Happy Birthday, Ben (Love Your Husbands)

That’s us around our 1st anniversary. Since Ben hates the camera I don’t have many pictures of us together.  That’s my then 19-year-old brother holding our cat off to the left.

Today is my husband’s 28th birthday.  Happy birthday, I love you Ben!

I thought it would be a good day to write a post about why.

Love and Respect Your Husband

God commands us to respect our husbands, and to love them.  We are called to submit to them (which doesn’t mean what many think it means) and to show them our greatest respect.  They are our providers, our lovers, our other halves.  God says we both leave our fathers and mothers and become one when we are married.

We are to be one against the world.  We are not, as wives, to disrespect our husbands, especially publicly.  It strongly bothers me when I hear some women saying things like “My husband is so lazy…my husband is like another child for me to care for…he doesn’t care about us….”  Maybe in a few cases it’s true (although it’s still not really something to be aired in public!).  Still, when I read or hear women complaining about and insulting their husbands, I can’t help but feel very uncomfortable.  I wonder how these women might feel if their husbands spoke about them publicly that way.  I can’t help but think they wouldn’t like it much….

We all have frustrating moments and our husbands aren’t perfect.  We aren’t either!  One of the best things that we can do for our husbands is to always show them respect, no matter how we are feeling at that moment.  They deserve that.

Meeting Ben

Some of you may have read our story already, especially if you’re not new around here.  If you are, though, feel free to go read it…or I’ll briefly refresh your memory.

It was about 7 1/2 years ago, and I was nearly 20.  I felt ready to meet my future husband, and prayed that God would send him my way.  I knew what I was looking for in a husband — someone nerdy and strong and smart.  I had other criteria that I won’t bore you with.

I joined a Christian online dating site and scrolled through all the profiles.  But one in particular caught my eye.  The guy was kind of standing back near a tree and looking sort of mad at the camera (he was — he hates cameras).  Still, something about it kept bringing me back to it.  I sent him a message.

Soon we were chatting every night for hours, and when we met in person just over a week later, I already knew I was in love with him.  He knew too — he called his sister on the way to my house to tell her he was going to meet the woman he was going to marry.

We were married just over a year later, in July 2006.  Every part of it was amazing and wonderful.  We had so much fun together all the time, even when we were just cooking dinner (simple things, still processed foods!) or watching movies.  And Ben’s definitely a smart, strong, and nerdy!

Since the Wedding

It’s been a wild ride sometimes.  We’ve been married just over 6 years and in that time, I graduated from college, we’ve had three babies (and are expecting #4), and have dealt with various health issues.  Not to mention starting and growing the blog, and growing then closing our music school.  There’s been…a lot.

We don’t get to spend as much time alone as I wish we did.  Somehow, life and having small children tends to get in the way.  :)  Whenever we do, we still laugh and enjoy ourselves just as we did when we didn’t have so much “life” going on around us!  I so enjoy talking about our future and our dreams and randomness that comes to our minds. We share cartoons we read and political ideas and all kinds of fun things!  We challenge each other intellectually and teach each other new things.

Over the years things have changed.  I wanted to start this blog, and Ben said “Go for it, I’ll help you however I can.”  I wanted to switch to real food and Ben said, “Let’s do it.  I’ll try anything once.”  And he has, as I’ve made lots of interesting new meals.  Some went well…others, not so much.  Whatever was important to me became important to him.

He didn’t have to support me.  He could have gently said, “The family needs you right now.  Let’s keep blogging as a hobby.”  But he didn’t.  When he knew I was passionate, he pushed me to succeed.  He has helped me immensely on the back end of the blog, coordinating design (his best friend Casey, of Hello Voom, does our design work), writing code, handling tech support emails, setting up all my books, and working on tons of other projects, some you all don’t even know about yet!  When he’s at home, he’s often working on things behind the scenes…even while taking care of our children so that I can write, read, network, and do all the other things that go into running a blog.  He gives me time every evening and weekend, and without it, I couldn’t do what I do.

As I’m writing this, we’re watching Stargate SG-1 and he’s teasing me because I’m half-paying attention to that.  He likes it when I watch his shows….  He likes anything that makes me happy, though.  (He asked me a ridiculous question a little while ago that I won’t repeat but it made us both laugh.  Then again half the stuff he says to try to make my laugh is sort of unrepeatable in public…haha.  It’s not inappropriate, shall we say, between a husband and a wife, but they aren’t things you just share with anyone!  I always wish I could share the ridiculousness but I know better.)

More to Come

Sometimes (okay, often) it feels like we only just got married and I don’t know anything.  We’re still figuring it all out.  I imagine that by the time we’ve been married 25 years or so we’ll have it mostly figured out and things will be awesome.  It’ll help that our oldest children will be grown, too, of course, so that we’ll (hopefully) have more time to spend together instead of chasing small children around!  (Whom we love of course and thoroughly enjoy, it’s just — as all parents of small children know — very consuming.)

I’m excited to see where life takes us.  I’m excited for him to maybe start a new job that he enjoys more in the next several weeks.  I’m excited more for a time when we can earn money from our own businesses and we can work together from home, both on our business and educating our children together.  I’m excited to move to a new home and a farm and enjoy turning it into our space together.  I’m excited to watch our children grow and share in all the laughter and joys — and the difficult times.

I can’t wait to see what comes!  Ben, I love you (and yes, you have to wait until this is published to read it. ), and you’re mine forever.  I just thought I’d tell the world that today, on your 28th birthday.  I hope we can celebrate far more than 28 more together, and I hope this is the best “celebration” you could ask for.  I love all that you do for us and appreciate all that you go through so that the family can be happy, safe, and provided for.  You’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for me and you’re exactly what I need.

How do you feel about your husband and/or marriage?