Perception is a Choice

Today, we have a guest post by Karen Jones, a relationship coach since 1997, who loves to help wives have scrumptious relationships with their husbands.

Visit Karen’s website www.TheHeartMatters.com to learn more. I hope you enjoy today’s post and as always…

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

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My husband Craig and I will be celebrating our 18^th wedding anniversary on October 8^th. And we’re more in love than the day we got married.

Unlike with both of our first marriages, our relationship gets better every year. Why? Because we shower each other with the precious gifts of:

* Unconditional acceptance

* Generosity of spirit (I explain more of this below)

* A commitment to meeting each other’s needs

Neither one of us had anything close to a good role model growing up, so, for most of our adult lives, we acted from what we had been taught directly, or – more insidious and powerful – what we had observed.

Of all the things I’ve learned over the years about how to have a successful marriage (and teach my clients), this one discipline I credit with having the biggest impact on being able to be the wife I am committed to being: I always assume he’s operating from the very best motive, intention, or desire to please me, no matter how things turn out. That, to me, is generosity of spirit.

What if the perceptions we have (the “glasses” through which we “see”) about why our husbands do what they do cause us to have hurt feelings? What then? Most likely, we strike back. (That had been my primary defense: a good offense – and it caused me to be mad at my first husband for most of the five years that we were married!)

I found that telling myself a better-feeling story – choosing a perception that kept my heart open, grateful and loving – was the ticket to more and more generosity, humor, love, and deeper trust between us. That’s a lot of great stuff to get from switching the lenses I’m looking through!

And the best part? Just about 100% of the time, the stories I’ve had to tell myself to feel better were the ones that were true!

Question: When your husband “misses the mark” on a specific desire of yours (date, anniversary gift, etc), do you make an effort to recognize and appreciate his good intention rather than the momentary shortcoming?

Comments: With more than 67,000 Happy Wives Club members already actively engaged on our Facebook Community page, what better place to share your thoughts? Join me there and let’s continue the conversation.

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Fawn Weaver

Founder at Happy Wives Club

Fawn Weaver is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 1 million women in over 110 countries around the world. She’s an investor in real estate, tech sector and lifestyle brands. When she’s not writing or working, she's happily doting over her husband of twelve years, Keith (and sometimes manages to do all three simultaneously).