Appreciate Your Husband

To appreciate your husband is the best way to express your love for your husband because appreciation communicates respect. Many years ago, I learned from Emerson Eggerichs’ book, Love and Respect, that a husband’s primary need from his wife is her respect. I have also learned that appreciation is a vital element in a healthy marriage. 

Early in our marriage, my husband and I determined we wanted a lasting, in love marriage relationship. We knew from looking around at couples who had been married a long time that kind of marriage would not happen by chance. It would take work. So, we decided to do whatever it took to have a long-lasting intimate relationship. 

Therefore, throughout the past twenty-seven years, we have read dozens of marriage books. Love and Respect is at the top of our favorite marriage books list. For me, understanding the importance of showing my husband respect was a major shift. Learning how to communicate that respect was another element altogether. Letting your husband know you appreciate them communicates respect every time. 

• Get your free copy of my Favorite Marriage Resources.

However, appreciation isn’t always easy. When we live with someone 24/7, more often, we tend to focus on the bad rather than the good. We see all the ways their character or behavior doesn’t line up with what we think it should be. Those negative things start rising to the surface and clouding our ability to see the positive aspects of our husband. Ultimately, staying focused on his flaws will never communicate respect and will never facilitate deeper intimacy with him. 

The first problem to address is our focus problem.

The Problem Behind The Focus Problem

There are two major factors that attribute to our focus problem: 1) the devil; 2) self. 

1) The devil

Our innate ability to zero in on the one characteristic or flaw in our husband that drives us crazy points to the devil’s age-old trick we read about in Genesis 3. 

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field

 which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, 

"Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"

Genesis 3:1

In Genesis 3:1, the cunning and crafty serpent took Eve to the one thing in the garden she could not have. He got her to focus on that one thing rather than all the good and rich blessings of her life and the abundance surrounding her. 

The devil still works that way today. He takes us to the one thing, the problem area, the thing that isn’t the way we want it to be, and gets us to focus on that rather than all the good in our life. If we take the bait, he steals from us. However, when we stay determined to stay focused on the good things, we find our life, our marriage, our husbands, and we, ourselves, will all be much better for it. 

2) Self

Our natural instinctive tendency drives us to control and fix the things in our lives that aren’t as we think they should be. We often take on our husband’s flaws as very own mission to change. It’s not always out of a mean spirit. We love them. We want to help them, and we know we have the solutions that will make all of our lives better. 

Nevertheless, not only will our attempts to change our husband make our marriages less of what we want, our attempts will fail to produce lasting change. We may move, push, or harass them into change for a couple of weeks, but probably not much beyond that. 

Let Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4 encourage you. 

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Lasting Change

Surely, we don’t actually think we have the ability to bring about lasting change in our husband. Lasting change, better defined as transformation, normally happens in a slow process and only comes through the work of the Holy Spirit. Only He has the power to bring about true internal and eternal transformation. 

If our “self” is a primary problem to respecting our husband through appreciation, maybe we need a good dose of dying to self. Let’s set Galatians 2:20 as our reminder. 

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; 

and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, 

who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

I read an article in Psychology Today, 7 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude which talked about multiple studies done related to gratitude and grateful people. These studies found that gratitude actually improves physical and psychological health. Grateful people reported less aches and pains, increased happiness, and a reduction in depression. 

Developing Appreciation Toward Your Husband

Early in my marriage, my husband wasn’t very helpful with household tasks, and he wasn’t nearly as loving as he is today. At the same time, I didn’t do a great job of appreciating my husband. I had to learn to say thank you for the little things and the big things which meant maintaining an awareness of the good, positive, or valuable aspects of my husband’s character and actions. As I developed this attitude of gratitude toward him, he made changes as well. 

Two friends shared with me two different ways they developed appreciation toward their husbands. Their methods helped me so I wanted to pass them along to you. 

1) Keep A Dedicated Gratitude Journal

First, recognize a gratitude journal helps us prioritize a heart of thankfulness.  Years ago, my friend told me how she endeavored to live her life with an attitude of gratitude as one of her top priorities. She kept a gratitude journal by her bed. At the end of each day she wrote in her journal all the things she was thankful for that day. She said she never journaled any other thoughts. 

• This can help us maintain an awareness of our appreciation for even the little things our husband does.

                                       

2) Daily Emphasize Your Husband's Good Traits

 Another friend used a different method of learning to be a grateful wife. She listed every one of her husband’s good traits. Each day, she took something off her list and made sure she emphasized her thankfulness to her husband regarding that specific quality in him. She said it did not take her husband long to respond, and it positively impacted her marriage. Her efforts and her thankfulness motivated him to love her more and show her more. 

• This emphasis of the positive aspects of our husband will eventually make a difference. 

My appreciation of my husband throughout the years definitely improved our relationship. I believe if you appreciate your husband by showing and telling him how much you appreciate him, you will see the rewards of an improved relationship as well.