This week I am blogging about five ways you can make a marriage work. Today is part-five of this five-part post. You can read Part 1; Part 2: Part 3 & Part 4 here.
So here’s part five:
5. Live Life Together
This one may sound a little weird, but one thing I have noticed more and more is that so many married couples start to treat each other like room mates not mate mates! You’ve seen them. The wife goes shopping (trying not to be stereotypical but I’m failing!) with her mother, then goes to Starbucks with her girlfriends while the husband plays softball for the third time that week. He goes home and gets on his X-Box and stays there for the rest of the night chatting with other husbands online while playing Call of Duty. The wife comes home and goes straight into the bathroom to get ready for the girls movie night. All this and it is only a Tuesday!
Maybe a little extreme, but the point is that many married couples find themselves in trouble because they don’t live life together. They have different friends, different hobbies and in all honesty, different lives. If you want to have a long happy marriage you have to be intentional about spending and making more time for your spouse than any other interest in your life.
This doesn’t mean you should withdraw from your friends, but it does mean you should do things together and if your friends only want you without your spouse, then they really shouldn’t be your friends!
When it comes to hobbies, don’t let go of what you enjoy, but involve your spouse in it. If they can not stand your hobby, then find a hobby you both like and make sure you spend plenty of time doing that (still trying to get Raquel into those cute ladies golf outfits, just not working at the moment!).
The old saying goes, the couple that prays together stays together. I’ll take it a step further, the couple that plays together will also stay together.
So ask yourself this weekend. Am I spending more time with other people and activities than I am with my spouse? If so you may need to make a few schedule changes!
So a quick review of my five ways to make your marriage work:
- Believe in your spouse more than your spouse believes in themselves
- Put God first
- Put your spouse second, yourself third or later
- Engage in meaningful conversation
- Live life together
