Ok, I’ll confess, sometimes my wife annoys me.

Don’t get me wrong!  I love her like crazy, and the times she annoys me are infrequent, but it’s true – she does things once in a while that irritate and annoy me.  And when she does, most of the time I’m able to offer it up, and only sometimes express my annoyance by being impatient or telling her.

Most of the time, though, she does things that really endear me to her and make me love her more and more, and I find myself wishing she’d just work on those things that annoy me and everything would be perfect.

But then, not too long ago I was really considering the little things she does that annoy me and those that please me and I realized…

THEY ARE THE SAME THINGS!

more “Yep, she annoys me!”

I wasn’t planning to write about ‘reading’ – but when Melissa chose that as her topic – I didn’t want to let her beat me to the ‘you should be reading’ discussion, so here goes…

I think it’s safe to say that a forest worth of paper has been wasted over the years in the form of unopened instruction manuals, and unread assembly instructions.  Assembly Instructions?  ‘How To’ Manuals?  Almost as a rite of passage into manhood we have been conditioned to figure it out, learn as we go, solve it ourselves.  Asking for directions or reading the manual is like a show of weakness.

But I think it’s true for all of us that one area that we already ‘read’ or ‘study’ – is in our professions.  Whether we’re a ditch digger, a farmer, or a doctor, if we’re not constantly learning, we aren’t going to get better at our career, and before long we’re going to be marginalized, stuck, or unemployed.  And this learning takes the form of reading, study, and learning from others who are more knowledgeable.

But what about our Marriages?  Are we ‘figuring it out’ as we go – like putting together a bike, or are we studying – like it’s super important and we can’t afford to screw it up?

more “What are you Reading?”

One of my favorite books on marriage is called “For Men Only”.  If you haven’t read it – I highly recommend it!  It actually comes with a ‘quick start guide’ – the perfect thing for men!  One chapter is titled ‘The Girl in the Mirror’ and it’s a really important subject, so this week is a summary of that chapter.  For a more complete understanding of it – and the rest of the book – get it and read it!

If you have daughters you know, and if you don’t you can easily observe, that built into little girls is a desire to be pretty.  It’s how God made them.  Pretty clothes, bows and hair things, pretty shoes – and all the time a desire for things that are lovely – and they don’t just want to possess pretty things – they want to be pretty.

Would it surprise you to know that your gifted, hardworking, secure, grown-up wife is still (silently) asking the same question: “Do you think I’m pretty?”  Only now it’s you watching!  It’s you she’s asking and you who will decide her haunting question.  Not just “Am I beautiful” but “Am I beautiful to my husband?”

We live in a culture where our wives are bombarded with expectations to lose weight, look younger, look sexy – actually – to look perfect and although they may not voice it – they are asking us this question with an anxious heart “Do I look pretty to you?”  And we don’t realize how deeply our words and actions affect them – how import what we do and say is to them.

They gave us everything when they said “I Do” – not just their name and their bodies, but their future, and all their hopes and dreams and said “I trust you with all of this”.  And we WANT them to depend on us – to turn to us with their wants and needs.  Well, the little girl in her needs to know she’s pretty to you.  And we do this by starting one thing and stopping another

First, we Start.  We start making an effort towards expressing ourselves – in words and actions – that your wife is pretty to you.  Tell her.  Show her.  Prefer things – tell her your prefer a different shade of lipstick because you find her more pretty that way – give her small gifts that accentuate her beauty – it doesn’t have to be every day and it doesn’t have to be a lot of money – but start demonstrating to her that you find her attractive and beautiful and pretty.  Start noticing what she’s wearing – and say something!  Let her get a perm, or pay for her to have a manicure or pedicure – you’re showing her that you find her pretty and it’s important to you.

If you’re spending any time at the beginning or end of the day asking yourself how you can be a better husband (and we all should be doing this), ask yourself when was the last time you told her she looked pretty – or that you find her eyes, or lips, or fingers or something else pretty (keep it non-sexual!)?

Second, we Stop.  They want to be pretty for us – and only us – and it’s not too much too expect that we look at them – and only them.  In this culture of over-sexualized everything – it’s hard not to be confronted daily by immodesty in some form.  But we CAN control what we read and watch and look at.  Our wives may not say anything, but when we make little effort to guard our eyes, or we watch movies or shows that have lots of immodesty, or we read magazines or visit websites that have a lot of immodesty with no care or effort to limit what we see, it hurts our wives, and it hurts them A LOT.  We have to STOP.  Right NOW!

And this isn’t a do it and forget it thing.  This should become part of our lives.  God made her this way, and it’s something we love about them.  So if she’s important to you, and if you love her – make a daily effort to limit the flow of immodesty that you take in, and start showing and telling her that she’s pretty to you.

Watch this video: 2015 Rosary Procession – St. Mary’s

And then maybe watch it a second time.

And then consider some of Fr. Beck’s words:

We also are meant to give light.  Light in the darkness of our world

And for that to happen, we must be consumed

We must sacrifice ourselves

We must invest ourselves

In answer to the request of Our Lady, and of Our Lord

We must be willing to be consumed.  For Our Lady, and Her Son, and the Cause of Christendom

The path is not an easy one.  The darkness grows deeper and deeper as we go further and further

Throughout we are meant to be a light

By our sacrifice

By the Charity that burns in our hearts

By our Love for Our Lady, and Her Son

more “Sacrifice”

For each of us and for everything, there is going to be, and maybe already has been, one last time for everything that means anything.

Forgive me if I come across a little morbid again.  I’m sitting in my empty house – my daughter boarding at the school, and my bride on a week long retreat, leaving me to consider the quiet, and I’m already missing her (it’s been two hours).

And then that thought came to me – there WILL be one last time.  One last day, and we don’t know when it will come.  And our lives go spinning on, and for the most part, we do our duty of state, pray and worry, not really considering this truth.

A long time ago, Melissa and I made a decision to always kiss each other good bye whenever one of us left the house.  It doesn’t matter if we’re leaving town, or running to the store.  I never want the last time to happen without a goodbye kiss.

But there’s so much more if you think about it.

We get into our daily lives and lose total sight that one of these days, that kiss, or touch, or embrace will be the last one we share with our spouse.

The love letter, or card, or some little gift just because will be the last one you receive, or give.

No, I don’t think we need to walk around in a state of panic that maybe it’s now, or now, or now.

But I, for one, don’t consider often enough that there will come a day, certainly sooner than I want, that this ‘one last time’ has happened.

The beginning of the week seems like a perfect time to take a minute or two and consider things like this.

Sunday is usually less hectic, at least for some part of it, and even if it’s for a few minutes at Mass, consider that maybe, perhaps, this week could be the last time we will be able to demonstrate love for our spouse, and choose to show love, and then do it sometime during the week

What if you knew that the next time you held or touched or loved your spouse it would be the last time?