I didn’t make these up. These are what were reported by Dr. Gary and Barb Rosberg based on responses from 700 wives.

Number 1 – affirmation – expressed with authenticity outside the bedroom as well as within

Number 2 – Connectedness – validate her by demonstrating you understand her world and her level of weariness

Number 3 – Non-sexual touch that expresses affection but leads nowhere else

Given the above let me add that a husband will get bonus points if he:

• Sincerely affirms his wife in front of her friends
• Not only “gets” her weariness but does something to lessen it
• Puts some energy into discovering what non-sexual touches are most appreciated by his bride

I am anticipating some vacation time, as many of you no doubt are. A post in The New Man Report caught my attention this week. It was entitled “Take a vacation…from yourself“. The article includes some doable ideas for hitting the refresh button in our lives as men of the way.

The one from the list that I will be doing is visiting some friends that I haven’t seen for a while. In fact, we leave in two days to do that.

For those of us who are married I would add the idea of expressing romance to our wife in a way other than what fits under the adjectives unimaginative, routine, boring, cheap.

What would you add to the list?

If you work shifts you might find the recent StatsCanada report on “Shift Work and Health” disturbing interesting. Here are a few snippets:

• Three out of 10 employed Canadians worked some type of shift in 2000/01.
• A high percentage of married men working evenings reported relationship problems with their spouse.
• Men who worked an evening shift were more likely than those with a regular daytime schedule to report a low sense of “mastery,” (for example, feeling little control over their life).

I spent close to six years working the evening shift, probably the toughest years to-date for my marriage. I always seemed to be tired. I always seemed to be leaving when people were arriving, sleeping when others were awake, full of energy when others were zonked. Intentionality was key to making our marriage and family work.

What have you discovered that offsets the potential relational hazards faced by working shifts?

“Do you consider yourself a workaholic?” In a recent Canadian study 1/3 of the respondents answered “yes”. What I found even more interesting is that in comparison with non-workaholics, self-identified workaholics are more likely:

• to feel that their domestic lives are out of balance
• to report poorer health
• to feel trapped in a daily routine
• to feel rushed
• to worry that they don’t spend enough time with family or friends

Can you relate to any of this?

A wise man once asked “What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecc 1:3). It seems that this study is suggesting there is a good chance all he gets is grief.

Source: Time escapes me: Workaholics and time perception

Do you see the margin on this page. That isn’t space wasted, that is space in reserve for words that have yet to be written, words that have not even been thought. Margins can come in very handy.

Our lives benefit from the same principle. The “reserve” in our lives, whether it be time, or emotion, or energy or money is margin that can be utilized for important or urgent things that have yet presented themselves.

Many of us live our lives to the edges. We don’t have any margins. By the day’s end our time, our patience, our strength and our dollars have all been spent. I see this in my own life far too often. And when something “extra” does come along, stress is the feeling I experience as I try to squeeze yet one more thing into a life that has been written to the edges.

One thing that has become clear to me in my battle with a margin-less life is that only doing “good” things doesn’t work. There are too many good things for me and for my family. I need to start asking a different question. More like, “Is this a right thing for me to do now?”

How do you see it? Do you have margins? How do you keep them?