Respect your husbands

If you're married, you should read this article.

It's definitely a huge pet peeve of mine to see women constantly trashing their husbands. It's like they enjoy talking down to them or bashing their husbands to their friends, and they're always looking for something the men do wrong. I try my best to not engage, but I have to admit sometimes their frame of mind rubs off, and before I realize it I've just made fun of my husband as well. I back track as quickly as possible, but it has slipped out.

Before getting married, I read a book full of advice from successful couples. The one item that stuck out most to me was the story of a married couple sitting with a group of other married couples. Everyone was bashing on his or her spouse, and this one couple stayed quiet.

Soon their friends asked them what they did that bugged each other. They looked at each other and couldn't think of anything.

Early in their marriage, they had decided to only look at the positives in each other. It must not have been always easy, but after so many years looking at the positive they literally couldn't see the negatives anymore.

I think that is beautiful. Like anything in life, marriage takes perspective. You might have to train yourself to look at only the positives in your husband, but if those are the only things you dwell on for so many years, that's all you will see.

But in his blog, Matt Walsh had a good point. It doesn't matter if you see the negatives in your husband. You should respect him, because he is your husband. He is the man given to you by God to be your provider. We want our husbands to love as us we are, without having to deserve it. Our men deserve our respect whether they "deserve" it or not, whether they have earned it or not. Our love and respect will give them a reason to be loving and respectable.

I told a friend once that he should love his wife even if she changes after marriage. Even if she is the "wrong" person, he chose her and it is his duty to love her. Often when people get divorced, they say it was a mistake to get married because they married the wrong "one." Marriage isn't about "one." It's about a choice, a commitment. Whether your spouse deserves to be loved, you love them. Whether your husband deserves to be respected, you respect him as the head of your house. You might not respect all his decisions, but you respect him as a man.