Prioritizing Your Marriage - Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annual Rhythms
What you prioritize, you will make time for.
This is just plain and simple. If you find being fit important, you will go out of your way to eat healthy and wake up early to work out. If you find learning important, then you will make sure to read a book, listen to a podcast or even audit a class. If you find sleep important, you will grab dinner with your friends but skip dessert to prepare for a good night’s rest. If you find your skincare important, you will skip eating ramen at midnight. The point is, whatever we prioritize in our lives creates the routines and rhythms in our lifestyle that we are unwilling to compromise. The same should be with our marriages. If we find it important, we will be intentional with our communication, time, gifts, energy, money, thoughts and prayers.
Recently, David and I personally have been going through multiple transitions in our lives: Changes in our jobs, buying and not burning down our home, living with my mother in law and expecting a baby. In the midst of these transitions, we knew that we needed to communicate more often and more clearly with one another.
So here, I share what daily, weekly, monthly and annual rhythms we incorporated into our lives to help prioritize our marriage in this season. Some, we have been doing since we got married and some we added along the way. Some came natural but to be honest, most came intentionally after plenty of tense fellowship. #fights
Daily Rhythms
Morning: Saying and Kissing Goodbye
This is a fairly recent rhythm. Some mornings I leave earlier than David but most mornings he is the one who is out to work first. So something I try to do is walk him to the garage door and kiss goodbye before he heads off. This is one simple way that I can show him my appreciation for his hard work for the family. And here and there I yell “Go be a good fart machine!” as I close the door. (You’ll only get that reference if you’ve watched the Youtube clip of a boy saying that to his dad going to work.)
Afternoon: Saying and Kissing Hello
When one of us comes home, a routine we incorporated pretty early on was kissing and saying hi. I remember a professor once said, “The person you say goodbye to in the morning is different from the person you say hello to in the afternoon.” The reason for that is because they have interacted with co-workers, clients, friends, successes and failures throughout the day that we were unable to witness. On the weekdays, David and I cannot talk to each other while he is at work. So having been away from each other for 11 plus hours, it’s a simple physical touch that allows us to reconnect.
Night: A Quick Prayer of Thanks
This is the most recent routine that our counselor encouraged us to do. I would say it is about three weeks old? Before we go to bed, we hold hands, look into each other’s eyes and make a quick prayer. The key word being quick. We don’t all of a sudden pray and cry out in intercession for the nations. There is a time for that, of course, but this isn’t one of those. We simply take turns and lift up a prayer of thanksgiving for specific things from that day and make a quick reference for the day to come. Once we do that, we kiss and say “I love you” and turn our backs towards each other to sleep. #realtalk
These may sound overwhelming but in reality, they really only take a few seconds and minutes. We have learned that a healthy relationship isn’t built on many big events but in small intentional moments.
Weekly Rhythms
Every Monday: The Marriage Journal
This year, we started something called the Marriage Journal. It is a weekly communication tool that helps couples connect, communicate and grow in love. Once a week, there is a short devotional, followed by a weekly calendar and six questions that help you communicate your desires, expectations and confess your sins to one another. Two of the six weekly questions are: Is there any unconfessed sin, conflict, or hurt that we need to resolve and/or seek forgiveness for? What is a dream, craving, or desire that has been on the forefront of your mind? It can take ten to thirty minutes depending on the week but we have found this to be immensely helpful.
Synced Google Calendar
David and I have synced our Google Calendars to know each other’s schedules. We started doing this about a year ago and honestly, it just saves a ton of time and energy! It prevents fights that come from “you forgot?” Plus, we don’t need to ask what is going on this week or the months to come and prevents us from double booking. #heygoogle
Ten Weeks of Counseling
Recently, with so many transitions in our lives, we knew we needed H-E-L-P. We saw the wave coming and wanted to protect our relationship, like putting the seatbelt on before a possible crash. So together, we started going to professional Christian counseling for the first time. It isn’t life-changing but it truly is a game-changer. Meaning, it creates the time and space for us to talk about sensitive topics that we have been avoiding and it also allows us to hear from an older, wiser and professional sibling in Christ that is walking alongside us. Although we don’t leave the time knowing our five year plan, we leave knowing that we are both making an intentional effort to listen and understand one another.
To be really honest, thinking about paying a lot of money for counseling was hard. But we’ve noticed that the money is worth the investment and the payments bring a weightier responsibility to steward the time and homework well!
Monthly Rhythms
Date Nights
Date nights are a big deal for us. To go somewhere (it doesn’t have to be expensive, just thoughtful) and connect through playful and deeper conversations is a huge value for us. So whenever we feel like doing something fun or we don’t feel as “connected”, we plan a date night. When we aren’t in a super busy season, it is once a week. When changes are happening, it can be two to three times a month. We prioritize it because sometimes it is incredibly helpful to interact with your spouse outside of the environment of home. When our girl comes, it may not be as frequent but we have been sharing with each other that we hope to keep this a consistent value even when we have kids. Because without a healthy marriage there cannot be a healthy family.
Annual Rhythms
Adventure
We love to travel together! We absolutely love exploring new places and love enjoying the travel versions of each other. It really restores wonder and romance! So an important part of our marriage is getting out and getting away. It really helps that David loves planning trips so it works out for us! #pointsforlife
Our Restaurant Every November
Every November since 2013, we have been going to the same restaurant that we had our first date. We usually grab our own dish and an appetizer with a glass of wine to celebrate the ups and downs of the past year and how far the Lord has brought us. We end up sharing about how good God has been to us and just enjoy a super nice meal! It is a sweet tradition that I hope we can keep.
A. W. Tozer once said “To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love.” I believe this is true in our relationship with God and is also true for our relationship with our spouse. I don’t share these things to brag about our relationship but if anything to show the imperfections of it and the amount of time and energy that does go into it because it isn’t easy and natural. My awareness of our desperate need for God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s leading and discernment in our marriage has heightened throughout the years. And I believe we will only grow more needy as we become parents.
But my confidence is God and God alone. The other day, as marriage was getting hard I heard him whisper to me “You didn’t just make a covenant with each other but I also made a covenant with you two.” God’s passion and pursuit of us is what anchors every routine, rhythm and effort! As I post this, I am lifting up a prayer for all you soon-to-be married, newlyweds, not sure how we are doing married couples and true champions who have been married for so long. I believe God is going to change the narrative of family for the future generations through our generation’s stewardship of our marriages. We cannot give love to our children that isn’t an overflow of our love for God and one another.