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Counting your blessings by noting down things to be grateful about your spouse, is a wonderful way to transform your perspective and make them feel genuinely appreciated and loved.

Yes, it is Valentine’s Day this coming Monday 14 February, and the first thing you are going to say is, this is just commercialised flim-flam, and besides, what has it got to do with Dads?

Trust me, celebrating Valentine’s Day is critical if you are a father romantically involved with the mother of your children.

Theodore Hesburgh said,

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

Remember, it was an overflow of your passionate love for the woman of your dreams that got you into being a father in the first place. Recall when you could do nothing else but think of her?

Recollect the time when the smell of her perfume would send you off into romantic wonderland?

How about the time your friends discovered you were in love, so they mocked you and took the proverbial out of you, just to see you squirm? But you were happy because you were in love, and you didn’t care.

Downward Spiral

But all that has changed. Now you are in survival mode in your relationship. You are paying a high rent, or an even higher mortgage, and you have to work harder and longer than ever before just to keep the family afloat.

Your wife doesn’t look as good as she used to, and you look worse than she does. Furthermore, you are making love less than you ever did.

Even if your relationship doesn’t need a kickstart, we all need to keep the love fires burning. Better still not just burning, but burning hot. I have an idea that will help your relationship.

V-Day Challenge

It’s called the Dads4Kids Valentine’s Day Challenge. Simple really, the challenge is to do something different for Valentine’s Day or in the leadup to Valentine’s Day for the woman of your dreams to make her feel special, more special than she ever has before!

That is much easier for you than it is for me. You see, I have five children, nine grandchildren and have been married for over 40 years and frankly, I have run out of ideas.

But then I remembered Fawn Weaver and the Happy Wives Club. Fawn started the Happy Wives Club quite a few years ago to find a million happy wives who were committed to their marriage.

She then visited 12 countries and talked to hundreds of couples about the secrets to a long and satisfying marriage and put it all in a bestselling book of the same name. Fawn’s site, in its day, was voted the number one marriage site in the world by Readers’ Choice at About.com

So being a pretty smart sort of guy (don’t laugh please), I thought the best way to get some new ideas about celebrating Valentine’s Day is to go to a woman.

So, I went to Fawn Weaver’s blog and found this fantastic marriage tip. Her tip gave me a great idea to meet the Dads4Kids Valentine’s Day Challenge. Hopefully, it will give you some inspiration on the way you can meet the Dads4Kids Valentine’s Day Challenge.

Focus on the Good

The following reflection went out to the Happy Wives Club members:

“How do you recover from a negative period in your marriage
when all you can focus on is what is wrong with your spouse?”

The solution is simple.

Shift your focus to the good to improve your marriage.

I’m not asking you to ignore issues.

I’m suggesting a different approach.

I want you to focus on being grateful.

Just once a day.

Because gratitude is the spoonful of sugar that helps marriage in the most delightful way. (Tweet that!)

I wrote previously about Darren Hardy’s Thanks-giving Journal.

Following an argument, he decided to write to his wife to let her know how grateful he was for her.

While he struggled at first to look for those blessings, he found his attitude had completely changed to one of deep love and thankfulness once he finished with his message.

Believing he had stumbled onto a great idea, he began a year-long project.

Every day, he would spend a few minutes noting just one thing about his wife that he admired, adored, or enjoyed, and wrote it down.

At the end of the year, he gave his wife this Thanks-giving Journal.

She cried and said it was the best gift ever.

What happened?

He was paying attention to the good, to the woman he fell in love with so long ago.

He detailed for her how she mattered, both to him and others.

Not only did it change his daily focus, but it improved the quality of his marriage.

Look for reasons to express your gratitude towards your spouse.

I encourage you to write it down daily because gratitude is a matter of practice.

Say it out loud, too, with words like thank you, I appreciate that, I am so grateful when you do that!

You just might re-discover more to love about your other half, improve your marriage, be happier, and give the most amazing gift.

May you find happiness wherever you are! Kim at Too Darn Happy is a good example.

So, I have given the Happy Wives Club challenge my own Marsh twist.

I am going to send a letter of appreciation to my wife for the next five days starting on Valentine’s Day. (Yes, I have done it before, but there is no law against good things happening again.)

Each day she will go to the letterbox and get a surprise letter of gratitude. I will share with you my first letter if you promise not to tell her.

Dear Alison,

It was great to wake up with you last Friday morning and see you beside me. I rolled over and gave you a kiss and we reminisced about the night before, our very special bi-weekly date night!

I enjoy being with you and I love your ‘occasional’ outbursts of unpredictability.

Thank you for being my constant love in the light of my constant unpredictableness.

Lots of love,
Warwick, your husband.

Lovework

Monday 14 February is a special day, so make sure you make it special for the mother of your children in some way. If you don’t, who will? She deserves it. She needs it, so why not give it to her?

If you can’t think of anything else, you could write five letters of thanksgiving. Need more inspiration? Check out Len Gutman’s 50 Things I Like About My Wife. You never know, together we might start the Happy Husbands Club.  Always remember: “Happy Wife – Happy Life”.

Yours for the Dads4Kids Valentine’s Day Challenge,
Warwick Marsh

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