Marriage Teaching - Nov/Dec 99

Keeping A Girlfriend
November/December 1999
by Rich Murphy

Bill and Sam work closely together. During their lunch they usually sit, and talk about sports, hobbies, and of course women. Sam can never understand the way that Bill talks about his wife, and his girlfriend. He knows that adultery is sin, and Bill just doesn't seem like the type to get involved in anything like that. Besides, the men that he's known who got involved in affairs only complained about their wives, and Bill was far from complaining about his.
Finally, Sam decided to ask Bill, and find out what was going on once and for all.
"It's easy" said Bill. "My wife is my girlfriend!"
"How do you manage that?" asked Sam.
Bill's response startled Sam.

Bill had learned something that Sam, and most of us never do. Or rather, he didn't forget something that the rest of us seem to forget. What is it, you ask? It's how women want to be treated. To put it simply, they want their men to continue courting then.
Every man that's ever gotten married knows how to court his wife, otherwise his wife never would have married him in the first place. Even if you think you were clumsy in courting, you must have done at least one thing, and probably several things right.
As men, we are goal oriented. Everything within us is set up for striving toward meeting a goal. The goal could be job oriented, sports, a hobby, or catching the biggest fish. We accept goals that others hand us. If nobody gives us a goal, we'll create our own.
Now, somewhere out there, a man is saying, "Wait a minute, I'm not goal oriented. I just go to work, and try to get out of there with the least amount of hassle." That sounds like a goal to me. Although it might not be as "high" a goal as rising to the top of the company, trying to accomplish your job without hassles is still a goal.
So, what does this have to do with marriage? When we are dating, or courting, our goal is to find a mate. As men, our intentions with that "mate" might not be as honorable as marriage, but we aren't just looking for someone to go to a movie with. If we just wanted someone to hang out with like the guys, we'd go looking for the guys.
After marriage, we've accomplished the goal. No longer do we have to be 'Prince Charming" for our woman, we can be ourselves. Maybe a little too much of ourselves. Without that goal out there driving us, it's like we just stop. We stop doing everything that we were doing to reach our goal.
So, what is it we stop doing? If you think back to before you were married (or living together) what did you do? One thing you did is spend as much time as possible with her. Whether you were going out, watching TV together, talking, or whatever, you spent as much time as you could find with her.
Women spell courtship as A T T E N T I O N, or sometimes as T I M E. That's what she wants. Time where you are paying attention to her. Not paying attention to something else in her presence. Romance is being interested in the other person's interests. Which of her interests have you spent time with her on lately?

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
-Ephesians 5:25