By Jeb Jac (Jebediah Jacobson) 

When we first met about this month’s edition over half price hot wings and caffeinated beverages, I suggested the concept of “Roles of a Godly Man.” This really hit home with me, being a new Christian and struggling with my husbandly duties. I had felt recently, and my wife even told me at times, that she had been very stressed about our finances, a big upcoming family trip and her return to college. At times even our housework was suffering, and she felt the burden of everything piled on at once. My initial reaction was always to try to “fix it.” The problem I faced over and over again was that I didn’t keep up with it and months would lapse before the situation would get so bad again that I would repeat the process. The romance in our relationship was in the same situation. I often expected her to respond to me, even after I spent every night of the week working late hours or entertaining my own hobbies.

Something had to change and I knew it was my behavior and my attitude. I accepted the challenge of making a change in my life for good. I started by doing something for my wife every day for a month to see if I could turn around a situation that I had wanted to address for years. It required a new attitude from me: “I am a husband, a father and a man of God, and I want to make a change.” In order to do this, I needed to ask God for help, and being from a non-Christian background, asking God for anything didn’t come easily. I am still diligently working on listening to what God wants me to do in my life.

I decided to start with what I already knew, and most of the time I kept it simple but thoughtful. Many times I would give her a letter, a text message or an email just saying how much I loved her and that I was thinking about her. Since she has started school again, I have taken over all housework and childcare duties on the nights she is gone and I send her pictures of the kids being goofy at the dinner table. She told me recently it really makes her night and she absolutely loves it. I have tried to have more date nights with my wife and have spent more quality time with the family in general.

Something a bit more involved, that required a bit more forethought was creating an online family calendar both my wife and I could use at any time, which helped with our communication regarding weekly activities. I also decided to be more involved with our family budget and our finances, and took over the weekly grocery shopping. I have found that “doing what you say you’ll do” is extremely important. Many times I have taken for granted the fact that my wife loves me and will be with me always, despite all my faults. This had allowed me to become forgetful and unreliable. I had really noticed this when I was being commended at work for the exact traits in which I was failing at home. Once I started to change this behavior, I immediately noticed my wife felt more secure and able to rely on me again.

Like I said earlier, I tend to work a lot in the evening hours on extra projects and this meant I was not going to bed at the same time as my wife every night. I think that this is a very important thing to do, more often than not. Now that I am making an effort to do this almost every night, we have been talking more, laughing more and being more intimate with each other. I cannot stress enough how some thing that seems so simple, can make such a big difference.

All of these things have really made a big difference in my family and my marriage. My wife and I recently talked about how much better our communication has been, how much less stressed and overwhelmed she has felt and how much fun we all seem to have more often now. Doing these things all month, and realizing that I want to do this everyday has been an incredible experience. I highly suggest any man struggling in a relationship with their wife, whether it is intimacy, security, quality time, finances or all of the above, take a step back and try some of the things I have outlined here. All it really takes is you, stepping up to be the man God wants you to be. It isn’t difficult or painful, and by the end of it all, you will want to do these things everyday for yourself, for her and for God.