Okay, guys, on Monday I gave the wives 8 Cool Valentine’s Gifts for Your Hot Hubby. But now it’s time for you to step up. If you haven’t bought a gift for your wife (Valentine’s Day is Saturday!), here are a few ideas of sweet gifts for your spicy wife.
1. Romantic Tea or Java. Romantic tea? Have I gone nutters? Nope. While shopping for tea flavors, I found a lovely line of Valentine’s themed teas from Adagio.
Most women I know are fans of tea, but if your wife is a coffee lover, how about something special in that department? Godiva Chocolatier makes a chocolate truffle coffee. If she’s a Keurig user, maybe you could pamper her with a bit of Raspberry Chocolate Truffle Coffee.
2. A Vase and a Vow. You could get your wife flowers for Valentine’s Day, and maybe that’s what she’d like. But if she really loves getting flowers, how about giving her a new vase with a note vowing you’ll bring home flowers one day each month for the rest of the year? She can look forward to seeing what kind of flowers you bring home, anticipating which day you surprise her with them, and then enjoying the bloom and fragrance of a fresh bouquet.
3. Necklace with Personal Charm. There is a necklace charm for everything. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration, after touring James Avery, craft fairs, and Etsy.com. Whatever interest, hobby, career, personality, etc. your wife has, there is a jewelry charm for that.
You could also go a purely romantic route. Like a heart or key-to-my-heart charm. Or perhaps write a personal note and give her a love letter necklace, like this one I found on Etsy:
4. Wine Bottle Labels. Wine has become a more popular beverage in recent years, and plenty of wives enjoy a glass of wine. If that’s your thing, how about some personalized wine bottle labels — for those bottles you can share on a romantic evening?
Using Song of Songs 1:1 (“Your love is more delightful than wine“), I created a sample wine label you can use. Edit it to your taste, or simply replace “Husband” with your name and “Wife” with hers. (Click File, Make a Copy, and you’ll get a document you can edit). The labels are best printed on 4 3/4″ X 3 1/2″ labels (Avery 22826). Get a bottle of wine, slap it on, and you’re done! (Save the extra labels for later.) How easy is that?!
By the way, if you’re not into wine, these labels can be placed on other bottles, like your wife’s iced tea or Frappuccino (pictured above!)
5. Sensual Atmosphere for Your Bedroom. Yep, whether you understand it or not, many wives have a hard time getting in the mood when their bedroom looks like a tornado blew through and left laundry, kids’ toys, and/or clutter. Sure, I encourage wives to ignore it or clean it up and then make sex a priority, but you could gift her a beautiful invitation to be intimate by creating a sensual atmosphere to welcome your wife.
What that entails depends on your budget, her preferences, your savvy, etc. But creating the mood could include anything from cleaning up the room, to getting new silky sheets and/or his/her pillowcases, to candles or colored light bulbs, to an intimacy music playlist, to massage oils and lotions. And hey, if you can fold a towel swan, knock yourself out.
Just make your bedroom like a gentle invitation to your wife to relax, be pampered, and enjoy your intimate time together.
6. Clothing Reminder of Her Beauty. I’ve personally declared 2015 the year we wives learn to feel beautiful! Honestly, I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t experienced body image issues. But what I continually hear from husbands is that y’all think we’re beautiful anyway!
Guess what? We’d love for you to keep telling us (at least most of us would). While she’s working on feeling more confident, believing what you say, and taking care of her body, your wife might like a reminder of how you feel about her beauty. Several Christian clothing shops sell clothing and other items that make this point. Like this lovely T-shirt
7. Bucket List Pail. That’s right: Give your wife a metal pail. But be sure to write on the outside something like “Our Bucket List,” then spend an evening writing down things you both want to do in the course of your marriage, and drop them in the bucket. Keep adding to it as you think of more stuff.
Of course, you know what comes next, hubbies! You must start doing those activities in your bucket. But this gift will open up conversation, encourage you to look toward a positive future, and share some dreams.
