Praise for Hubby: 'You da' Man!'

I met Kathi Lipp on the road at a women’s event. She is funny and smart. In her book, The Husband Project, she encourages women to share “great gossip” about their husbands. Others might call that “bragging on hubby” or becoming hubby’s cheerleader.

“As cliché as it may sound, our husbands want to be our heroes,” Kathi says. “More than they want to know that we love them, they want to know that we respect them. They need to know that they’re never the butt of our jokes, that they’re the go-to-guy in every story we tell.”

More from Kathi:

Make an opportunity today to spread some great gossip about your man. It doesn’t matter if it’s one of your friends or one of his; let that somebody know how blessed you are to be married to your guy.

Some key phrases you may want to put on index cards to help you remember:

• “I feel so lucky to have a man who knows how to do his own laundry.”
• “You know when I knew that my husband really loved me? When he could remember my order at Starbucks.”
• “I just love the way he is with our kids.”
• “He makes the best lasagna on the planet.”

Steering the Ship

A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it  (James 3: 3-4 The Message). That’s what great gossip is all about.

As wives, we are often the ship’s captain, while our husbands are that huge ship. Words spoken in encouragement and love can go a long way to building our men up. But the opposite is true as well.  There is nothing that can determine the direction of our husband’s day quicker than the words that are spoken to him in the morning.

Sometimes as wives, we forget the role we play in our husband’s lives. We all remember that great line from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, spoken by Toula’s mom, “The man may be the head of the household, but the woman is the neck. She tells him which way to turn.”

OK, I don’t tell my husband which way to turn, but I do have an influence about how he navigates through his day.

I know that I need to be especially careful about my tone. Sometimes I think I am just oh-so-witty, when really it’s coming off as sarcastic and biting. It’s not enough to just say kind and encouraging words. I need to make sure that whatever words I choose only build up my husband, never tear him down.

That’s what great gossip is all about.

If you could brag on your husband to the whole wide world, what would you say?

Kathi Lipp is a speaker and prolific author, including The Husband Project and Praying God’s Word for Your Husband with Revell and Harvest House Publishers with four more books coming out in the next two years.  Kathi’s articles have appeared in dozens of magazines, and she is a frequent guest on Focus on the Family radio (named “Best of Broadcast”). She and her husband Roger are the parents of young adults in San Jose, CA. When she’s not doing laundry, Kathi speaks at retreats, conferences and women’s events.