Love Your Spouse Well This Holiday Season
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3 Ways to Love Your Spouse Well This Holiday Season

The holidays are busy. We rush around decorating, shopping and spending time with family.

The activities and family time can be great things, but oftentimes it takes away from quality time in your marriage.

I know that when I get busy, the easiest thing to let slide is my intentional effort to make my husband feel loved. After all, he knows I love him, right?

Love Your Spouse Well This Holiday Season

Although your spouse may be confident that you love them, why not consider committing to these 3 ways of making them feel more loved during this busy time?

They aren’t difficult and they don’t take too much time.  Follow these 3 things and your marriage will thank you.

Pray for Them

Prayer is powerful.  I’ve only recently begun to pray for my husband every morning and I can already see the transformation.  Praying for your spouse does many things.

First, it changes YOU. When I pray for our marriage and for my husband specifically, I see my heart transforming.  I find more patience, more understanding and more energy and love to serve Him.

And guess what?  In doing this, my husband begins to transform as well.

Second, it sets your priorities in order.  Praying for my husband reminds me daily that he is not mine to change.  We all have things we’d like to see change in our spouses.  It’s totally natural when you’re so close with someone!  But by praying for these things, we are reminded that God is the one in control.  God is the one who does the changing.  God comes first and we can live by that daily when we offer up our prayers to Him.

Third, it releases the need to control.  Control is a hard thing to give up for many of us.  We want to make changes and we want to do it now.  But God doesn’t call us to micromanage our marriages.  He calls us to release them to Him and to allow Him to be the manager.  Prayer allows you to voice your concerns, your wishes, your hopes for your spouse and then to let them go into God’s control.

[bctt tweet="God doesn’t call us to micromanage our marriages. He calls us to release them to Him!" username="NicoleAKauffman"]

Will you take this step with me?  Pray for your spouse every day.  Be specific and dedicated in these prayers, truly offering your heart to God.  And He will transform you and your marriage.

I highly recommend Stormie Omartin’s The Power of a Praying Wife and The Power of a Praying Husband.  These books go through specific areas of your marriage and of your spouse’s needs and they have prewritten and in depth prayers for each day.

Speak Their Love Language

When we seek to make another feel loved, we often start with what makes us feel loved.  I feel loved when my husband spends time with me, so I seek to spend a lot of time with him.  And he feels overwhelmed.  What went wrong?  He feels loved when I speak encouraging and affirming words to him or when I serve him in some way.  Time is great, but he needs time to recharge on his own.  The way that I feel loved doesn’t make him feel loved!

(If you haven’t already, I HIGHLY recommend reading Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages)

He talks about 5 different “languages” of love that we speak to one another.  Take this FREE online quiz to discover your love language.

My husband and I took this test at the beginning of our marriage and it gave us so much insight on how to love each other.

I feel loved the most when he spends quality time with me and when he speaks affirming words.  He feels loved the most when I serve him and when I speak affirming words to him.

By discovering how your spouse feels loved, it becomes a lot easier to love them effectively.  All the languages are important, but there are usually one or two that mean the most to someone.

[bctt tweet="By discovering how your spouse feels loved, it becomes a lot easier to love them effectively." username="NicoleAKauffman"]

Discover your language and encourage your spouse to discover theirs.  This will also transform your marriage.

Surprise Them Before Christmas

We expect surprises and gifts on the holiday, but what about in the weeks leading up to it?  Your spouse probably doesn’t expect to be surprised in the busy and long weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Think about what they love most.  Is it a night away with you?  A night to themselves for a long, undisturbed bubble bath and relaxation time?  Plan a night where you can free up your spouse’s time to do what they love most.

This one isn’t easy, but it can be a great way to show that you love your spouse and you care about their time and their desires.  Find a sitter for the kids or plan to get them out of the house yourself.

Finding an evening of quiet during these few weeks can be difficult!  So what a great way to show your love to your spouse.

I’d love to hear what you do to make your spouse feel loved during this holiday season.  Please comment below. 🙂

And don’t forget to subscribe for more encouraging posts and to get access to my free resource library of e-books and worksheets to help you grow in your faith and in your marriage.

 

Check out this devotional to help you love your spouse well!

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23 Comments

  1. Very good reminders, Nicole! I like the third idea best. You’ve inspired me to clean our whirlpool tub so he can have a relaxing soak this weekend. Congratulations on your feature this week at Counting My Blessings too!

  2. I love this encouragement! It is so easy to get wrapped up in all the hustle and bustle, pushing our marriages aside for the season. Thank you for reminding me to make time for the man who matters most in my life 🙂

    Happily visiting from #DanceWithJesus linkup!

  3. If a wife had to choose only one thing to do for her husband, praying for him would be the absolute BEST one! My hubby appreciates that I pray for him daily. Great list and thanks for sharing on Grace and Truth!

    1. I agree, Aimee! Reading The Power of a Praying Wife has transformed my prayer life and my marriage! So important!

  4. It’s definitely a time when we get busy and don’t take the time to show our spouses our love. These are good reminders. Thank you for linking up with Literacy Musings Monday.

  5. Great message! I too have found to show my love by freeing up time for him to just relax and “be” I also love to show my love by keeping the house clean and taking care of him. It’s the old saying: Actions speak louder than words.

    1. LOVE that saying, Sheryl. Keeping my house clean really helps my husband to find that time to relax too! Great ideas 🙂

  6. I love these ideas! Thanks for sharing! I especially love the thought of surprising my husband before Christmas, because he definitely won’t be expecting it then : )

  7. Wow, Nicole … this is a great list … and one worth considering. We’ve been married for almost 26 years … and it’s easy to just ride in the car … but I needed this list to make sure I’m intentional about loving my man. Visiting from Deb’s today.

  8. Hi Nicole! It’s a joy to be following you at Suzie’s this week. What a beautiful post, full of truth and wisdom. The 5 Love Languages saved our marriage 16 years ago. Thanks for prompting me to continue speaking my husband’s love language! Bless you!

  9. Nicole, I love your topic today. I’m afraid sometimes it’s too easy to use my husband to help me make all the Christmas activities happen. You’ve made me want to think of how to love him more during this season.

    1. I completely agree, Debbie! It takes an intentional heart to really love our husbands more when life gets busy. So glad you stopped by today 🙂

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