On the practical side, you can find buckets at your local hardware store, hobby stores, and even discount stores. If you want something easy, grab one with a chalkboard label or slap chalkboard paint on it. Then write your title with chalk: “Our Bucket List.” “Our Twosome To-Dos.” “Life and Love List.” Or simply your names: “Mike & Lily’s Bucket List.” Make sure you have paper and pen to write your dreams and desires.
8. The Gift of Nothing. Now, before you think you’re off the hook because I used the word nothing, I’m NOT saying you shouldn’t get her something. I’m saying you should give her The Gift of Nothing — meaning that she gets to do nothing. You honor her with a day or night or weekend during which she is obligation-free. No meals to cook, no children to watch, no laundry to wash, no groceries to buy, no work to complete, no alarm clocks to answer, no ________[fill in the blank].
Many Most wives feel an ongoing burden of responsibilities, whether externally expected or internally felt, and having a break from that weight can be incredibly wonderful. Imagine this, guys: It’s like your wife finally getting to go to that mental “nothing box” the male species has as a retreat option. Like it or not, most of us gals just can’t mentally go there, unless the exterior demands are removed.
So line up the childcare, take care of the household, sweep her away somewhere if you need to, and let her do absolutely nothing for a while. (And while there are no guarantees, so don’t add any demands to this gift for her, some men who have done this have found that something happens after the nothing. 😉 )
That’s all I’ve got. But make sure you consider who your wife is. For instance, my husband rarely brings me flowers, because I’m just not that into getting flowers. But if I’d be all over that bucket list idea! So think of what your wife needs, values, and desires and shop with your lovely woman in mind.
“He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.”
Proverbs 18:22
Linked here.
J Parker has been REVEALED!!!!!!!! You are a brave woman and beautiful too!! I’m glad we can now put a face to the name. 🙂
Thanks!
I LOVE these ideas! Fantastic!!! 🙂 I came up with a list too but I’d add most of these to my list as well. 🙂 I have to say, the Godiva Chocolate Coffee is super good! A friend gave me some…. yummy! Thanks for sharing!!! 🙂
So what do you do when your husband doesn’t read blogs, and you don’t believe in begging for gifts? This is a great list, but I hate asking for things. I feel like if my husband truly thought I was worth it, he would give me a gift that meant something. He always waits for me to ask and I HATE it. He won’t even take me to dinner without forcing me to pick a restaurant. If he loves me so much, why doesn’t he feel I’m worth a surprise once in a while. I want him to stop saying he loves me and actually WANT to do something once in a while. He never wants to surprise me, ever. I think he feels I’m not worth the effort. If I don’t tell him what I like (which I see as begging for gifts) then he gets me nothing or something like gloves. That proves to me how little he really thinks of me, which is why I have a hard time believing him when he says he loves me, and all the more reason I won’t beg for a gift. If the love were real, the whole gift thing wouldn’t be so hard. What’s even crazier is, I’m not hard to please. It’s not like I have expensive taste. I’d be happy with a bag of Hershey Kisses – if HE thought of it. It really is the thought that counts, not the gift itself. (I think that’s why I hate gloves and slippers so much, because I get them a lot and I know they come from the “obligatory gift rack” that requires absolutely no thought.) Gloves say “you are worth nothing to me, but I know society dictates I get you something, so I ran into the store and grabbed the first thing I could find.” Then he wonders why I look so sad. Go figure.
I want to make him happy and act like I love birthdays and Valentine’s Day and all that Jazz, but it’s so frustrating! It’s a constant reminder of what “should be” but never is.
So I guess all of my whining is to ask, how do you get your husband to think highly enough of you to have a good idea without having to beg? How do I act like I’m happy, which is apparently what he wants, when his actions show his true feelings far more than his words ever could. * sigh *
I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that one of your top love languages is gifts and that gifts ranks very low for your husband. Is it really personal that he doesn’t do this for you? Like does he buy gifts for his family and others, but ignores your desire for them? If not, his lack of care in this area may not reflect at all on his love for you, but rather that he just doesn’t understand why it’s important.
