Pamela at the Road to Joy put out a challenge recently.
The challenge was that for 30 days you had to actively look for the positive in your mate. You had to specifically acknowledge that positive to him or her and then you had to publicly share your praise of him or her.
"Easy peasy," I thought.
Hubs has millions of fabulous qualities. Surely I could come up with a mere 30 to praise him and spread the love. This would be no sweat.
I imagined birds suddenly appearing every time I got near him . . .
to give him his daily positive thought.
I imagined stars falling down from the sky every time he walked by . . . when I gave him a word or two of encouragement.
I imagined all the girls (around blog town), following him, all around . . . just to be close to him in all of his positive awesomeness.
It would be great.
Day one I threw hubs a compliment over lunch.
"Hon? I love that you make me laugh."
He raised his eyebrow at me while chewing his salad. "Umm, " crunch, crunch, "what?" crunch, crunch, "That is totally random but . . . thanks?"
So, the angels weren't getting together to sprinkle moon dust in his hair anytime soon. I still forged on.
Day two I tried to compliment his physique while he was getting dressed.
"You have great arms, you know?" I cooed.
He stopped in mid-dress, looked at me, and said seriously, "Arms? I have good arms? What is that about?"
This 30 day positive challenge was clearly not the dream come true I imagined.
But I have learned a few things. I have learned . . .
1) I clearly do not praise hubs enough if every time I do praise him he thinks that I am up to something.
2) Although my intentions are pure, I have forgotten to do the challenge on multiple days.
3) I think that if I do not make praising hubs a conscious decision daily, he probably doesn't get many positive pats on the back, and that makes me just sad.
4) This challenge is MUCH HARDER than I thought. Not because hubs is anything less than fantastic, but because I am. I am human, and sometimes it is EASIER to see the negative.
5)I am committed to continue this challenge because it a) makes hubs and me feel good, and b) I hate to lose.
************My sincere apologies to the Carpenter's for butchering their Close to You song.*********
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
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Visiting from Pamela's site (your comment). I LOVED how you intertwined the song lyrics into this post - you didn't butcher it, you made me laugh! I think that is something that surprised me, too. Altho Alpha Hubby and I did really good on the former Challenge, this one much harder to follow through on. I thought the same thing, "EASY no-brainer" but remembering to do it is much harder than anticipated. And actually NOT repeating myself is, too. You are not alone (smile)! Never give up, never surrender - we will NOT lose!
ReplyDeletep.s. - I loved this sentence: "I clearly do not praise hubs enough if every time I do praise him he thinks that I am up to something" - so true! My guy used to say, "OK, what do you want?"
ReplyDeleteI love this. I had seen Pamela's challenge and thought that it was an interesting thing to do. Unfortunately I think that I would probably be about as successful as you.
ReplyDeleteBut this did make me laugh and make me realize that I do not compliment my husband nearly enough.
I think I would be a big, fat fail on this one. I know my husband would be (as if!). If he started acting all nice and complimentary I'd probably hire a private detective to follow him around.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have a) paid him compliments and b) stuck with it. I think that is a big fat WIN. If doing one day out of 30 turned out to be an increase and you did, that's a win.
ReplyDeleteAnd, go you on the Carpenter's mashup.