Why I Love My Husband

I came across the "Why I Love My Husband" series through a blog I recently started following More Like Mary~More Like Me. She brought up an excellent point about the importance of raising up our husbands. We live in a time when so many people are bringing one another down, including their spouses. Husband bashing can become a popular topic of conversation, and that's just not ok. We should be sharing all of the wonderful attributes of the incredible men we share our lives with. This blogger makes this point so much more clearly than I am right now, so please visit her post on this blog series. You can join in here!

And so I begin my post on why I love MY husband!

1. He is patient. I can't tell you how many times I have gotten overwhelmed and can be just plain mean. He never cracks or yells back. He just calmy responds to me and gives me some space to let myself decompress until I come to apologize for the hundredth time. He has also shown incredible patience throughout our adoption journey. I am constantly thinking about the adoption and anxiously waiting... very impatiently. Dan balances me out. He knows that God will place our child with us when the time is right. He is the one that gets me through the TWO WEEK waiting period each time we are being considered for a specific case. I'm always freaking out while he calmly waits and keeps me sane. This man has incredible patience!

2. He is my perfect balance. I tend to worry about EVERYTHING. Even if my concerns are trivial, he calmly sits and listens to what I have to say and helps me to talk through what is bothering me. In fact, we most recently sat in our car in the mall parking lot for a good half hour while I hashed through a silly worry I had. He calmly listened and helped me to see that I was overthinking things. And he does all this without making me feel like a complete fool! He knows how to make me laugh in these moments as well, which is so important when I feel like my head is about to explode :) He instinctively knows when I need a laugh to remind me I'm being silly and when to just be quiet and listen. THAT is an important quality. He daily lives our vows of standing by my side for better or for worse.

My husband (on the left) getting down with Dance Central on New Year's Eve.

3. He has a light-hearted personality and can always make me laugh. No matter what kind of day he has been having, Dan always walks in the door with a smile on his face. He is constantly humming some sort of catchy tune, quoting a funny line from a show or movie, or dancing around the house. He has been blessed with a gift to lift the spirits of everyone around him. When we make trips home to visit his family, we are laughing with him from the moment he walks in the door until we leave. And he is the same way with our friends... always ready for a laugh.

4. He is great with finances. For as long as I have known him, he has always been great with budgeting. He takes care of everything related to our finances. Thank goodness! If it had been up to me, I never would have any clue what I was doing. I can guarantee I would have our money in all the wrong places. Other people even come to him asking for help budgeting so that they can pay off their own loans. This is an area that he excels in. No wonder he is such a great accountant :) The man is good with numbers!

5. He is incredibly hard working. He is one of the most hard working men I know. There have been periods where he literally woke up, worked, came home, ate, and went to bed. Fortunately, things have been less hectic recently. Even in those weeks when it seemed like all he did was work, he still walked in the door with a smile on his face and a big hug for me. I know if that were me, I'd be in a terrible mood and just plop myself down on the couch with the remote. 

Dan meeting our "niece" Alexis for the first time.

6. He is going to be an incredible father! This is one of my favorite qualities about Dan. We don't have our little miracle yet, but I know he is going to be phenomenal. He has a huge heart, and I know he is going to be such a strong presence in our children's lives. He will be such a proud father. I can already picture him now, playing on the floor with the kids, dancing around the living room, and singing silly songs with them. I'm sure he will be teaching them some of his favorite jokes as well. He will be at every baseball game, dance recital, and band concert. Our house is going to be filled with even more love and joy than it has now. 

7. He is a man of faith. This is the quality I love most about him. He lives and breathes our faith. He is constantly learning more about the Catholic faith, and I love learning with him. Some of my favorite moments with him are those where I just sit and start asking him questions, and we have such great conversations about the teachings of the Church. Dan pushes me to learn more and leads me to the best books to read. He was the one to take me to my first Latin High Mass, which is absolutely beautiful if you ever have the chance to attend. This Mass brings back so much reverence. It is like Heaven on earth. I can't imagine our marriage without our shared faith. I love praying with him at Mass each week and praying together, especially for the blessings of a child. I am so blessed to be married to such a man of faith. He drives me to grow closer to God. After all, that's what marriage is about, isn't it? One of the best things I have ever been told about marriage is that we are called to get one another to Heaven. We are called to bring one another closer to God. I am thrilled to say, that day in and day out, my husband does just that.