Celebrate Your Spouse

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

07 Apr 2006 08:30 AM

Welcome to Friday - has this been a long week or what? I'm exhausted. I've got my workout program, my projects, my gardening and my household chores. To add insult to injury, I also got a cold this week. I haven't been the happiest of campers. While most of the items on my to do list are pretty normal for a week, having a cold is not. I hate to be sick. I'm a lousy patient and I whine.

A lot.

My husband doesn't like it when I'm sick either. He worries. He tries to offer me anything to help me feel better. He also harasses me to take it easy. It's not unusual for us to argue when I'm sick - like having him bark at me to go lay down and take it easy and me shooting back a criticism that if I don't do it, it won't get done.

It really is a rather pointless little exercise in our communication skills, but it's so regular a ritual after all these years that we've gotten downright perfunctory about it. There's no heat in our words or our tones. In fact, when we did this last night - we both laughed. That's how used to each other we've gotten and how we behave when we're sick.

So, in honor of the fact that he can make me laugh even when I'm miserable, I want to take today to celebrate my spouse. How do you do that, you may ask? Well, I'm going to tell you and yes, you knew I likely had some half-baked plan up my sleeve. I love coming up with ideas.

Today's appreciation exercise is called Celebrate Your Spouse - you can do it any time and you don't need to wait for Valentine's, a birthday or your Anniversary. Instead, you take out a sheet of notebook paper and cut it into five or six strips. You can make more if you like, but five or six will do for now.

On each strip of paper, using a different color pen, write down one attribute in your spouse that you celebrate. Try to make them one word or short sentence attributes and do not add any qualifiers to them. Remember, you are celebrating your spouse.

So my list might look something like this:

• Generous
• Optimistic
• Comedic
• Entertaining
• Creative
• Crafty

Now take each of these little strips of paper and if you have any construction paper handy get a few sheets of that. If not, just use some regular paper. Glue these down in the center of each blank piece of paper. Use a ruler and draw out four or five lines from that word to various points on the sheet of paper. Now, write down an example of that attribute. Such as 'always the first to volunteer to help out a friend' for generous or 'repaired the broken chair in five minutes with a bit of wood glue' for crafty.

Make sure these are personal examples and that they have personal meaning for you. After you have all of these done, Staple them together and give them to your spouse. You can even put a cover sheet on it that says I celebrate you because ... or something more creative.

So, what do you celebrate in your spouse today?

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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WordsAplenty (4029) 08 Apr 2006 04:46 AM

I leave my husband little love notes on his sink. In them I thank him for working hard so that I can stay home w/ the kids, I compliment him on aspects of his job, I make references to things we've done together or things we've shared... nothing fancy, just personal snippets that don't get said in the hectic life we lead. I like your idea, though. I'm going to try it!

Heather Long (16954) 08 Apr 2006 01:35 PM

Misty,

That's a great idea. I used to leave notes for my husband on his computer screen all the time. He does the same things. They say everything from good morning, I love you to don't forget to do X -- but there's always a compliment on them somewhere -- even on the reminder notes!

Andrea M (2525) 09 Apr 2006 04:43 AM

If I know that my husband is going to take his lunch to work with him the next day, I will write a little note on a napkin and put it with his lunch! If he is having a stressfull day at work, it will always make him smile!

Heather Long (16954) 09 Apr 2006 05:18 AM

When my husband had to travel for business last summer -- he was gone for nearly three months -- I packed books in his suitcase. Inside each book was a note or a card for him. He found them periodically over the few weeks he was gone and they always tickled him!