My awesome husband periodically writes here for the men, and especially for all the wanna-be-men little boys.

You may want to read the first four ways to honor your wife.

If you missed the previous posts, you can find them at Introduction and Part 2 What is a real man?

He’ll take it from here…

photo at www.credos.us/zoofythejinx

5. Honor her financially.

Provide for your family. Take this responsibility men, it’s yours, NOT hers. Sure, your wife may indeed contribute financially as mine does, but she needs to know that you bear the weight of providing financially for the family. I am sure you can think of all sorts of good reasons why this should be a “shared responsibility” but this is most likely just the little boy in you thinking of a way out of your responsibility. So, man up. I find that once men feel the weight of this responsibility it makes them incredibly focused, diligent, and creative, which makes them great providers. It also makes their wife’s level of respect shoot thru the roof, who then feel honored, secure and cared for.

6. Honor her practically.

Consider her needs and serve her. If you are like me, it’s easy to overlook the little things, the practical things. Cleaning up around the house (some of us don’t even clean up after ourselves), dishes, repairs around the house, giving her time away from the kids… you get the idea. Pretty much anything that will lighten her load. It is amazing how the little things make a big difference, but how easily we can miss these little opportunities to serve and honor our wives. Selfishness and lack of care and concern are the reason we fail to honor our wives practically, but these are no excuse, they are faults.

7. Honor her parentally.

Lead, train and be involved and engaged with the children. It may be easy to think that child training and development is the domain of our wives, school teachers and child care providers. Sorry guys, this is our responsibility too. The cool thing is that properly trained and disciplined, children are an absolute joy to be around. If your children are not a joy to be around, not only are you not training them properly, you are probably not honoring your wife parentally.

8. Honor her spiritually.

You initiate and lead prayer, Bible, conversation, church involvement and attendance. Men, even if your wife is more “spiritual” than you, it doesn’t mean that you are not once again responsible to lead in this area of your life. Be a leader in this area of life; it will honor and provide security to her to know that while you may be imperfect and perhaps even immature or inarticulate when it come to matters of faith, you have concern for hers and the families spiritual well being.

You may have noticed that the common denominator here takes us back to the original and important idea for us men: Take Responsibility. This is essence of true masculinity.

My awesome husband periodically writes here for the men, and especially for all the wanna-be-men little boys.  If you missed the previous posts, you can find them at Introduction and Part 2 What is a real man?

He’ll take it from here…

photo at www.credos.us/zoofythejinx

Last time, we talked about how real men take responsibility and love their wives with selfless love.

Now lets talk about a few ways we men can honor our wives in practical ways.

The following eight practical way to honor our wives comes in large part from Mark Driscols message entitled Marriage and Men available at Marshillchurch.org.

1. Honor her maritally.

Remember back when you publicly and before God, vowed to be faithful to this one woman until death do you part?  Be a man of your word, faithful despite varied circumstances that make in tough or inconvenient.

It should go without saying that your commitment to be faithful to your wife is the most important and significant commitment you will make with a person in this life.

But, based upon your actions, does your wife have confidence that you see it this way? Are your priorities obviously those of a faithful and committed husband?  As you consider this, you may decide to make some personal “rules” to guard your marriage.  Things like no flirting or sexual “jokes” with other women, period.  Or having a policy of not riding in a car or dining alone with another women who is not your wife.  These simple things might seem silly or unnecessary.  However, each action taken to protect and remain true and faithful will be significant to your wife.

By the way, men, faithfulness also includes our thought and fantasy lives.  Watching porn, visiting strip clubs, or fantasizing about other women is unfaithfulness of the heart.  It is not a joke and it’s not cute no matter how socially acceptable it may be.

If you are engaged in any of the above, in addition to being pathetic, you are dishonoring your wife. Honor her maritally.

2.  Honor her physically.

Be a protector, never a threat. 

If your wife has ever felt threatened by you in any way, you have failed.

An abusive man is a coward, undeserving of respect.  On the other hand, a strong protective man inspires respect, confidence and admiration of his wife.  Yes men, you are most likely far stronger physically that your wife.  This strength is solely for the purpose of protection, never for intimidation.

3.  Honor her emotionally.

Be emotionally present and available.  Take her on dates and really connect with her on an emotional level.  This one is admittedly tough for some of us guys who were somehow taught that emotions are not a masculine characteristic.  Whatever the case, we need to get over ourselves and learn to connect with our wives on a level that may well be the equivalent of sex for a man.

Men, she is a real person with feelings and emotion. Learn it and love it.

4.  Honor her verbally.

Speak respectfully to her.  Use words for the purpose of building up, never tearing down.  Speak well of her when she is present AND when she is not.

Making fun of her or speaking badly of your wife to others does not make you look cool.  It only makes you look like a tool.

That goes for back handed compliments and “joking”.

Next week… Four more ways to honor her.

My dear husband warned that he would be hijacking my blog periodically to give his thoughts on marriage from a man’s perspective.

He’s back today with Part 2 of his Fair & Balanced series…

Real men take responsibility.  This is the essence of true masculinity.

Ephesians 5:25 calls men to love our wives as Christ loved the church.  Christ loves the church by taking responsibility for her and sacrificing himself for her.

Obviously, this notion of responsibility and sacrifice for another runs counter to our selfish natures and our culture.  There always seems to be an abundance of advice to “look out for number one” and to “be your own man”.  The constant message from advertisers is that living for ourselves will make us happy, manly men… especially if we drive a certain brand of truck or drink a certain brand of beer.

Given this constant pressure form outside (media) and inside (our own selfish desires), it is always important to remind ourselves as men that we are called to more than just pleasing ourselves.  The Bible and other godly men will point us back to this fact and we must be disciplined enough to keep both a big part of our lives.

So men , our lesson for the day, and every day is simple:

It’s not about us.  It’s about taking responsibility.

If you are a husband, that is perhaps your single greatest area of responsibility.  Next, time I will suggest some practical ways we can love and honor our wives.

I know I’m always picking on you ladies, telling you to quit yer whinin’ and get yer big girl panties on.   Makes you wanna hide this blog from your man!  Well, no longer..

My awesome husband has agreed to write some guest posts for all the fellas!

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Tamragirl.com is a blog dedicated in large part to the encouragement and exhortation of women.  Tamra has done a real service to plainly and practically point out ways women can live closer to the biblical ideals of marriage as outlined in such passages as 1 Peter  3 and Ephesians 5.  The problem is that the women’s part is only half of the equation.

In the following weeks I will be guest posting with some thoughts on mens roles in marriage.  The goal will be to bring balance to what Tamra has presented over a long period of time while at the same time prodding and even kicking any fellows who read the blog in the berries.

Tamra will surely agree that I speak not as an expert, but only as a man with marriage experience as well as someone with a keen awareness of my own and other mens faults in properly relating with our wives.  This basic understanding and admission of sin, lack , need, etc is an essential component to change and improvement but it is only a first step.  In coming weeks we will get into it for real.

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So there ya have it! Keep an eye out for more posts coming soon.