. While we may know that birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays are coming getting the actual gift seems to slip by us. That won’t happen if we spend consistent time thinking on their favorite things.
  2. Challenge yourself to try new things that benefit others.

Whether it’s friendships or your marriage, we have to be willing to step out of our comfort zones for that person. It might be scary and uncomfortable, but it’ll be a unique and memorable experience that you have together.

  1. Give God all of your selfishness, be real and open about what you want to change and God will do it.
  2. Create a Good Habit. To make sure that it’s not a selfish habit. Look to establish something that helps you focus on others
  3. Pray for your spouse. There’s nothing that will take your mind off of yourself like praying for someone else. A heartfelt prayer, will put into perspective on how selfish we’ve been and how much we need to consider the other person. Bringing God into the conversation, always brings clarity.

How do you know when you’re being selfish? What do you do to correct get out of being selfish?