Day 5- Love is not rude.

The book says:

  "Rudeness is unnecessarily saying or doing things that are unpleasant for another person to be around.
As always, love has something to say about this. When a man is driven by love, he intentionally behaves in a way that's more pleasant for his wife to be around. If she desires to love him, she purposefully avoids things that frustrate him or cause him discomfort.
The bottom line is that genuine love minds it's manners.
Good manners express to your wife or husband 'I value you enough to exercise some self-control around you. I want to be a person who's a pleasure to be with.'
 If you don't let love motivate you to make needed changes in your behavior,the quality of your marriage relationship will suffer for it.
  There are two main reasons why people are rude: ignorance and selfishness."

Test yourself with these questions:

• How does your spouse feel about the way you speak and act around them?
• How does your behavior affect your mate's sense of worth and self-esteem?
• Would your husband/wife say you're a blessing to that you're condescending and embarrassing?

Here are 3 guiding principles when it comes to practicing etiquette in your marriage:

1. Guard the Golden Rule. Treat your mate the same way you want to be treated.
2. No double standards. Be as considerate to your spouse as you are to strangers & co-workers.
3. Honor requests. Consider what your husband/wife already asked you to do or not do.                       If in doubt, then ask.

Today's Dare

Ask your spouse to tell you three things that cause him/her to be uncomfortable or irritated with you.

You must do so without attacking them or justifying your behavior. This is from their perspective only.

  This is one of those times where I don't offer too much information. We discussed what he thought that I may need to work on. The only problem that I had was that he was having trouble giving me 3 things. He said that here lately we haven't really been having any issues and typically after we fight and he grips me out he is done, and has already forgotten about it for the time being. 

 Then of course, he tells me that is one of his three, that I can always keep a log of everything bad he has done. I did not "justify" my behavior to him, but to you guys, I can say that I honestly believe that is just a trait that women possess. But the point is, he is bothered by it, and not that I can stop keeping that log, but maybe I should just stop listing these things off to him.

 Anyway, I won't go into more detail, except that I knew there were things that I needed to work on in this marriage, if not I suppose I probably wouldn't have started The Love Dare book in the first place, Right?