Bait and switch

Do you know what that means? Offered something you really want, but given something different? Is it something we like? Here's the scenario......
You come across a car on a lot that is everything you were looking for. It has all the features, the look, the performance, the excitement, the speed.... Everything. You can't live without it. Everything about the deal makes sense. It's worth the cost. It will be the last car you ever buy. It will last forever. It's the only car you ever want to drive. But, as soon as you drive off the lot, things go wrong. The performance just isn't as good as during the test drive. The handling is bad, it fights you at every turn.  The stereo keep playing the same song no matter how many times to try to change it. The keys that worked perfectly during the test drive aren't getting it to let you in every time. The body starts to fall apart and looks worse every time you see it. Yeah. You were setup to believe you were getting the ultimate machine and got a dud.
Why is marriage the same so many times? We are the perfect gentlemen when we are dating. We are interested in everything she has to say. We open doors for her. We rub her feet. We find gifts for her. We call her and talk about nothing sometimes, just to talk to her. We are willing to put every part of our life on hold, at a moments notice, just to be with her. Then we get married.
We quit listening to her and end up with someone we don't know. We don't rush to her when she needs us and then we call her a nag for repeating herself. We let our appearance go to hell because we aren't trying to bait in a date for Saturday night. We quit dating her. We quit learning her. We quit discovering her. We quit giving her the highest position in our life. She probably even gets in the way of what we want to do.
There should be a lemon law in marriage. If she has been more than ten years trying to get your attention and your affection, you go to some husband junkyard and just rust away. I would be there with you.
Why? What madness makes us bait our wives in with love and affection and then treat them like servants? Joel and Kathy Davisson at BestMarriage.com teach the reasons and solutions way better than I ever could. I suggest you visit their site, register with the forum and read what other guys did to fix these things. Or didn't. They have a monthly marriage intensive that rocked my world. I honestly went in thinking she was the problem. I just knew it. I had done everything I could to make her happy and she wasn't. Her fault, 100% sure of it.... Until the second day of the intensive. I had hurt her in several unforgivable ways. They showed me what it takes to save a family that had even gone that far. Even after the divorce papers were being passed out. Really. Go read.
I did the bait and switch to my wife. My daughter went through it. Joel and Kathy even watched their daughter go through it. They understand.
Our wives are designed to respond to what is given to them, good or bad. We live in the marriages we create. Neglect her, reject her, abuse her and your marriage is doomed. Love her, put her first, learn what she wants and make it happen. She will, eventually, become the woman you fell in love with, again. We have to step up and own the problems in our family. Start now.