Recorded Books Inc. - Lists to love by for busy wives: simple steps to the marriage you want

I can do everything. At least I thought I could when Mark and I got married. I have a creative, high-energy, and people-pleasing personality. So doing anything and everything was fun for me and rarely taxing. I liked to challenge myself to give 110 percent, and it became a personal game. Looking back, I think what I expected from myself and my marriage was inflated by the success I had pushing myself to creatively do more. I naturally applied this life experience to marriage. Certainly marriage would be the same or even easier to do wellno work involved. I thought the hard part was finding a husband, not living happily ever after. I assumed that happily ever after would just be a reality once I said, I do. Ironically, I failed to realize that saying I do involved more doing than everything I had attempted to do in my life!

The first year of our marriage was easy. Mark was a lawyer and I was a banker, so our networks, friends, and interests were the same. When our first daughter arrived around our one-year anniversary, I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom. Suddenly I was home without the outlet I needed to use my energy and creativity. So I started getting involved in everything I could. I got involved in Bible studies and church. I started a play group. We had more children. I volunteered at their schools. I volunteered for their coaches, teachers, and principals. I enjoyed every minute. I got to be with my kids at every school trip and team practice. I got to know their teachers and coaches and friends parents. I was having a good time doing for my kids.

But I had left my I do to Mark behind. And Mark is very different from me. He doesnt have the same personality and didnt understand my need for those outlets.

Mark:Susan was running around all over the place. While I thought she was neglecting me a bit, the main issue that I saw was that she was different from me. Unfortunately, I had a high view of myself back then and thought she needed to change. I felt like I was how a person should be. She should do things like me, talk like me, and think like me. So I set out to change her.

Mark wanted me to stop doing many of the things I was doing. Looking back, I was definitely overcommitted and was taking him for granted. I had just assumed that Mark was my teammate in life and parenting. I didnt see him as a person who also needed my attention. At the same time I was feeling squashed. I would lie in bed at night, unable to sleep, ruminating about all the ideas of things I thought would be great to do.

Then Mark became rather critical of how I was and what I did. The people pleaser in me went into overdrive. One week he wanted me to change one thing and the next week it would be something new. He was like an ice cream shop. I called whatever he wanted me to do the flavor of the week, because it was always different from the last week but equally important. I would work on changing something, and then I would drop it because he wanted me to work on something else. I felt as if I couldnt do anything right. In the past, I had always found a way to please. Not now. I was still giving 110 percent, but this time it wasnt working. Marriage became hard work.

Mark:The ironic thing is that Susan actually did start to change and become more like me, and when she did, I didnt like it. I missed the real her. The last thing our marriage needed was for us to be exactly like each other.

I was taking Marks needs for granted and he was trying to change me. I thought it would be easy, but building a great marriage for a lifetime takes work. An amazing bottle of wine doesnt just arrive on its own and neither does an amazing marriage. It is the result of years of care and cultivation. The smallest things can make a big difference. Falling in love happens, but marriage does not guarantee that you will stay in love forever. Love in marriage takes cultivation. Actually for some, like me, it takes a lot of cultivation! But the effort can be rewarding if you can make small steps of progress that you can celebrate and feel good about.

Is it hard? Overwhelming? Complicated? It doesnt have to bethat is the purpose of this book. Each list gives you simple steps to the marriage you want. So how can you cultivate your love for your husband in a busy, demanding world? By working on it a little every day so that slowly, but surely, it grows with each passing day and year into the relationship youve always dreamed of.

In this book are lists that you can use to love your husband well. They will help you love him more deeply when you feel like it and when you dont feel like it; when the love in your marriage is a two-way street and when its a one-way street. I want to acknowledge those of you who may be on the one-way street and affirm you for trying to love well when that love may not be reciprocated. The fact that you purchased this book in an effort to honor the covenant you made before God to love your husband will not go unnoticed by God. It is my hope that you will experience Gods love when you are missing your husbands.

You may be wondering how we came up with the concept of lists to love by and why we know they will work. For more than two decades weve been sharing marriage content. Our posts have received tens of millions of page views during that time.

A careful analysis of our Google Analytics reports, combined with our experiences over these years, tell us that there is a recurring theme with most of our high-ranking marriage content. Each post addresses one or all of the following common denominators: expectations, evaluation, or improvements. People are searching on Google for ways to manage their expectations, evaluate how they are doing, and improve their marriages. The lists in this book will help you to do that conveniently and consistently. You are going to be tasked with understanding your expectations and how they have affected your marriage. Second, you will be asked to evaluate yourself and your marriage. Third, youll be challenged to make improvements, however small or large, with each list.