My Love Dare: Day 5

He who blesses his friend with a a loud voice early in the morning, it will be reckoned a curse to him. ~ Proverbs 27:14

Day 5: Love is not rude

Very few things are as irritating as a rude person. Someone who does unbecoming, annoying, or embarrassing things.

This is another one of those areas where we may be better about being polite to others than to our spouse. It certainly is true for me!

I know what you’re thinking. I’ve thought it also. “I want to be comfortable around my spouse. I don’t want to feel like I’m at a formal event all the time, having to mind my manners and be on my best behaviour. I want to let my hair down and just be myself”. Right…  Minding your manners and being polite doesn’t mean you can’t be yourself.  It just means being your best self.

But if we truly love someone, shouldn't we be just as concerned about their comfort as we are with our own?  Even more!!  Good manners say to the person you are with “I value you enough to exercise some self control around you; because I want to be a person who is pleasant to be with.”

The Love Dare presents three rules for being polite with your spouse:
1) Guard the Golden Rule: Treat your mate the way you want to be treated. Makes sense!

2) No Double Standards: Be as considerate to your spouse as you are to strangers. I would say you should be even more considerate! This is the person you love and cherish. Don’t they deserve even better than someone you don’t even know?

3) Honor Requests: Consider what your spouse asked you to do, and DO IT! If in doubt – Ask!It’s easy to get wrapped up in what our spouse does that annoys us. But selfishness keeps us from considering (and changing) what we do that annoys our spouse. You can’t force your spouse to change. But you can take the first step, set the example and start taking your spouses feelings and requests into consideration and change yourself.

TODAY’S DARE: ASK YOUR SPOUSE TO TELL YOU THREE THINGS THAT CAUSE HIM OR HER TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE OR IRRITATED WITH YOU. YOU MUST DO SO WITHOUT JUSTIFYING YOUR BEHAVIOR. THIS IS FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE ONLY.

Ok… I asked. And once I convinced him that it was not going to start a fight, he still insisted that he couldn’t think of anything. Which leads me to three possible conclusions:

A) I really am the perfect wife! (HA!)

B) He really wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t start a fight, and didn’t want to go there.

C) He really couldn’t think of anything when I asked; and I will just have to start paying attention to his reactions to discover things I do which irritate him or make him uncomfortable in order to change them.