Are you Serving your Spouse?

You wanna know a secret about me? I’m selfish. I’m trying to change, but often I only think about myself. I think about my problems, my anxiety, and how I’m an introvert forced to socialize. Sometimes I think about goals I set and how to better myself, but usually it’s in a “woe is me” sort of way.

I panic sometimes and don’t know what to say in social situations so I only talk about myself because that’s what I know best. And I’ve started to get on my own nerves. I’m trying to talk about others and ask questions and truly be interested in others instead of just coming back with a story about myself.

The worst part about all of this is I’ve seen it in my relationship with Pearson. Often our conversations consist simply of taking turns telling each other stories. There is little listening going on and a lot of thinking ahead to what I will say next. Sometimes I worry too much about how he will serve me. I worry too much about my own needs and I focus on how he could have helped me but he didn’t. Or I think about something I want from him even if I haven’t communicated that.

But guys, this is so backwards. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to take care of yourself so that you can give your best self to others, but it shouldn’t be all you think about. Especially with your spouse. Marriage works best, in my opinion, when both partners’ biggest priority is to serve the other. Yes, sometimes we’ll fall short. And yes, sometimes life happens and we need to be on the receiving end of the service for a bit. But for the most part, we should focus on serving the other rather than ourselves.

Having an attitude of service in your marriage can completely transform your relationship with your spouse. Richard Paul Evans explained in this article how when he and his wife had fought so much he’d had enough, he started asking her every morning what he could do to make her day better and their marriage completely turned around. He explains that this attitude of service is love. True love. Not attraction or desire.

In this post, Sheila (there I go again with my love for Sheila and her blog, To Love, Honor and Vacuum), Sheila equates service to “submitting to your spouse.” Before you knock this notion, I highly suggest reading her post. She doesn’t quite take the typical conservative Christian view on wives submitting that so many people dislike these days.

My favorite quote from Sheila’s post is this, “Because of all people on the face of this earth, the one that I am called first and foremost to serve–before my kids, before any boss, before my parents–is my husband.” It’s so true. If we are serving others, why not serve our husband. He should be the most important person in our lives. Our relationship with him should be the most important. But sometimes he gets what’s left over after we serve our children, our extended families, our church families, our co-workers and anyone else.

I wrote a post about a year and a half ago with some ideas for ways to serve your spouse. From now on, I’m committing to serve Pearson more using some of those ideas. I’m going to stop thinking all about myself and my needs and start reaching out to him and asking him how I can make his life easier.

Will you join me? What are your thoughts?
Thanks for reading!