Habits for a Healthy Marriage
With the new year here, you may be thinking about goals and planning what you would like to be different or better this year. I personally love looking at the New Year as a blank slate and planning goals for what I want to accomplish or improve in my life, work, and relationships. Setting goals is a very important part of life, but research tells us it’s important to create healthy habits to reach most of the goals you set. Goals give us hope, but hope doesn’t change our lives. Habits do. In fact, without the development of good healthy habits, most of the goals we set are long forgotten before the middle of February. Habits will help you take small consistent steps which lead to larger gains over time.
We tend to think of personal goals, but I want to challenge you to think about setting goals for your marriage. How can your marriage grow, change, and improve in 2022? What would be the steps or habits that can help create a stronger and healthier bond in the new year? There are numerous areas you can choose to focus on: a stronger friendship, better communication, a healthier sexual relationship, increased emotional, spiritual, or relational intimacy. The good news is that consistent effort at improving one aspect of your marriage usually leads to improvements in other areas as well.
So here is the challenge: Take about fifteen minutes with your spouse - look at this list of habits and activities and make a commitment together to put one or more of them into practice in the new year. Here are five habits and five activities to choose from:
HABITS:
1. COUCH TIME. Make a commitment to spend 20-30 minutes each evening for non-conflictual conversation. Try to make this the most enjoyable time of your day. Grab a favorite beverage and gather in the most comfortable place in your house and spend some time together to talk about whatever is on your mind. This will help you grow in your emotional connection and intimacy.
2. DATE NIGHTS. Commit to regular times to have fun together. Put date nights on your calendar and protect them as sacred. Take turns planning and line up a consistent babysitter. Sharing enjoyable times together is a great way to increase your friendship connection.
3. QUIET TIMES. Increase your spiritual connection and closeness by committing to having quiet times to pray with and for one another and to read God’s word and a good devotional.
4. AFFECTION. How would your physical intimacy change if you set a goal to increase your affection by 10, 20 or 30 percent? Mix it up a bit. Instead of sitting in separate chairs, you might sit together on the couch. Give affectionate hugs at unexpected times and not just when one of you is leaving or coming home. How about a rule that we don’t have kisses that are less than three seconds? The difference between a ½ second kiss and a 3 second kiss is a lot more than 2 ½ seconds!
5. GIFTING. Make a commitment to give one thing out of the ordinary to your spouse every week. Not necessarily a gift you buy (though it could be) but any gift that communicates you care – notes, surprises, acts of service, a sticky note on a mirror, or an impromptu visit at lunch. Some surprise that lets your spouse know you are thinking of them.
ACTIVITIES:
1. ADVENTURE. Plan a trip together. Participate together to do the research, pick the destination, and create a new experience for you as a couple or family.
2. SEX. Set a goal to create a more mutually fulfilling sexual relationship. I recommend the book Married Sex by Gary Thomas and Deborah K. Fileta. This would be a great book to read together and use as a catalyst to discuss your own sexual relationship at the conclusion of each chapter.
3. NEW AND NOVEL. Plan to do an activity together that is new to both of you. Research shows that doing new and novel things together is a fun way to strengthen your friendship.
4. COUNSELING. Why not? Schedule two or three sessions to do a marriage tune-up and explore things you may want to change or improve. This is especially recommended if you have been struggling to resolve conflicts in your marriage.
5. YOU PICK. Choose a habit or activity that’s not included on this list.
Again, you don’t need to do everything on this list, but make a commitment together to do a few of these things on a regular basis. This can be an important step for a stronger marriage in 2022.
Remember, the staff at the Renewing Life Center is always here for you and your marriage.