Monday, July 4
Finding Treasures in Trials...
Begin to treasure hunt as soon as possible and as long as you're able. This isn't something you do for just a short time after a trial; you continue doing it until your thinking actually changes and you realize the positive results of your positive thinking. You'll have a victory over your pain when you see the benefits of the event and have feelings of greater love and self-worth.
- From "It Takes Two to Tango" by Gary and Norma Smalley

Honoring Your Wife...
Your wife has "fences" that protect her privacy or need for emotional space. When you respect these boundaries, it shows that you honor her requests.

Most women report that they need to feel emotionally connected to enjoy physical intimacy. They need to feel loved and cherished. They need displays of physical affection, but not necessarily the sex act itself. Men, however, are motivated by the sexual act. They need sexual intimacy and state that physical affection and feeling cherished aren't always necessary for them to feel sexually satisfied. However, men still need affection and cherishing in the overall relationship.
- From "It Takes Two to Tango" by Gary and Norma Smalley
Keeping Alive Romance and Security...
Design togetherness times that incorporate your spouse's interests. These may involve athletic events, musical concerts, museum trips, meals out, fine arts and entertainment, vacations and so on.

Keeping Alive Romance and Security...
When used correctly, the differences in the way men and women respond to sex can complement each other. When not taken into consideration, these differences will tear apart the very fabric of your mutual fulfillment. Decide to stop waiting for things to get better. Only the two of you working together toward love will make the intimate difference. Acquire and practice new attitudes and skills that lead to fulfilling relationships.
Honoring Your Husband...
By diminishing your expectations--by not expecting your husband to provide a level of fulfillment that only God can give--you free your husband of a burden you otherwise force him to bear, and you free yourself from unnecessary disappointment. This doesn't mean ignoring your needs or wants, just getting rid of your time limit and preconceived ideas about when and how those expectations will be met.
Finding Treasures in Trials...
Whenever we're hit with a trial, if we don't allow ourselves to become angry and bitter, we'll become much more empathetic toward others who are experiencing similar problems and more sensitive to their feelings. All these things make us more loving and a better friend.
Honoring Your Husband...
Never belittle your husband's job or the importance of his activities at work. Nothing destroys a man's self-esteem more than to hear his wife cutting down his efforts to support her. And remember that being ignorant of what he does on the job may, in his eyes, be the same as belittling his work.

There are five keys or attitudes that open a closed spirit:
-Become gentle; demonstrate tenderheartedness. -Understand what the other person has gone through, listeningcarefully not only to what is said, but also to how it issaid. What has caused the anger?-Acknowledge that the person is hurting, and admit when you havebeen offensive.-Touch the other person gently.-Ask for forgiveness.
- From "It Takes Two to Tango" by Gary and Norma Smalley
Honoring Your Wife...
Recognize your wife's uniqueness. Because men and women are created differently, we need each other in order to grow toward maturity and balance. A woman may have more intuitive relational skills, but one of the strengths of a man is that he can decide to draw on those skills by asking probing questions like these: On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the worst and 10 the best, where do we want our relationship to be? Where is it, in general, today? What could we do in the next several days or weeks to bring our relationship closer to where we want it to be?

Learning to Communicate...
Work to avoid judgmental attitudes like "How stupid!" Oh, no, that would never work" or "You'll never understand!" If you criticize your mate in a condescending manner, you're actually pushing him or her further away from you. No one enjoys being with a disrespectful person (Proverbs 21:19).
- From "It Takes Two to Tango" by Gary and Norma Smalley
Increasing Your Intimacy 100 Percent...
Persistent love--like the dripping of water on a rock--can wear away a person's resistance. It's nearly impossible to stay angry with or emotionally distant from someone who unconditionally loves and values you.

Honoring Your Husband...
Don't feel hurt and condemn your husband because he doesn't speak the "language of relationships" very well. To him, it's like a foreign language. Instead, help him learn to use it as fluently as you do.

Tuesday, July 12
Increasing Your Intimacy 100 Percent...
One way to cherish our mates is to help them become fulfilled as people. We can do this by discovering their personal goals and looking for ways to help them reach those objectives. We all love to know someone is pulling for us.

