Dear Husband, Your Love is So Familiar I Sometimes Take it For Granted

Our Keepsake Journal is Here! 🎉

I compared you the other day to my friend’s husband who is unusually chivalrous. His eyes are often locked on her every move, and he’s highly engaged and aware of her safety. He opens all the doors for her and surprises her with the most heartfelt, personalized gifts just because.

And I thought to myself, Why don’t you do that for me?

A bitter root grew in my heart as if you owed me something. Like you didn’t love me the way he loves her. I threw a pity party and questioned our relationship.

RELATED: Dear Husband, Fall Back in Love With Me

I was foolish. Tempted to dwell on some things you don’t do instead of all the amazing things you do for me day in and day out. I doubted your love for me—when the truth is, you’re wild about me.

You’re determined to love me as best as you know how.

You show love in different ways like changing the tires and oil in my Suburban, managing finances and making sure we’re debt-free, prioritizing sexual intimacy, engaging with our children and putting them to bed, cooking for us after a long day, praying with me at bedtime, cuddling on the couch even when I’m grouchy, showering me with practical gifts, and so much more.

RELATED: Marry the Man Who Does the Little Things

You show me love all the time. Sometimes I’m so familiar with it, I forget. I take it for granted.

And those areas that aren’t your strong suit? I’ll be better about encouraging you without nagging. I’ll take a deep, hard look at myself and where I need to change. I don’t always meet your expectations, either. I lack certain gifts and abilities, and sometimes I don’t do what you want to do because I’m selfish.

It’s far too easy to look at the speck in your eye and not see the big log in my own.

Love isn’t about what I receive and gain from you anyway. It’s about giving sacrificially to you, no matter what.

RELATED: Yes, I’m Proud To Serve My Husband

I don’t always see reality correctly and often I’m only seeing half the story in the life of another person. Every marriage and relationship has challenges and looks different.

Will you forgive me for comparing you to someone you’re simply not? I’ll keep learning to love you just the way you are because I don’t want to love anyone else except the person God made you.

And how He made you is perfect.

Marriage takes work. Thankfully, there’s an app that can help! Lasting—the nation’s #1 relationship counseling app—provides accessible sessions designed to help you build a healthy marriage. Download and take Lasting’s free Relationship Health Assessment.

Recommendations in this post contain affiliate links. Her View From Home may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase.

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now

So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Her View Shop

Samantha Krieger

Samantha Krieger is wife to Jeremiah and mama to 2 boys & 2 girls- 15 and under. She's passionate about encouraging women in their faith, relationships, and real life. She's the author of Quiet Time: A 30-day Devotional Retreat for Moms in the Trenches. Her work has been featured on the Today Show online, Love What Matters, and Cafe Mom. She enjoys connecting with readers on her personal blog, Facebook and Instagram.

The Only Fights I Regret Are the Ones We Never Had

In: Living, Marriage

You packed up your things and left last night. There are details to work out and lawyers to call, but the first step in a new journey has started. I feel equal parts sad, angry, scared, and relieved. There’s nothing left to fix. There’s no reconciliation to pursue. And I’m left thinking about the fights we never had. I came down the stairs today and adjusted the thermostat to a comfortable temperature for me. It’s a fight I didn’t consider worth having before even though I was the one living in the home 24 hours a day while you were...

Keep Reading

He’s Not the Man I Married, but I Love the Man He’s Become

In: Marriage

There is a long-standing joke in our family about my first husband. It goes something like this, “My first husband never watched football.” This is said on the rare occasion when my guy decides to sit down and watch a college football game. We both laugh because neither of us has been married more than once. Instead, this joke is aimed at all the ways we have changed over the years of being together. We married very young—I was 15 and he was just a week past his 17th birthday. Life was difficult with both of us still in high...

Keep Reading

Thank You for This Sacrificial Love

In: Marriage

To lay down one’s life, according to the Bible, is the greatest expression of love. Jesus laid down His life for us by dying on the cross. God loves us so much that He sent His only son to die for humanity. As Jesus laid down his life for us, so Scripture commands husbands to lay down their lives for their wives. It’s a heavy responsibility placed on the husband to die to himself, to his desires, to his flesh, to love and serve his wife. A husband ought to love sacrificially, and that is exactly the man I married....

Keep Reading

I Hope Heaven Looks like 3128 Harper Road

In: Grief, Living, Loss, Marriage

Husband and wife, posed older color photo

Jeannine Ann Eddings Morris grew up in western Kentucky as the oldest daughter of hard-working parents, who both worked at the Merritt Clothing factory. Jeannine was the oldest of 23 grandchildren who proudly belonged to John B. and Celeste Hardeman. John B. was a well-known preacher who traveled all over the South to share the gospel. Life as a child was as humble as one might expect for the 1940s. Jeannine was the oldest of four children, spanning a 13-year age range. To hear her talk, her childhood and teenage memories consisted of mostly reading every book she could find...

