One wonderful thing about being married is getting to hear about manhood from a woman’s perspective. This is valuable intel. Kind of like crossing behind enemy lines and finding out what they’ve picked up on while you’ve been going about your business.

There are many lessons I’ve learned discussing manhood with my wife and her friends, but one has been mentioned more than any other: women’s frustration with the inability of men to make a decision.

I was a bit surprised when I first heard this. Out of all the shortcomings of men I figured B.O. or disdain for discussing feelings would rank much higher. After all, don’t women want to make the calls in the relationship? It turns out they don’t.

Let’s run through a quick scenario that happens every day in relationships:

Woman: So what are we going to do tonight?
Man: I don’t know, what do you want to do?
Woman: I don’t know, why don’t you choose?
Man: I really don’t care, I’m good with anything
Woman: Fine then, how about we get some coffee?
Man: Umm, actually I’m not really in the mood to go out, why don’t we just stay home tonight?

And so it goes. The man thinking he’s being a gentleman by constantly deferring to the woman and the woman frustrated that her man is either too lazy, apathetic, or scared to make a decision. Enough! It’s time for men to be men and this means being a leader in your relationships. What does this look like?

Decide - If she asks you to decide, then decide. It’s not a test or some type of trick. Being a leader means making decisions. There is a tactful and loving way to do this, but for some guys just the simple act of deciding can seem paralyzing. Trust that your partner wants to follow you and lead.

Plan Ahead - Women love when you plan things out. Not only does it show them you care enough to coordinate your time together, but it shows them you’re capable of leading the relationship. Make reservations, buy tickets ahead of time and show that you know how to plan ahead.

Be Yourself - If you don’t want to see the movie, then say that. If you want to spend the night alone instead of inviting others, make your opinion known. Obviously there are times when you must compromise and do what your partner wants, even if you don’t, but it’s o.k. to disagree from time to time.

Please don’t be confused. I’m not saying that you should control every aspect of the relationship or plan every minute. It’s definitely possible to go too far in this direction. What I’m calling for is a healthy relationship where the woman can trust that her man is willing and able to lead. So, be a gentleman and make a decision.

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Setting goals is one of the most common practices of the personal development crowd, an easy way to give your life some focus and direction. The exercise is also something I advocate strongly and implement in my own life. However, if one is not careful goals can actually become more destructive than helpful.

When goals become the ends rather than the means they can create a lifestyle of checking boxes rather than skilled living.

Living simply to reach goals is similar to a hamster spinning in a wheel, lots of movement, but no real progress. Without an overall purpose for your goals the practice of constantly striving can create anxiety, restlessness and eventually become more of a burden rather than a help.

These thoughts came to light in a recent discussion with my friend Glenn. After setting my personal goals for 2008 I have spent the past few months attempting to reach them, some with great success and others, not so much. Throughout the process I have had to remind myself of the ultimate purpose for setting my goals in the first place: a life lived to the hilt in worship of God and leadership of my family.

Knowing the ultimate purpose of you goals helps not only in progressing forward, but also in prioritizing your life.

The quickest way to identify your top priorities is to identify the areas in your life in which you are irreplaceable.

As a husband I am irreplaceable. No one else can be a husband to my wife, but me. As a father, I am also irreplaceable. No one can lead, care for and be a father to my child like I can. Finally, in my worship to God, I am irreplaceable. Others can serve Him, many better than I can, but no one can replace my individual worship to God. In every other area of my life someone can replace me.

At my job, there are 1,000 other pilots that can replace me as the pilot. At my church there are plenty of other people who can replace me as a small group leader. Even my blog, while extraordinary and unique I know, haha, could easily be written by someone far better than me. On that note, if you ever want to write a guest post, please let me know.

When you make goals in various areas of your life there are bound to be times where they conflict with one another. If you don’t have a good grasp on your priorities you goals can actually lead you away from where you want to go.

