I was talking with a friend the other day about marriage. I told her how my husband and I had just sat down to have a conversation about why our relationship hadn’t been at a 10 the last few weeks. Both of us agreed that the decrease in relationship satisfaction and connection correlated with the beginning of school and all the changes in our schedules that came along with that, not to mention the extracurricular activities for our kids that began again as well. We hadn’t been going on as many walks at night, hanging out together after the kids were in bed…pretty much the amount of time we spent connecting with each other had decreased. We looked carefully at our schedule and decided when we could fit in more time together. It certainly doesn’t sound very romantic to have to schedule in blocks of time together, but if we didn’t, it just wouldn’t happen. And if it doesn’t happen, our relationship isn’t as amazing as we want it to be.
My friend was concerned that she couldn’t ask that of her husband because he had just started a new job and his schedule was a bit erratic. I made the suggestion that they could schedule it, and if someone wasn’t able to keep the commitment, then it was their responsibility to reschedule it. She still wasn’t so sure. So that’s when I got to the heart of the matter, the fact that our relationship with our spouse is one of the most important things in our lives, but it is up to us to make it a priority. There will always, ALWAYS, be other things that demand our time. It never gets easier to make it happen. There will always be a reason to NOT spend time together: work, kids, cleaning, hobbies, church service, etc.
So the question is, is our relationship with our spouse really a top priority in our lives? How we spend our time is a huge indicator of what matters most to us. If we aren’t making it a priority to spend time with our spouse, can we honestly say that our relationship with them is a top priority?
As my husband and I have worked on improving our relationship this year, I’ve realized that simple, short things go a long way in making us both feel loved: greeting each other with affection when we wake up, taking a ten minute walk in the evening so we can talk without being interrupted from our kids, talking with each other before going to sleep at night instead of watching tv, having a date night once a week, spending a lunch hour together, checking in with each other weekly to see how we are feeling about us….small and simple. If we can’t give our relationship with our spouse an intentional few hours each week, it is a strong indicator that our marriage isn’t as big of a priority as we say it is. Seriously, are we all spending more time watching TV or staring at our phones than we are connecting with our spouse? It’s so easy to make excuses about why we can’t make it happen, or so easy to be waiting around for our spouse to initiate it…..but we are in control of our lives. We have the power to make our relationships amazing if we are intentional.
Work In Progress 