Do you get regular oil changes in your car?
How often do you get a hair cut to keep your hair the style you like?
Do you clean your house on a regular basis to maintain some sense of order?
Does the dentist clean your teeth every once in a while and check for cavities?
How often to you go to the doctor to see what's wrong?
What do you do to maintain your marriage relationship? So often, we do things to maintain important things in our lives, but we neglect the one person who matters most; our spouse. It is a sad thing when a marriage is unhealthy, but I can assure you that it didn't happen overnight. Other things become more important to us, or we think that we're doing just fine, or we get so busy we don't have time to maintain our relationship, or, or, or..... The list could go on.
Mike and I just attended "Laugh Your way to a Better Marriage." A couple at church had seen these videos (laughyourway.com) and wanted to show them for 4 consecutive Friday nights at church. So, about 20 couples got together, watched the videos and discussed things afterward. We realized some things about each other that we never had and had some great conversations in the days that followed. It was a great "tune-up" for our marriage.
One thing we recently realized was that we need more frequent, intentional times together. I don't just mean being in the same house. (I think married couples become more like roommates sometimes) We decided that 2 times a week, we'll have date nights. This doesn't mean we go out somewhere every time, but rather, do something together after the kids go to bed.
Marriage is such a wonderful gift from God! I love being married to Mike who is a man of God. I could start listing all of the things I love about my husband, but let's make another list. In the comments section, write something that you and your spouse have done together that has been fun. That way we can give each other more ideas for things we can do to maintain our marriages and make them thrive.
Since John and I got married,
ReplyDelete(almost 10 years ago)we have taken turns planning a get away on our anniversary. It is always a surprise, and we don't always do something extravagant but it is usually a stay at a B&B for one or two evenings. It is always fun to be the one to plan it and even more fun to be surprised. Our 10 year is John's turn, can't wait to see what he does.
Build a rock retaining wall! Well, it doesn't have to be that major or time-consuming, but working on outside stuff like the yard, the gardens, etc., has always (usually?!) been fun for us!
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