The Husband Project

Today I can mark another book off my list of books to read in 2012.  Last month I teamed up with a few friends of mine from Sunday School to complete Kathi Lipp’s The Husband Project.  In her book Kathi guides her readers through 21 days of activities intended to help wives “love their man on purpose.”  Most activities are pretty simple and require little prep work such as “say something nice to your husband…” or “cook his favorite dish.”  In addition she provides several examples for how to implement the project into your regular routine, a short prayer to get your heart ready for the activity, and even a few reports of how things turned out from others who have implemented the project.

The concept of the book is great.  She recommends teaming up with a few other friends to keep you accountable and stick to it for 21 days as it usually takes 21 days to build a habit.  The final goal–do something nice intentionally for your husband at least once a day.

While my friends and I had the best of intentions for completing every one of these tasks within the 21 days and reporting about it, that just didn’t happen for us.  Life, as we put it, just seemed to get in the way.  However, we cannot say it was a total failure as we noticed several changes in our lives resulting from the projects we did complete:

1.  Our attitudes received a much needed adjustment.  Prior to reading this book and implementing several of these projects a few of us had the self-martyr or woah-as-me attitude in regards to our marriages.  By participating in The Husband Project, we received a renewed sense of excitement for our husbands and desire to want to serve them anew.

2.  We had some amazing times with our husbands that we might not of had otherwise–a fun concert, frosty root beer mugs and sweet conversations on the back porch, an afternoon date day, and more.  In fact, even though I didn’t complete all 21 projects in 21 days I’m still going back and looking at this book to complete any unfinished projects and get some new ideas for completing them again as they had such a positive impact in my own marriage.

3.  It’s helped each of us to look at loving our husbands in a different light and given us the desire to create the new habit of doing something special to show our husbands we love them every day…no matter how simple and whether or not he ever notices.

Would I recommend this book?  Definitely.  In fact, I think I may even try out her second book The Marriage Project:  21 Days to More Love and Laughter next as Lipp’s book was simple to read, easy to implement, and encouraging for my marriage.  Now, I think I’m going to go iron my hubby’s white dress shirts.  What one thing are you going to do today to let your hubby know you love him?