Do you feel UN (or under!) appreciated? Does your husband seem impassive, unaware, or inconsistent in his notice of all you are and all you do? Disappointment, disconnect, or disrespect is often the direct result of feeling taken for granted.
In this episode, Ramona and Dale answer a wife who knows her relationship and her family could be improved by more frequent expressions of thankfulness, but who doesn’t know how to motivate or inspire her husband to comprehend the obvious: she and the family need and deserve his appreciation. Listen and learn how to create a culture of gratitude in your marriage.
Throw Me a WifeSaver: “My husband and I are having difficult times because our relationship is missing this important phrase: thank you. How I can I help my husband practice this more? Thank you!”
Key Topics:
- Why hearing “thank you” is so important to a woman
- The common ways spouses fail to appreciate one another
- How “appreciation” is different than saying “thank you”
- Detecting his nonverbal demonstrations of appreciation
- How to ask for more verbal expressions
- The impact of her appreciation on him
- He wants her appreciation for this one thing most of all
- Creating a culture beyond “thank you” and “appreciation”
Dear Ramona.
I’ve been eating up your podcast lately, and have recommended them to my friends and family. I absolutely love them, and listening to you and Dale. It’s so inspiring.
Last week I heard your podcast about thanks and appreciation, and yesterday, when my husband took all of our recyclable glass to be recycled, I thanked him for doing that… And he thanked me for thanking him. It made me realize how much it means to him that I see and acknowledge what he does for our family. I will definitely be thanking him more often.
And while we are on the subject… Thank you and Dale so much for doing these podcasts. They really are life-changing.
Love, R.
So beautiful. Thank Rickey for taking the time to say so! xo
I needed this one. I’ve been working on expressing positives and appreciation to my SO; but I’ve also noticed that I hold back from saying more, from completing the thoughts. For example, when he leaves after a date, I’ll say “Thank you” for the meal or for coming over; but I haven’t told him that I appreciate all the effort he gives to keeping our relationship going, especially giving all the hours he works. He’s the one who crosses the bay to come over, and about 90% of the time, he’s covering the cost our dates even though it’s important to him to pay off his debts. I can definitely start expressing this to him.
Your point of how women may not express appreciation because their husbands don’t, explains why I haven’t apologized to him. I recently told him that I truly hadn’t understood when he said I was being disrespectful to him, and that I am now learning what that means to him. But I failed to apologize for doing the things he felt were disrespectful. The reason I held back was because he didn’t apologize for some of the bullyish things he did to me, instead saying that he realized he “may have been taking me for granted.” I appreciated that he said that, as I really was surprised he acknowledged it, but he never actually apologized. And so I didn’t apologize, even though I knew I was being petty and knew his becoming bullyish was in reaction to how he was feeling disrespected. Still, I just couldn’t get myself to apologize.
This is my long way to say that because of this podcast, I will start completing my thoughts of appreciation and saying my apologies to him. I’m excited to make this change, and I think it will make him feel good… and appreciated.
LaRonda, So glad this episode helped! Remember: he probably SHOWS you an apology rather than articulating it (doing something a little extra or out of the ordinary that he thinks will benefit you somehow.) We wives easily miss these “apologies”. xo
Sometimes this is one way. Even though it’s marriage, it’s hard to continually address it as both people doing the same thing. We are all sinners, but it doesn’t mean because you are married both are sinning in the same way. It is possible for one spouse to be saying thank you and the other one is not. We don’t always have to take on the other’s sin as our own just because we are married. I would truly love to see it addressed simply and directly. What is the best way to deal with a spouse who doesn’t say thank you when you are in fact saying thank you?