Look, I know that’s still frustrating, because it feels personal and his neglect in this area hurts your heart. But I would suggest a few things: (1) Stop believing he doesn’t love you simply because he doesn’t easily do this. He may love you very much, and just feel clueless about this particular area of expressing love. (2) Go ahead and start asking for things, as a way of training him to understand what you like and don’t like. Over time, he’ll learn better what you enjoy and perhaps feel more confident to step out and make these decisions himself. (3) Learn what his love language is (read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) and make sure you’re meeting his needs/desires in that area. If you can get your hubby to read the book too (or listen to an audio version), that might also help him understand. (4) Make sure you’re not whining to him about this. That is, if every time you two go on a date, he asks you to pick the restaurant, and then he gets an earful about it? He’s probably not going to be super-excited about date nights. I’m not saying he shouldn’t step up and do better, but he’s not in this conversation and you are . . . so you can help by being the best wife you can be. (5) Pray. Pray about your attitude, his understanding, your intimacy. Just pray.
And I would totally buy you that bag of Hershey Kisses — as long as you don’t mind me helping you eat them. 😉
J, thanks for your thoughtful responses. They mean a lot.
Shockingly, no, my love language is not gifts. I don’t even like gifts, which is probably why it makes it so hard for my husband. I am so weird! I want him to think enough of me to buy me a gift, but I don’t care what it is. As long as he has put thought into it. And no, he doesn’t buy gifts for others. I buy everything for his mom, his coworkers, etc. – any time he needs a gift for someone he asks me to get it. So I guess I should just let the gift thing go.
My love language is physical touch, and that caused huge issues before, which is what drove me to marriage blogs in the first place. Then, unfortunately, most of what I read about was the opposite of my problem – it was all about husbands who desire their wives so much and the lovely wives who reject them. Since my husband was going through a lot in his life and not really into me at the time (which we have been working through and thankfully are coming out the other side) and he claimed it had nothing to do with me personally (but I still don’t see how it couldn’t. I mean, if he were married to a supermodel, I am sure he would have gotten over it) and so it really added to my feelings of ugliness, worthlessness, and rejection. He was so wrapped up in his own problems he had no idea just how awful he was making me feel. I had no idea just how many problems he thought he had. Then my feelings of worthlessness made him feel like he couldn’t make me happy and it was a vicious cycle.
He seems to have decided he likes me in that way again, but it’s still a healing process, and I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy. I know I need to work on my own attitude, a LOT.
His love language is words. Which is my worst thing ever. I HATE words, I struggle to believe words, I don’t fluff people, I don’t get gushy. So it’s a struggle for us. I do write him a note every day in his lunch and he loves it. But it is so hard for me to respond positively to his lovey dovey words. They make me feel awkward and like I’m being lied to. We are a strange match, indeed! But we do love each other deeply, and so we continue to work on things. How blessed I am that my husband loves me enough to want to work through these issues. I know I’m not an easy person.
Now if I could just help him understand that ACTIONS speak far, far, far louder than words, we’d be on the right track. I wish I could convey to him that a handful of wildflowers, or a stick of gum, would mean far more than flowery words.
In his defense, he has been making an effort in the physical touch department. He’s a good guy. I just wish we could understand one another more. We’ve been married for a long time, but have just started to even look at these issues. We were so busy raising littles, now they are growing into teens and he and I have started looking at ourselves, I guess.
I’d gladly share my chocolate, and a bag of that Godiva coffee, too. 🙂 Thanks for tolerating my whining, and for all of your thoughtful replies!
You can have all the coffee! (I don’t drink it. I’m a tea girl.)
Happy to have you here. Keep working on your marriage and yourself. Praying things just get better and better for you!
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