Marriage Mondays: Lean In {& Link Up}

Do you ever find yourself pulling back when all you really want to do is wrap your arms around your husband, kiss him a hundred times and tell him how much you desire him?  When out in public, have there been times when you’ve decided not to lean in to your husband as much as you’d like because you were concerned about how others might perceive your expressed adoration?

Adoration is an interesting word.  It is Latin from the word adōrātiō and means to respect; reverence; have strong admiration or devotion.  Most women are comfortable with expressing love for their spouse but not adoration.  I wonder why.

Maybe it’s because we also use the term love to express how we feel about our pets, our favorite foods, a movie we thoroughly enjoyed.  Maybe it’s because it is possible to love and still hold something back.  But when we adore, by the very nature of that word, it means we go “all in.”

For the record, I adore my husband in the greatest sense of the word.  Whether in public or private, I think he’s the best thing since toasted rye bread covered in melted butter.  I love him, indeed I do, but I also fawn over him because I know he needs and desires that just like I do.

The sad part is women like me are becoming more and more rare.  So many don’t give themselves the freedom to do this; to fully give in to the respect and admiration they have for their husband.  Maybe it makes them feel weak.  Possibly it’s because we’ve been taught for so long that we should hold back a part of us; save a little just in case we later need it.

Unfortunately, by withholding from our spouse, we also withhold from ourselves because they aren’t the only ones who need to feel as though they mean the entire world to at least one person.  Women may express it more often but we’re both wired in this manner (men, even more so than women).

There has been alot of talk these days about renewed feminism and this concept of Lean In.  I am a businesswoman and am proud of what I’ve accomplished in the workforce and will undoubtedly continue to set and achieve ambitious goals in the years ahead.  But what is more important to me than leaning in to my career is leaning in to my marriage.

I intentionally give my all to my husband and marriage every day because when I retire from the workforce, I want to make sure I’ve created a family that’s built to last.  I want to have a marriage I thoroughly enjoy and a husband who never ceases to make me smile.  I don’t want to wake up in my fifties and realize I’ve got a fat bank account and a skinny relationship.

So if you want to know if I believe in the concept of Lean In, absolutely!  The only difference is I am focused on leaning in to what matters most in the long run: God, family and friends.

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

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Fawn Weaver

Founder at Happy Wives Club

Fawn Weaver is the USA Today® and New York Times® bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 900,000 women in over 110 countries around the world. When she’s not blogging or working on her next project, she's happily doting over her husband of nearly eleven years, Keith.

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