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Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Attentiveness While He Is Talking

So if you watch 19 Kids and Counting you've probably noticed Mrs. Duggar or Mrs. Bates looking at their husbands and listening to what they are saying when they are talking to them or to other people. I mean they are turning their faces towards their husband and nodding and looking sweetly at them!  When I first noticed that I thought 'this seems easy at first but how do you do that when you have been married for a long time and you've heard something 5 gazillion times' and I honestly thought they must be doing that just to be an example to their kids to listen to Daddy.
You can see some examples in this video...
So since noticing that and having some time to prayerfully consider what that is all about, I've been maturing in faith, learning and practicing the things to make me the wife that God wants me to be...and I learned a lot. Here's a few points of what I learned about my paying attention to my husband while he is talking.
My husband needs my attentiveness while he is talking.
When I look admiringly at my husband when he talks it inspires others to respect him.
(I learned those 2 points from the "Seven Basic Needs of a Husband")
It's a refreshing change for him after a day at work to not have problems communicating with people or in general feeling as if he hasn't been heard.
It helps charge him up for a great evening with the family and for the next work day.
If I talk over him, roll my eyes or don't give him my attention he will be discouraged, hurt and equally uninterested in what I need to get done or to communicate.
As Christians we are not commanded to act kindly only as long as we find it interesting, it's the first time we've heard something or we are going to get something out of it. Also when I got married we agreed that we understood that we wouldn't always feel love-dovey but that we wanted to make a commitment to act loving towards each other regardless of how we felt.
If I'm too tired or busy to be attentive than I need to change my priorities so that I can meet his needs.
My husband is not a believer. He can learn a lot from my behavior about how he can treat me.

What's your experience been with this in your marriage? Please share and leave a comment for us!

Hebrews 2:1
"Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it."
Hebrews 2:1

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