MY SECOND YEAR OF MARRIAGE

For my second year of marriage, I did something differently than what Marcel and I did in our first year. This year, I do the project by myself and for Marcel. I kept this a secret from him to date.

Earlier this year, I went to "For Women Only" Conference. Kathi Lipp was one of the speakers that day. After the Conference, I got myself a copy of her The Husband Project. It's basically a book for every woman who desires to bring more joy into her marriage. The book provides some guides to set plans into actions for loving the husband in the next 21 days.

I customized my Project Plan to span for 40 days instead of 21 days. I started in June and closed it on our second anniversary celebration.

When I was about to launch the project, I prayed that God will help me discover more about Marcel: his dislikes and likes. Having been together for almost 8 years, I just needed a refresher. I feel so comfortable with Marcel that sometimes I take things for granted.

Since Marcel did all the planning for our first year anniversary celebration to San Diego, this year, I told him that it's all on me. He did not need to prepare any gifts or plan anything for the celebration.

I really enjoyed this project. God did answer my prayer requests about discovering things Marcel likes and dislikes. Some highlights from my project:

• One day I told Marcel that I would do his household chores. His most favorite chore is vacuuming the carpet. That weekend, I did the vacuuming for him. After I was done, I found Marcel redoing the vacuum. I was partly sad and mad to see that. After we discussed why he needed to redo it, I found out that Marcel loves to see his post-vacuumed carpet to have equal vacuum marks. This is one of the examples of the clean me vs. the neat Marcel. For me, it doesn't matter if the marks don't have the same width as long as all the area has been vacuumed. For Marcel, messy marks will distract his concentration. He just wants to fix those marks so that he can continue working peacefully. We're glad we solved the misunderstanding and didn't allow this to grow into resentment.
• One week, my ministries at Church were taking most of my time that I didn't have time to cook Marcel dinner. I decided to get him a KFC meal on the way home. I had left for my Small Group before Marcel went home. I didn't see him until 3 hours later. When I opened the front door, I found Marcel with the widest and brightest smile, "Thank you for the KFC, Yanny." HAHAHA. It was 3 hours after his dinner. And he still had the smile. Now I know that KFC is his comfort food.
• One day Marcel was going to mountain biking with Jackie. I prepared for him a breakfast in bed. When I took the food to the bedroom, he was so pleased to see his favorite sausages and scramble egg on the plate. But he doesn't like the smell to fill up our bedroom. So he asked, "Can I just eat it outside?" HAHAHA. I learned that Marcel would still appreciate a quick breakfast I fix for him as long as the food stays in the dining room.
• It does not matter if I would be asleep or awake, Marcel would love to have me stay by his side while he's watching a guy-flick movie I rented from RedBox for him. The thought that really counts for him.

I think I will do this secret project again in the future. Maybe I would do it with a different goal now that I already know his likes and dislikes.

May this be a blessing to you!

Click here to see what we did for our first year of marriage.
Click here to see what we are doing for our third year of marriage.