Husband

• 1 Nephi 16:14…Husbands should provide food for their families
• Alma 19:12…Lamoni puts his wife as first priority immediately after God.
• “I am persuaded that today’s holders of the priesthood are as faith-filled, as noble, as charitable, as hard-working, and as spiritually influential as any in times past. Know that it took the righteous Enoch 365 years to establish Zion in ancient times and that we probably do not have that much time to do the same in this last dispensation, is to some extent a marvelous compliment to those called and ordained today to bear the Holy Priesthood. I have great confidence in the men of the Church, largely because of what I have observed in so many of them. I know something of their hearts, a good bit about their souls, a great deal about their yearnings to be loving husbands and fathers, dependable priesthood representatives, responsible citizens, and influential servants of the Almighty.” (Men of Influence, Robert Millet, Preface Pg. xii)
• “Brethren, when we stand before the Lord to be judged, will He look upon the positions we have held in the world or even the Church? Do you suppose that titles we have had other than ‘husband, father or priesthood holder’ will mean much to Him? Do you think He will care how packed our schedule was or how many important meetings we attended? Do you suppose that our success with filling our days with appointments will serve as an excuse for failure to spend time with our wife and family? The Lord judges so very differently from the way we do. He is pleased with the noble servant, not the self-serving noble” (Ensign, November 2008, 54-55)
• “Her reply was the key to resolving the whole issue. She said, “But I can’t sit down to write unless I’ve got a clean house and things are taken care of.” “Sure, you can,” I said. “You just think you have to get that other stuff done first. Where did you get an idea like that?” She said, “But what if my husband came back from work and found a dirty house and me sitting up there writing?” “He’d find a wife who put a higher priority on her creative expression than she did on keeping the house clean. Do you think he’d be upset about that?” “Not really,” she said. “I think he’d actually like it.” As our conversation developed, it became clear that she was holding herself hostage to housework for Upper Limit reasons. Nancy’s unconscious mind had constructed a doom scenario of what would occur if she went all the way into her Zone of Genius. In her imagination, if she put her full attention into her writing, she’d neglect her family, and they would languish in the absence of her attention. Nancy began to see the absurdity of that way of thinking. She also discovered the real fear that was underneath it all: that if she made a big commitment to her creativity, she might fail on a bigger scale. If she stayed small, she could avoid the possibility of big rejection.” The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level (Gay Hendricks)- Page 129
• “When you’re embracing your beloved, though, your awareness flows in the opposite direction, toward space. When you’re with your beloved, every cell in your body yearns to be in union with him or her. Your awareness flows out toward your periphery. You want to occupy every possible smidgen of space in the yearned-for present. When you’re in love, you relax into the space around you and in you, and as your consciousness expands into space, time disappears. If you even remember to glance at a clock, you notice that time has leaped forward in great spurts. Entire hours can disappear in the wink of an eye. When your heart is beating in time with your beloved’s, your every cell is reaching out for total union. You forget about time. When you’re willing to occupy all space, time simply disappears. You’re everywhere all at once, there’s no place to get to, and everywhere you are it’s exactly the right time.” The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level (Gay Hendricks)- Highlight on Page 168
• “Imagine that you have an eight-year-old child who comes in while you’re working on something and says, “Will you play catch with me?” You reply, “I don’t have time to do that right now.” Imagine, though, that the child comes in and says, “I just stepped on a nail and my foot is bleeding. Can you help me?” You probably wouldn’t say, “I don’t have time to do that right now.” In actuality, you have exactly the same amount of time as when you used the excuse of lack of time to avoid playing catch. The truth of the matter is that you didn’t want to play catch and you do want to stop the bleeding. By using time as the culprit, you place yourself in the victim position once again. You did it to be polite. (By the way, I’m not advocating that you be blunt with anyone, especially eight-year-old children. I’m advocating that you stop using time or lack of time as an excuse. It’s just as polite to say to your child, “I want to finish what I’m working on before I play catch,” rather than claiming to be the victim of time.)” The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level (Gay Hendricks)- Highlight on Page 180
• “If you’re a successful person in a close relationship, you will likely find the following suggestions helpful. Make sure you take plenty of time for yourself, in a space apart from your partner. It could even be in the next room, so long as the intention is to nurture the independent part of you. Human beings have twin drives of equal power: the urge to merge and the urge to be an autonomous person. For a relationship to thrive, both drives need to be celebrated. A close relationship stirs up powerful transformative energies, and you need lots of rest time to integrate the rapid-fire stimulation that a relationship provides. If you can learn to take time off from the relationship consciously, you won’t need to do it unconsciously by starting arguments and engaging in other intimacy-destroying moves. Go on solo walks, take in a movie by yourself, spend an afternoon doing whatever the spirit moves you to do. These periods of battery-charging alone time give you the ability to master longer and longer periods of closeness when you’re in union with your beloved. Put a priority on speaking the microscopic truth, especially about what is going on in your emotions. Get skilled at simple microscopic truths such as “I’m sad,” “I’m scared,” and “I feel angry.” Communicating about feelings, dreams, desires, and other inner experiences creates deep intimacy in relationships. None of us gets any training in how to communicate about these simple things, and our lack of training is very costly. When emotions are in the air, as they often will be in close relationships, don’t try to talk yourself or your partner out of them. Eliminate phrases such as “Please don’t cry” and “There’s nothing to be angry about.” Feelings are to be felt, so encourage each other to go through complete cycles of emotions. If you’re sad, let yourself feel that way until you don’t feel sad anymore. Same thing with fear, anger, happiness, and other feelings. It’s the act of stifling and concealing feelings that cause problems in relationships. Give yourself and your partner plenty of nonsexual touches. Sexual touch is great, but humans need non-sexual touch in large quantities. A loving hand squeeze or a touch on the shoulder communicates love and caring in ways no words