Keep Reading

Overcoming Conflict Builds a Marriage that Lasts

In: Marriage

Couple sitting together on couch, color photo

I would never have admitted to being afraid of conflict back then. Not in my marriage anyway. I’d read all the books about how marriage is hard work and conflict is normal and I knew we were definitely the exception. But then at some point that first year, I realized two things: we were not the world’s most exceptional couple after all, and I was, indeed, afraid of conflict. If we argued, even after I’d apologized a million times, I was very afraid I had failed. Like I had torn a little piece off our marriage that couldn’t ever go back. So...

Keep Reading

We Didn’t Go to Counseling Because Our Marriage Had Failed, We Went to Make It Stronger

In: Marriage

There were three of us in the windowless room with its faded yellow walls. We were sitting in a triangle, my husband closest to the door, I in the farthest corner of the room, and the man whom I had specifically sought out, smiling serenely across the table from both of us. It was my idea to be here. After yet another heated discussion with my husband about the same issue we’ve been discussing for the past 10 years, something in me just broke. “I can’t do this anymore,” I said out loud to no one in particular. “We need...

Keep Reading

We Built a Rock-Solid Foundation in Our Little Home

In: Living, Marriage

I found my brand-new husband, sitting on the floor of the only bedroom in our brand-new house. His back propped against the wall, muscular legs extending from his khaki shorts, bare feet overlapping at the ankles. His arms were crossed in a gesture of defiance and there was an unfamiliar, challenging scowl on his face. Plopping down beside him on the scratchy harvest gold carpeting, I asked, “What’s wrong?” “This is it?” he mumbled. “This is what we used our savings for?” I stood up, tugging on his bent elbows in a vain attempt to get him to his feet....

Keep Reading

To the Woman Navigating Divorce: You Will Get Through This

In: Living, Marriage, Motherhood

On May 4th, 2023 I was delivered devastating news. My husband no longer loved me, and he wanted to end our marriage. This was the last thing I expected. I tried to get him to work things out, but he was firm on the decision that we were done. My heart broke for my children and what I thought I wanted for my life. As it turns out though, this separation and soon-to-be divorce is probably one of the best things that could have happened to me. It has given me a new appreciation for myself, brought me closer to...

Keep Reading

We Got Married Young and We Don’t Regret It

In: Marriage

In a world that tells you divorce is inevitable if you get married young, I did the unthinkable: I got married at 22 . . . straight out of college. We had no money and lived off love for the first couple of years in a cheap apartment in the worst part of the city. Black specks came out of our water pipes sometimes. Occasionally we had to take back roads to get to our apartment because police had the nearby roads blocked off for searches. Regardless, we were happy. RELATED: We Married Young and I Don’t Regret it For...

Keep Reading

But God, I Can’t Forgive That

In: Faith, Marriage

Surrender is scary. Giving in feels like defeat. Even when I know it’s the right thing, yielding everything to God is scary. It also feels impossible. The weight of all I’m thinking and feeling is just so dang big and ugly. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I cling so tightly to my fear I don’t even recognize it for what it is. Bondage. Oppression. Lack of trust. Oh, and then there’s that other thing—pride. Pride keeps me from seeing straight, and it twists all of my perceptions. It makes asking for help so difficult that I forget that...

Keep Reading

I'm Grateful For This Extra Time With My Kids

Fatherhood

I'm Grateful For This Extra Time With My Kids

My Boys Wished For Birds—And It Was Just What We All Needed

Kids

Dear Husband, Your Love is So Familiar I Sometimes Take it For Granted

You’re determined to love me as best as you know how.

It’s far too easy to look at the speck in your eye and not see the big log in my own.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Her View Shop

The Only Fights I Regret Are the Ones We Never Had

He’s Not the Man I Married, but I Love the Man He’s Become

Thank You for This Sacrificial Love

I Hope Heaven Looks like 3128 Harper Road

Overcoming Conflict Builds a Marriage that Lasts

We Didn’t Go to Counseling Because Our Marriage Had Failed, We Went to Make It Stronger

We Built a Rock-Solid Foundation in Our Little Home

To the Woman Navigating Divorce: You Will Get Through This

We Got Married Young and We Don’t Regret It

But God, I Can’t Forgive That

Previous Post

Next Post

You May Also Like