5 Ways to love your husband better

Hey there hi there ho there!

April 16 was husband appreciation day! I love my husband and I am so incredibly thankful for him and all he does for us. Lately I’ve been getting re-excited about the fact that we literally have all of our lives together. I think it’s because we were in a hard season and I was like wait, this isn’t IT. It’s not going to be like this forever. We have so many more days and years (Lord willing!) to be together and create memories. We will travel, build a home, all the things--in time. It doesn’t have to all happen RIGHT now. To sum up: I appreciate him, and I appreciate him even more as we are coming out of a particularly hard season because he stuck with me through all of my ugly.

In a culture where it’s popular to complain about your husband (particularly on social media) I want each of us to stand out. I want us to instead shower our husbands with love, admiration, and appreciation. As wives we are to be helpmates, encouragers, and our husbands’ biggest supporters! I think it is wrong and so discouraging to see women ragging on their husbands online or even in person. We ought always to speak highly of our husbands, and if we are struggling, keep it private. Let’s get better about building up our husbands instead of bringing them down!

Today I wanted to share a few ways that we can love our husbands BETTER. We may all love our husbands, but there is always room for improvement. I think we should always be striving to do better and be better. Here are 5 ways to love your husband better, today!

(I also want to add that I am continually working on all of these myself. I’ve only been married for four years and don’t pretend to have it even close to figured out. I am just sharing a couple of things that I’ve learned that help me be a better wife that maybe you can apply to yourself. I am always looking to learn so if you have anything that you do for your husband that helps your relationship thrive, please share in the comments below!

1 // Pray for Him

Prayer is arguably THE most important way to love your husband. In the beginning of our marriage I must confess, praying for my husband wasn’t really on my mind or a priority. Now, 4 years in, I pray for him every single day multiple times a day. Now, now, I am NOT saying to pray away your husband’s bad habits or pray for him to stop doing that thing that annoys you. I’m saying pray for his heart, his energy, his strength, wisdom, guidance, hope, joy, spiritual growth, work, influence. When you are upset with him, stop and PRAY for him. Put yourself in HIS shoes and pray for whatever may be in his heart or mind. There is usually something deeper going on in the midst of an argument. If you have an issue that you need to bring up to him, pray over it first. Pray for how you deliver it, pray for how he receives it, pray for understanding and solution. Praying for your husband is powerful and necessary. Maybe you aren’t a believer, but I can promise you that when you start praying over your husband you will see amazing changes. Not just in your husband, but in yourself and how you serve him. If your marriage is struggling, I challenge you to start praying over your husband right now, and see how your relationship changes.

2// Tell Him What you Want + Need

I struggle with this more than I’d like to admit. I constantly have to remind myself that my husband isn’t a mind reader. If he’s not doing that chore I want him to do, have I asked him to do it? Tell your husband what you want and need from him! I’m almost certain he will readily give it to you or do it for you. You just have to tell him. When you need a listening ear and not a fixer, start the conversation by saying, “I don’t need a solution, I just need you to listen and comfort me right now.” I bet the conversation will go way better. It will be easier on everyone if you just tell him what you want instead of waiting for him to figure it out. (Ahem, did you read that Kaydee?)

3 // Verbally Encourage Him Regularly

Maybe your husband is different, but my husband doesn’t always express what he’s struggling with or what’s weighing him down. I have found that whether he tells me or not, he needs encouragement a lot. If you are looking for ways to love your husband better today, start by encouraging him! Tell him what he’s doing well, remind him how much he is needed and how important he is. We all need this encouragement, as wives it is our job and privilege to be our husband’s main encouragement. I like leaving notes in my husband’s lunch, but I also try to just tell him when I notice things. If you aren’t regularly telling your husband what a great job he’s doing at being a person, start right now.

4 // Reserve Space and Energy for HIM

As a mama of twin boys, my days are busy and exhausting. As a third grade teacher and father of twin boys, my husband’s days are busy and exhausting. In the beginning of parenthood I found that I didn’t have hardly any space or energy left for my husband. I was touched out, my patience was absolutely worn thin (I took every frustration out on him because I couldn’t take it out anywhere else, the ugliness of postpartum rage). I was pretty much too exhausted for conversation, and so was he. It put a lot of tension on our relationship. From that I learned that I need to reserve energy and time for my husband specifically to help us have a thriving relationship. This looks like taking an easy day and not doing all the things I want to do so that at the end of the day I have energy for my husband. It looks like working on myself and my coping mechanisms so that my husband doesn’t take the brunt of my bad mood. It looks like resting so that we can stay up and play a game or watch a movie after the kids go to bed. Loving your husband better means making sacrifices in other areas of your life so that you can give him more!

5 // Learn his love language and love him with it.

I don’t fully buy into the love languages thing because I feel that each of us should learn to recognize the way other people love us and take it as such. I don’t think we necessarily need to be strict about love languages. But I do think they are real and helpful to know about! Learning my husband’s love language (what things make him feel most loved) and how he shows me love has really helped me out. Learning what things make him feel the most loved helps me know what specific things I can do for him to make his life better and his day brighter. Encouraging words, physical touch, quality time, acts of service, receiving gifts, whatever it may be, learn your husbands! Then, you can be intentional about doing those things often so that he knows he’s on your mind. I also realized how much more vital it is to recognize how he loves me. The way he shows love isn’t necessarily my love language. But looking at whatever he’s done and saying “Oh, he’s showing me he loves me!” has helped me feel so much more loved. Rather than thinking “He never does this, and I wish he would!” you can begin to think “He always does this because he cares about me, I appreciate that so much!”

I think it would be such a fun date night activity to take the love language quiz together at home or out at dinner! I think it is super helpful, but it’s not the end all be all of your relationship either!

I hope this post was helpful to you and that maybe you can start doing something more to show your husband how loved + appreciated he is!