can. After soaring to a new height of intense intimacy, bring yourself back to the ground in a positive way. Many people, when they enjoy a time of deep closeness, unconsciously create an argument or accident to get their feet back on the ground. It’s not necessary to use a painful method of grounding yourself. It works much better, and is much more fun, to come back to earth by doing some earthy dancing, taking a walk on the surface of the earth, or cleaning out a closet full of your earthly possessions. Cultivate at least three friends with whom you can form a No-Upper-Limits conspiracy. The word conspiracy comes from two Latin roots that together mean “to breathe together.” That’s the kind of conspiracy I want you to create. I want you to feel the power of two or more people in harmony, working toward a benign goal that’s good for all. You and the other members of your conspiracy will educate each other on the Upper Limit Problem. You will spot each other running Upper Limit behaviors such as worrying, getting sick, having accidents, and so forth. You and your conspiracy will gently remind each other that you create the quality of your life experience out of your beliefs. You’ll remind each other to examine those beliefs to make sure they’re giving you room for ultimate success in love and life. When you trip and fall, as we all tend to do from time to time, you and your co-conspirators will remind each other to take a deep breath, center yourselves, and open up again to feeling more love, abundance, and success than you’ve ever before enjoyed.” The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level (Gay Hendricks)- Highlight on Page 191-192
• “In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. The young years are often those when either husband or wife—or both—may still be in school or in those earliest and leanest stages of developing the husband’s breadwinning capacities. Finances fluctuate daily between low and nonexistent. The apartment is usually decorated in one of two smart designs: Deseret Industries provincial or early Mother Hubbard. The car, if there is one, runs on smooth tires and an empty tank. But with night feedings and night teethings, often the greatest challenge of all for a young mother is simply fatigue. Through these years, mothers go longer on less sleep and give more to others with less personal renewal for themselves than any other group I know at any other time in life. It is not surprising when the shadows under their eyes sometimes vaguely resemble the state of Rhode Island. Of course, the irony is that this is often the sister we want to call—or need to call—to service in the ward and stake auxiliaries. That’s understandable. Who wouldn’t want the exemplary influence of these young Loises- and Eunices-in-the-making? It would be well for leaders to be wise, to remember that families are the highest priority of all, especially in those formative years. Even so, young mothers will still find magnificent ways to serve faithfully in the Church, even as others serve and strengthen them—and their families—in like manner. Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. Husbands—especially husbands—as well as Church leaders and friends in every direction, be helpful and sensitive and wise. Remember, “To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven” .” Broken Things to Mend (Jeffrey R. Holland) Kindle Loc. 221-35
• “I speak against verbal and emotional abuse of anyone against anyone, but especially of husbands against wives. These things ought not to be. Yet the sin of verbal abuse knows no gender. Wives, what of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice, which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind, could ever, in turn, be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? A woman’s words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people she loves to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone would ever have imagined when such a verbal exchange was beginning. There is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks.” Broken Things to Mend (Jeffrey R. Holland) Kindle Loc.624-30
• … For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.32 And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts.33 For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction; for they shall not commit whoredoms, like unto them of old, saith the Lord of Hosts…35… Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.
• … Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have saved it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.6 And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.7 Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?
• “The Prophet Joseph Smith taught wives that they should treat their husbands “with mildness and affection. When a man is borne down with trouble when he is perplexed with care and difficulty if he can meet a smile instead of an argument or a murmur—if he can meet with mildness, it will calm down his soul and soothe his feelings” Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 228. Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual, Lesson 10: “This Is My Voice unto All”)
• “The Prophet taught husbands, “It is the duty of a husband to love, cherish, and nourish his wife, and cleave unto her and none else; he ought to honor her as himself, and he ought to regard her feelings with tenderness” (Elders’ Journal, Aug. 1838, 61). (Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual, Lesson 10: “This Is My Voice unto All”)
• “Joseph and Emma Smith were a great support to each other during the many times of affliction they faced. In 1842, when Joseph was in hiding because his life was in danger, Emma was able to visit him. Joseph later said about this visit: “With what unspeakable delight, and what transports of joy swelled my bosom, when I took by the hand, on that night, my beloved Emma—she that was my wife, even the wife of my youth, and the choice of my heart. Many were the reverberations of my mind when I contemplated for a moment the many scenes we had been called to pass through, the fatigues and the toils, the sorrows and sufferings, and the joys and consolations, from time to time, which had strewed our paths. … Oh what a commingling of thought filled my mind for the moment, again she is here, … undaunted, firm, and unwavering—unchangeable, affectionate Emma!” (History of the Church, 5:107). Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual, Lesson 10: “This Is My Voice unto All”
• 3 Nephi 18: 21…  Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.
• Jacob 2:31 -33…31  For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands. 32  And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. 33  For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction; for they shall not commit whoredoms, like unto them of old, saith the Lord of Hosts.
• “Making the break with Salt Lake City, where Dantzel and Russell were surrounded by family and lifelong friends, was a great adventure and a bit unnerving all at the same time. Many years later, however, Russell would say, “Leaving the nest is the best marriage glue I can imagine, because a husband and wife have to deal with their challenges together. They can’t go running home to Momma or to Daddy. You tough it out and figure it out.” Insights from a Prophet’s Life, Russell M. Nelson, Page 23