31 Creative Ways To Love & Encourage Him: One Month To a More Life Giving Relationship

31 Days Challenge

by Alyssa Bethke

In 31 Creative Ways To Love And Encourage Him Jefferson and Alyssa Bethke lay out simple ways to bring the beauty, joy, and vibrancy back to a relationship. Each day brings a new adventure that can range from being serious to whimsical to humorous.

Genres: Marriage, Relationships, Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 2, 2016

About the author

Alyssa Bethke is a mother of three children, Kinsley, Kannon, and Lucy, and a dog named Aslan. She and her husband, Jeff Bethke, live in Maui, and are bloggers, YouTubers, and hosts of The Real-Life podcast. Jeff and Alyssa are the New York Times bestselling authors of Jesus > Religion and It’s Not What You Think and Love That Lasts. They are passionate about encouraging and strengthening families at familyteams.com a program that brings families together with the idea of becoming a team.

Reviews

[Tiff (fictionaltiff) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brief summary and main positive takeaway from this book: Try to think of something at the beginning of each day to reflect on what you can do to better your relationship with your husband and keep him guessing on how well you know him and what you'll do to make him feel especially loved. Look up ideas on Pinterest or steal some creative ideas from other wives as well. This book has very simple ideas to get you started on that.

And that's the main reason I wasn't a huge fan of this book. They were just very simple ideas and there wasn't a whole lot of content to this book. For the avid reader, this isn't the best marriage book you'll read. There is a lot of meaning in the little things you do for your husband, but there is a lot more meaning in addressing the in-depth and complicated parts of a marriage.

Honestly, I think that this couple could've made an awesome blog post of the 31 ways to encourage "your man" (a term used on almost every page), but this book was a very straightforward one, and didn't have much to offer in the long run. I just didn't think that it was worth the money that I spent in buying it. It is important to keep your relationship positive and I can see how this book will be helpful in having a fresh start every day. But to make a deep impact in your relationship, I would recommend reading a book that also deals with conflict.

If your relationship with your husband is complicated at all, this book isn't something that will help with that. This is a book that skims over bad stuff and gives you positive ways to encourage your husband each day, i.e. writing him notes and texting him encouraging things at the beginning/end of each day.

Also, there are some major grammar and spelling mistakes, which just from a book snob perspective... maybe have an editor take a look at this before you sell this as a book.

[Annie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I saw this book and thought it would be a fun little challenge to do to strengthen my marriage. But honestly, I barely got through it. It’s nothing revolutionary — make him breakfast, write him a note, etc.

The writing was a bit cringe-worthy, it was very centered around THEIR marriage (didn’t really help the reader much at all), and gave tips that don’t work for my relationship (have breakfast together — we work opposite schedules) so it made it really difficult to follow the challenge.

The ideas felt a bit out dated (a lot of it revolves around cooking 🍳) but my husband is the one who enjoys cooking in our home 😝

There’s a journaling space after each challenge but I honestly didn’t even know what to write since nothing was that life altering.

A waste of money, honestly 👎🏽

[Stacie Sonnakolb]

Quick awesome read!! Love the honesty and all the great advice!!! Definitely incorporating these into every day life to better our marriage!!

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how practical the challenges are. All of them were easy to pull off without much planning ahead of time, which is just what I need in this season of life. However, some of the challenges are just a little too cheesy and corny for me. If I sent a picture of myself to my husband with a sign that said, “I’m you’re biggest fan, GO GEORGE!” He wouldn’t be touched or think it was cute. He would say, who are you and what have you done with my wife? Still, it was a fun way to show my husband how much I appreciate him and all he does for our family. Also, everything seems just a little too perfect. Some of the challenges were really repetitive too.( text him 5 things you love about him, write out 10 things you love about him, write out the AbCS of things you love about him). For just 31 ideas, it could have been a lot more original and creative.

[emyrose8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice, quick read. The ideas aren't all that revolutionary: food, doing little things for him, leaving notes places, pray for him. Still, good reminders. Not gonna lie, I took notes! Along with the 31 ideas, there are pages for you to journal after doing each thing.

[Natalie Herr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the Bethkes and I wanted to like this book, but it was really light on content. I read the first week and then just pulled out the ideas I wanted to use and made a list It would make a great blog post!

[Cate · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes that this would be a fun book to do activities with my husband. I saw an ad on Facebook and thought what the heck. This book would be good for a 20 year told who is 6 months into dating someone and that's about it. It's kind of dumb and I started skimming. She says "my man" on each entry. Yuck. My husband and partner of 16 years is never referred to in that way by me.

[Tracie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with a lot of great ideas to have fun showing your love to your spouse. I enjoyed the memories that the book helped to bring back to the front of my mind and the inspiration it gave me to show my love in creative ways (after 20+ years you need that!)

[Elisa53 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, good ideas

Enjoyed reading this book and using many of ideas the writer had to encourage and lift up my husband. Thought it was great the author encouraged me to write down the reactions received from each task completed, and how it made me feel. Good to remember.

[Casidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff but too religious

It had some really good ideas but I’m not religious and didn’t realize that this would be such a religious based book

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good ideas but not a ton of depth to the tips they provided.

[Alex Bahr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read, great points, easy to jot down and do

It was a great read for a plane ride. Quick, simple things to do for my man. Very to the point and easy to jot down and do.

[Carolyn]

DNF. Both my husband and I agreed this was a bit immature for our 10 year, now in our mid-30s, relationship.

[Huijessica]

let's see!

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really confronted me and my selfishness. I need to work on so many things. I'm so grateful that I read this, even if it took me more than two years to finally finish it. It's funny because it's a daily devo and I just couldn't continue. I can't read books that make me stop, so I decided to keep reading. What I also loved about this book is that it allows you to write your notes and that helped me vent.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun! What a great Christmas gift.