This morning my wife and I took our 2 month-old daughter with us to the gym. Since I was planning on running on the treadmill I took our daughter and parked her stroller next to me. At around minute 18 she began to frown…I knew I was in trouble. Soon she began to whimper and whine. I had planned on running for 30 minutes. I shut down the treadmill and took care of my daughter who was beginning to cry. While running a marathon this year is a goal of mine, being a good father is another goal and takes priority.

Knowing which goals will take priority will determine whether your goals are ultimately helping you or hurting you in the pursuit of your best life.

The bottom line: Goals are an incredibly effective way of helping move your life in the right direction, but just as important as setting goals is deciding what the right direction actually is and which goals have priority over others as you walk out this journey. Keep setting goals, just make sure they’re serving you and not the other way around.

If you are married you can be certain that there will be conflict. Conflict can either destroy a marriage or make it stronger, it all depends on how you view it and how you choose to deal with it. My last marriage post, Top 5 Reasons for Marital Conflict, dealt with the primary sources of contention. As Aaron Stern, pastor and close friend, is fond of telling married couples, “All conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations.”

This post is about knowing how to do conflict well. It may seem like an oxymoron to some, but there is a good way and a bad way to do conflict. The bad way ends in avoidance, hurt, frustration and unresolved issues. The good way of doing conflict ends in greater trust, love, understanding and a resolution. Stern gave my wife and I the following rules just before we were married and they have allowed conflict to help, rather than hurt, our marriage.

RUMBLE RULES:

Don’t hurt each other – physical or otherwise, this is non-negotiable. If you cannot fight without hurting each other there are serious issues that need to be resolved quickly. Seek a good marriage counselor.

Don’t bargaining/threaten - For example, if you don’t do this I won’t have sex with you. Individual rights are secondary to the health of the relationship. The definition of love is a laying down of your life for the benefit of another. A healthy marriage is one where both partners understand that they have essentially given up their individual rights in service of their spouse. As with most aspects of marriage, this only works when both people are operating under these parameters, constantly trying to out-serve the other.

Don’t bring up the past – love keeps no record of wrongs. Too often people in a relationship keep a running tally of offenses in their head to use as ammunition in future fights. “Go into relationships with eyes wide open…get married with eyes half shut,” says Stern. It is best to approach each issue on its own rather than hitting your spouse with an avalanche of grievances.

Don’t attack the foundations - For example, starting out with a disagreement over paying bills on time or showing up late to dinner and jumping straight to “you don’t love me,” or “you don’t trust me.” The conflict may have been quite small, but by attacking foundations you now just poured gasoline on it and lit the match.

Don’t go out looking to drum up support - Don’t go out and tell your friends, “Guess what my spouse did the other night!” The purpose of marriage is to protect your spouse not to throw them to the wolves. Also, it is rarely a good idea to bring your in-laws into your conflict. Their bias towards their own child makes the situation sticky.

Set up Systems - Do whatever you need to ensure the conflict is productive and safe. If you have a bad tendency to interrupt each other, go elementary-school style and use a talking stick. Whoever is holding the stick has the floor and the other person must sit silently and listen until they have the stick. If one partner needs 10 minutes of cool-down time before discussing the issue, make allowances for that.

Don’t exaggerate/polarize - Avoid using terms such as, “always” or “never,” which are rarely accurate and polarize the conversation. The tendency in any fight is to take an extreme position to emphasize your point. The result of this, your partner then takes their position to the extreme opposite side making it much harder to find any sort of middle ground.

When my wife and I first started dating we got into a huge fight over whether she would stay at home with our kids or not. Things started off fine (our views were actually quite similar), but went downhill quickly. By the end she was vowing to never have kids and I was demanding 10 children and that she stay barefoot and pregnant doing housework the rest of her life. In reality, this was not what either of us wanted, but in an effort to prove our points we exaggerated greatly and polarized the discussion.

Even the word “conflict” makes some people shudder. The idea of confrontation is uncomfortable, but by learning to fight clean you can take the sting out of conflict and make it a very useful and valuable aspect of your marriage.

