This infographic is based on this full-text post, Ideas to Be Your Spouse’s Wingman. Print it here!
And catch more on the Freebies page!
THE AWKWARD MOM
because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having
Category: staying in love (page 2 of 4)
Reading Time: 3 minutes
The finish line is in sight: The kids are headed to bed. Did I mention your knuckles are grazing the ground?
Aren’t you feeling creative? Romantic? Well. If I was thinking about something other than settling in for some Netflix–yes, romance sounds nice. Creativity sounds, um, exhausting.
So let’s make it easy. Super-doable. (Hey, this as much for me as for you.) Let’s stoke the fires of romance with the little energy you’ve got left.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
- Text something sweet, sexy, thankful, or playful: Thanks for all you do to get us all out the door in the morning. You still take my breath away.
- Check your spouse’s calendar, and then kidnap her from work for a quick lunch or an afternoon romantic matinee.
- Bring his favorite coffee shop treat home.
- Leave a steamy voicemail.
- Load the dishwasher for her. (Trust me. It works.)
- Invite him to take a shower with you.
- Get a little “handsy” in the kitchen.
- Lay your head on his chest or tuck beneath his arm while you watch your Netflix fave.
- Compliment her in front of a friend.
- Pick up her favorite snack at the grocery store.
- Grab her hand while riding in the car.
- Encourage him about something he did well at work.
- Wrestle.
- Borrow the kids’ Nerf weapons.
- Encourage your kids to thank her for something she’s done for them.
- Write him a love note.
- Make her a homemade card.
- Give him a massage.
- Write her a sappy (or funny) poem.
- Read her a love poem. (Ideas here.)
- Rub her feet.
- Make him a compilation CD of songs that express your heart and relationship.
- Give her a scalp massage.
- Take a bath together.
- Buy her flowers.
- Kiss at every stoplight.
- Ask to hold her hand.
- Play with your kids together.
- Light candles.
- Wear perfume and pretty underthings.
- Speak her love language (free “cheat sheet” here).
- Clean up your bedroom.
- Take care of that one thing that’s been weighing on him.
- Make up a goofy song about her on the fly.
- Overlook something he did that was stupid.
- Call her to tell her something about your day.
- Advocate for her.
- Plan a date in.
- Remember one of your favorite lovemaking memories, and whisper it in his ear.
- Go on a walk.
- Paint her toenails.
- Thank him for something unexpected.
- Listen to her. Ask good questions. (Ideas here.)
- Initiate fun sex.
- Tell her about a memory you love from when you were dating.
- Pick up a bag of her favorite candy.
- Play a little jazz while you cook together. Grab her hand and dance for a moment.
- Develop a code for talking when the kids are in the room about possible lovemaking.
- Come to bed naked.
- Go stargazing.
- Pick up a small gift that will delight and surprise.
- Pray together.
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering.
The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Hey.
I was there just this past Saturday, too. Felt like it had been a year of keeping my head down, doing the right thing with a hopeful smile. Or maybe some tears. I’ve mentioned this last year my struggles with feeling powerless; with the tension of not living some dreams.
I may have even scrawled the phrase tired of a “Yes, sir” life in my journal this past weekend.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Hey.
Thanks for being open with me.
Over your latte, I saw the concern in your eyes. I know this isn’t who you want to be; that you’re afraid of your own heart. I know you’re married, but constantly thinking about someone else. But I know longing runs deep.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Missed Part I, Questions to Understand THE STRESSED VERSION OF YOURSELF? Grab it here.
One of the unexpected delights of our final couple of months in Africa was the arrival of a college friend who’s known my husband and I since the beginning. She watched us meet, cautiously date, giddily become engaged. She played the piano when the two of us spring chickens said “I do” forever. Later, I stood with her as she spoke her own vows beneath a spreading tree. And when she visited us in Africa and we stayed up entirely too late, she gave us this gift: I told my husband, “I love that she reminds us how good we are together. That you and I together are a really good thing.”
I wrote before that this time of leaving Africa, of setting a foot on two highly divergent continents, has delivered unavoidable stress to our relationship. Both of us are strained, so it makes sense that our most intimate relationships would bear that weight. So it was kind of God to remind us that despite the ways we occasionally feel like the losers in a three-legged-race right now—“us” is still a really good thing.
Part I of this post outlined some essential reasons we need to identify when we’re stressed. If you’re convinced, let’s get down to it. What are the signs your marriage is under stress?
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.
–Sweet Land (PG, 2005)
I tease my husband (the poor introvert!). Because whenever I write about him—he, who washes his hands of anything to do with internet attention—readers eat. It. Up.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
“To be able to look backward and say, ‘This, this has been the finest year of my life’–that is glorious! But anticipation! To be able to look ahead and say, ‘The present year can and shall be better!’–that is more glorious! I have done nothing but open windows–God has done the rest. There has been a succession of marvelous experiences of the friendship of God. I resolved that I would succeed better this year with my experiment of filling every minute full of the thought of God than I succeeded last year. And I added another resolve–to be as wide open toward people and their need as I am toward God. Windows open outward as well as upward. Windows open especially downward where people need the most!
“…There is nothing that we can do excepting to throw ourselves open to God.”*
Pull up a chair for practical ideas and discussions on the parenting, relationships, and spirituality we're all army-crawling through every day.
After five and a half years in Uganda, my family and I returned to the U.S., where I write and speak professionally, and we continue to work on behalf of the poor.
My first solo book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts (Harvest House), released October 2021.
#instagoodness
Most popular: Shame-parenting vs. Guilt Exposure
Popular: When Your Help Makes Kids Helpless
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids
Popular: What does God think of strong women?
Popular: 11 Ideas for Emotionally Healthy Parenting
Popular: Am I Judgmental? Judgment vs. Discernment
Popular: Complaining vs. honest expression
On God and the dreams of women
20 Practical ideas for every love language!
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
Ideas and Questions to Take Your Relationships Deeper: Click here!
© 2024 THE AWKWARD MOM
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
