Helping Them Feel Special
In the Intimate Encounters workbook, beginning near the end of Chapter 5, continuing through Chapter 11, the writers included an extra feature to give even more practical application to the principles explored. Two words, “SPECIAL” and “CHERISH” are used to develop an acrostic so that in each chapter each word is developed to help your spouse feel special and cherished.
SPECIAL: CHERISH: Secure Comforted Protected Honored Enjoyed Exalted Courted Respected Intimate Intimate Affirmed Secure Led Happy
This past month we looked over 4 ingredients of an intimate relationship.
- Affectionate Caring (I care about you)
- Vulnerable Communication (I trust you)
- Joint accomplishment (I need you)
- Mutual Giving (I love you)
Now let’s add a unique way we can meet our spouse’s needs everyday. In fact, you may use these same principles to meet the needs in your children, friends, neighbors and co-workers as well. You would just “tweak” them as appropriate. For this week, we will just focus on our spouse.
The acrostics above provide a simple way for us to remember to reach out to our spouse and meet his/her needs and make him/her feel special and cherished on a daily basis. You may even want to do a special craft date night and make these acronyms a work of art and place them in your home as a reminder. 🙂 (Take pictures if you do this! We would love to see them!)
As we look at them further will you make an effort for the next 7 weeks to “practice” these skills every day or, at least, more often? Notice the differences in your spouse when he/she feels even more special and cherished. You may want to keep doing this “forever”! 🙂
Don’t worry, we won’t leave you wondering. We will focus on one letter in SPECIAL and need that letter represents each week for the next 7 weeks. (We will focus on CHERISH in a few months)
Let’s look at SPECIAL:
Do you view your spouse as special? Do you listen attentively to him/her when your spouse is speaking? Do you make eye contact and engage in the conversation? Do you open the car door for your lady or do you brag on your man in front of friends when you are together? Do you have the freedom to share with one another your deepest needs? Does your spouse KNOW he/she is loved? Do you have fun doing activities together? Are you your spouse’s best friend? Do you share your gratefulness with your spouse?
If you answered yes to these questions then chances are your spouse feels special. If you answered no, now is a good time to learn how you can say “you are special” to your spouse by “practicing” the skills experienced and answering the questions explained above. It is never too late to improve! We should always be improving, let’s make it our goal!
This week we will focus on the S in SPECIAL.(SECURE) Next week we will focus on the P in SPECIAL – “P” for Protected.
The Key to SECURITY: Is the removal of your spouse’s fears.
How? You may want to start the week asking your spouse what helps him/her to feel secure in the marriage. (Be sure to take opportunities to reinforce that secure feeling as they may arise during the week.)
Ask him/her to share any worries. (Be on the look-out to give encouragement to your spouse when you see anxiety or concern show up about those things. You can help to remove fear by your encouraging words.)
Ask him/her to share anything that leads to feelings of insecurity in the marriage. (Take time especially for this. Pray with your spouse, reassure your spouse, ask for forgiveness and begin to make changes as needed.)
You may have noticed that these questions get pretty deep. Ask your spouse to be honest. Give your spouse assurance that you need to hear the truth to be a better husband/wife. Speak “Truth in Love”, friends. Ephesians 4:15
We are here to help if you should need it!
Have fun this week practicing removing any fear in your spouse…. leading to a more SECURE Hubby or Wifey! We pray you will speak, listen, discover, and practice ways to help build even more security into your marriage..
We would love to hear how you made out at the end of this week! Maybe you learned something new about your wife/husband or maybe God revealed some areas He wanted to heal in your marriage.