Other useful marriage posts:
- Say What You Need
- Top 5 Reasons for Marital Conflict

After publishing my last post dealing with marriage, Say What You Need, I received some feedback indicating that more content in this area would be appreciated. Since I want this blog to be incredibly useful to my readers I started to look at my marriage and discern what has made it so successful thus far. As I indicated in my last marriage post, a lot of credit must go to Aaron Stern, pastor of theMill in Colorado Springs, CO, who led us through our pre-marital counseling and put tools in our hands to build a marriage that will last.

If you are married there is one thing that is certain: there will be conflict. It is impossible to live with someone day after day, for years on end without having some type of conflict. One of the keys to marital success is adopting a view that conflict is good! What?! Yes, conflict is good! Conflict always presents an opportunity for couples to work through issues and come out stronger on the other end. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating you start picking fights with your spouse for fun, but taking the fear out of conflict goes a long way in helping couples confront their issues.

Some of you may be reading this getting ready to bounce because you are not married and don’t feel this will apply to you…wait…if you are ever even thinking about getting married some day, this information will be useful for you as you begin surveying the land for potential mates.

The following is a list of the top five reasons for marital conflict:

1) a failure of communication

2) financial difficulties

3) sexual difficulties

4) problems with in-laws

5) disagreements over child rearing

“All conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations,” explains Aaron Stern. If you are already married, these should highlight areas to openly discuss often with your spouse. What are your expectations in each of these areas? If you disagree, how do you intend to work things out?

If you are unmarried, look at these as things to discuss with your boyfriend/girlfriend or fiancee before starting marriage in order to work out some ground rules before jumping in without clear expectations. Don’t wait until you get married and then realize that while you had always wanted 10 children your spouse doesn’t want any. Discussing your expectations clearly, early and often in each of these areas will go a long way to strengthen your marriage.

My wife and I have been married now for a year and a half…not very long, especially to be giving marriage advice, I know, but it has been a wonderful time and I can’t help believing that there are some fundamental pieces to our relationship that have made it so fulfilling and successful thus far. In my effort to share with my readers lessons in skilled living, I give you this piece of advice that has truly transformed the way both my wife and I think about our relationship: say what you need.

I must give credit to Aaron Stern, our pastor at the time and pre-marital counselor, for this wonderful concept. It was during our intense sessions of confessions and hypotheticals that he blessed us with this gem of wisdom.

Tell your partner what you need. It seems obvious, but what often happens is that one person wants something, but feels that their partner should know to fulfill that need without having to be told or asked. When the need goes unmet, bitterness and frustration ensues with one person being mad that their need wasn’t met and the other being angry because he or she was expected to read the other’s mind. This battle is a very common one faced by couples, but is such a easy fix. Just tell your partner what you need.

For example, sometimes when we’re walking down the street my wife will simply say, “Babe, I want you to hold my hand,” or every once and a while, “I would like it if you bought me flowers sometime this month.” From my side, “Wifey, would you get up early and make me a big breakfast tomorrow?” This is probably shocking to some people reading this, who like me when I first heard it, are probably thinking, “where’s the romance in that?” The fact is, you have to trust your spouse enough to know that they have your best interests at heart and truly want to serve you, its just that all of us from time to time need some hints…no matter how long people are together it is hard to consistently read your partner’s mind. Again, it may seem a bit mechanical at first, but I guarantee it will prevent thousands of fights and hurt feelings and enable you to maintain a healthy relationship.

This doesn’t mean that you are off the hook when it comes to anticipating the needs of your spouse, it is just a way to help the process. In reality, most of the time it is not really about the flowers or the breakfast, it’s about a greater need. For my wife, holding her hand is a public affirmation of my love for her; flowers are a symbol that I’m thinking about her throughout my day. For me, my wife waking up to cook me breakfast tells me that she wants to serve me. We all understand these things in theory, but many times we need help in knowing how to fulfill these desires. Say what you need.