Resolving Conflict and Dealing with Anger...
Keeping our "heads together" in stressful times is something like a foxhole experience. Those who have endured the horrors of trench warfare often remain friends for life, even though their ordeal may have lasted only a few weeks or months. Why? Because shared experiences, whether pleasant or unpleasant, creates the common ground in which deep-rooted relationships germinate and grow. The greater the intensity of the experience, the greater the potential for bonds of love and intimacy that can bind us to one another in a beautiful relationship called a close-knit family.

Learning to Communicate...
One of the easiest ways to reduce misunderstandings and communication friction is to share only a few thoughts with someone and then allow the person to repeat back what he or she thinks you said, much as would happen when you place an order at a fast food drive-through. This method will also improve your listening skills.


Resolving Conflict and Dealing with Anger...
Because a woman's need for a close, meaningful relationship is often greater than a man's, she is more sensitive to words and actions that can weaken a relationship.

Finding Treasures in Trials...
Allow yourself to grieve over any pain from discomforting experiences. Though I urge you to keep an optimistic outlook when confronted with a negative experience, it's still important to allow yourself to figure out what took place, analyze how it makes you feel, and sense the pain associated with the event. If you don't take this step, you can fall into denial and stuff the feelings so deep that you think you've solved the problem.
Honoring Your Husband...
When your husband disciplines one of your children, avoid the temptation to criticize him in front of the child or defend the child's action that provoked the correction. The first step in developing a calm attitude is to control your tendency to overreact.

Honoring Your Wife...
If you want to be considered great by your wife, start by learning to become a servant. Any time you promote her program or agenda over yours--without grumbling or complaining--you are sacrificially loving her.

Learning to Communicate...
The salt principle is a method of gaining and holding a person's attention by arousing curiosity. It's a way to create a thirst for constructive conversation in which both you and your spouse can learn about each other's needs. First, identify the need or concern to be discussed, and then identify areas of high interest to the other person--areas you can tap into to pique interest.

For HimRomantic Gestures:Write special notes of love and appreciation and hide them in places where your wife will eventually find them (i.e., dresser drawers, books she is reading, the microwave, her jewelry box, etc.).
---Excerpted from "Simply Romantic Ideas: 150 Fun and Creative Ways to Romance Your Wife" edited by Leslie J. Barner. Used with permission. Copyright 1998 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.
For HimRomantic Gestures:Phone her every day for one week and describe a part of her body that you like, and why; or a spiritual quality she possesses, and how she demonstrates it (each day choosing a different quality or part).

For HimRomantic Gestures:Leave a single rose (of a unique color) with a love note (telling her how special she is to you) where she can find it after you've left for work.
---For HimRomantic Gestures:On Labor Day, clean the house for your wife.
For HimRomantic Gestures:Have a bubble bath and her favorite music or book ready for her after an especially hard day. Give her a massage. Then let her go to sleep.
For HimRomantic Questions:What three ingredients are a must for a romantic evening?
For HimRomantic Questions:What are three things that I say or do that make you feel close to me? What are three things that I say or do that distance you from me?
For HimRomantic Questions:What is the funniest or most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to us (a time when we laughed really hard together)?
For HimRomantic Questions:How are we doing at dealing with conflict in our home? How can we improve?

For HimRomantic Questions:What part of my face do you like most?

For HimRomantic Questions:On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of our time together? Why?

For HimRomantic Questions:What has God been teaching you lately?
For HimRomantic Questions:What kind of friend do you most need me to be?

For HimRomantic Getaways:Take your wife on a surprise trip to a bed and breakfast in a romantic setting. Go on Friday night and enjoy a romantic evening with dinner, soft music, and slow dancing. On Saturday, after a hearty breakfast, spend the day setting and reviewing goals (family, marital, personal, spiritual, business, etc.) and planning your calendars for the next six months. Then on Sunday, worship the Lord and pray together, communicating with the Lord about your plans and goals.
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For HimRomantic Getaways:Make weekend arrangements for your children, pack bags for the two of you, and ask the sitter to arrive at the same time you plan to kidnap your wife. Then, take her to a surprise destination that will include a weekend stay at a nice hotel and tickets to a stage play or concert.

For HimRomantic Getaways:Go back to a place you went when you were newlyweds and stay overnight. Be sure to bring pictures from that time and take a romantic trip down memory lane together.
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For HimRomantic Gift Ideas:Present her a "Journal of My Love for You" – a journal that you fill with dated love letters written to your wife over a period of time.
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