On Vacation

My wife and I are currently away from home and I haven't had much time for writing since we've been gone. I'll get back to writing articles in a couples weeks, but for now I wanted to let you all  know of a couple additions to the site.

Firstly, I've made iamhusband.com available for the Kindle here, for those who like to access their favorite blogs through their Kindle e-book reader.

Secondly, iamhusband is now on Twitter and can be followed by adding @iamhusband. While I'm on the road, I'll be sending links to older posts to let others in the Twitterverse find their way here. When I return home, I hope to be able to use it as a way to post little husband tips and marriage advice that might not be big enough for its own article on the site. So stop by and say hello if you have the chance.

And if I don't see you over at Twitter, I'll see you all in a couple weeks!

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Tell Her What You're Thinking

Sometimes I am just amazed that my wife picked me. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I watch her do the cute things she does and I can't feel more in love with her. I know I married way out of my league and I couldn't be more thankful that she actually wants to be with me.

There are times when I'm watching her from across the room and think, Man, she is so beautiful. She was a bridesmaid in a wedding recently and I thought, Wow, she's really giving the bride a run for her money! In so many moments I remember who I am and who she is and I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

And today I want to share a little trick I've learned to make your wife feel like the woman you know she is:

Tell her what you're thinking.

Seriously, the next time you catch yourself thanking your lucky stars for the woman sitting next to you, tell her that the next chance you get. Or if you're admiring her across the room at some event, take the first moment you can to tell her how beautiful she is and how much you enjoyed watching her from across the room.

Our wives want to hear that we're still infatuated with them. We have these thoughts, so why not share them? Put your feelings into words and tell her. She'll love you more for it.

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Learn To Love The Same Things

My wife is a game person. She loves all sorts of games and absolutely loves it whenever she gets to play them. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a game person at all. It's not that I don't like to play games, it's just that I'd rather be doing other things. Typically, I would much rather sit around with a group of people and talk about nothing than play a game. I wouldn't go as far to say that this has been a point of "tension" in our marriage, but it is something my wife always wishes I would want to do more.

Recently we've been hanging out with a couple who really enjoys playing games, so naturally we've been playing games more often. Since we've been on this game-kick for several weeks now, I've noticed something strange: I'm actually enjoying playing these games more and more. I've even found that I want to play more games.

Though husbands and wives will never have the exact same interests, it may surprise you how her interests can become your interests if you give yourself to learning about them and participating in them. I've seen this true in wives over and over, but husbands seem to have trouble wanting to make the effort. It's not that we can't because you were very interested in her hobbies when you were dating. Unfortunately we tend to get lazier and selfish as the married years march on. Don't let that happen!

What are some interests your wife has that she would love for you to be more involved in?

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I Need Your Help

As I mentioned earlier this year, I have some ideas for this site that I hope to see come to pass sooner rather than later. Back in the very first post I ever wrote for iAMHUSBAND, I said, "...I'm hoping that there are others out there who have great ideas or advice to share with the rest of us. I hope this can be somewhat of a sounding board of positivity and encouragement as we all seek advice and ideas to keep our marriages alive."

Today I want to make that invitation official by inviting you to participate with this site by answering the following questions.

• What Would You Like To See Discussed? I am only one man, and only one husband. What things would you like to see discussed here that you haven't seen yet? What questions do you have about married life? What questions do you have about love, sex, fights, gifts, etc? Hearing about what you'd like to see will really help me as I try to shape the direction of this blog.
  

• Can I Get Some Help? The issues I choose to talk about come from my own perspective on marriage as I observe it. I would love to have other husbands out there contribute by writing articles that will help all men be better husbands. If you've got tip to share, a story to tell, a marriage book review to give, or anything else that you think would be beneficial to husbands and their marriages, please do!
  

Please leave your post ideas in the comments below, and if you have an article you'd like share with us here, please send me an e-mail using the contact button to the right for more information.

I hope that we can all work together to make this site better and more beneficial to even more husbands. I hope to hear from you soon.

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What To Do When She's 'Always Right'

Several days ago I posted a comment I received from a reader back in January in response to an article I wrote called Are You Good At Being Wrong? It seems as though there are many husbands struggling out there with always feeling like they are their wives' doormat; that their wives are always right no matter what.

Let me make this clear before I start so as not to offend our lady readers out there: both men and women struggle with admitting when they are wrong. The point of our post today is not to say that men don't deal with this. The point of this post is helping husbands deal with their wives when the wives themselves are in the wrong.

I did have some thoughts when I read through that comment that I want to share. Custom fit these thoughts and suggestions to your own specific situation, because every situation is different.

• Let Her Cool Down Before Expressing Your Feelings — Saying something to your wife like, "Well you're always right and I'm always wrong!" is just gasoline on a flame in the heat of the moment. In all actuality, she's upset about the situation, not at you. Wait until later to let her know to express to her things like, "I felt really hurt by the way you acted earlier." Removing yourselves from the situation will allow you to talk about what you want to talk about.
  
• But If You Do Need To Mention Something...— Recently my wife was very irritated with something that was going on (I think we were traveling) and she kept snapping at me out of frustration. This, in turn, was of course making me get very frustrated, so eventually I just asked, "Babe, are you upset with me?" She immediately said, "No, I'm just overwhelmed with..." I told her that the way she was acting was making me feel like she was angry with me. She apologized and things cooled down after that because she realized what was happening. Sometimes our anger toward other things catches our spouses in the crossfire.
  
• When She's Always Right — Our reader comment was a very specific situation of anger, but many people commented in the post Are You Good At Being Wrong about how their wives never admit that they are wrong, no matter how trivial the issue. If this is something that gets you down, you need to talk about it with her. But again, do it when you are away from the situation to limit her being overly defensive. Tell her, "It makes me feel really incompetent when you won't admit you're wrong over the little things." Or, "I feel beaten when I can't even be right over the little things I know I'm right about.
  
• Check Yourself — It is a lot easier for her to sympathize with your feelings if she knows you are trying in this area too. If you act just as stubborn, then telling her she needs to fix her problems is part of the reason you have problems. Check yourself; how well have you been able to admit your faults?
  
• If She Disregards Your Feelings Completely — If you have lovingly and clearly stated how you feel and things still don't seem to change, it's time to get help. Getting help can be as simple as going to another couple you know that has dealt with the same issue but gained victory over it, or as "extreme" as going to a counselor. This is your life and your marriage. If things aren't the way they should be, do not be okay with that. Little problems become big problems, and little issues become big feelings of resentment if they are not dealt with.
  

These are just a few ideas to help you in this area of how to get along with a wife who acts as though she is always right. I hope some of these have helped, and I would love to hear more suggestions on how to improve this situation in marriage in the comments below.

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iAMHUSBAND 24 Hour Challenge

My wife and I are going on a car trip this weekend and this morning I got up early so that I could vacuum and dust the car out so that the trip would be that much nicer to take. When my wife left for work and thanked me for being such a good husband (which definitely made the vacuuming worth it), I got to thinking about another 24 hour husband challenge.

Today's challenge is to do something out of the ordinary for your wife. This can't be a gift like flowers or a card, but it has to be some kind of service that you usually don't do that you know your wife would appreciate. Is it cleaning it out the car? Is it getting to that junk drawer you guys have needed to organize for forever? Is it fixing the hinge on that cupboard? Get creative and then come back and share with all of us what you came up with.

You have twenty-four hours. Ready...go!

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