Making Time for Marriage

"This is my lover, this my friend."  Song of Songs 5:16

 

I am a parent now, but first I was a wife.  God has called MM and I into marriage together, but He never said it would be an easy road to walk down.  I truly believe that nothing that is worth having comes easy.  Marriage has its ups and downs, no matter how you look at it.  Adding children to the mix, even a perfect little angel like our Bunny, only magnifies the lows, blows the highs off the charts, and sometimes makes it hard to focus on marriage.

God intends for our spouses to be our best friends.  While I love my best girlfriend dearly, she has nothing on the friendship MM and I share.  He knows me better than anyone here on earth does and that goes both ways.  Obviously, though, best friends can't maintain that friendship if they don't spend time with each other. I hear, read, and see it all the time; husband and wife look at each other one day and realize they don't know the other person because they've spent the last 5, 10, 15 plus years chasing after kids, working their tails off, or pursuing their own interests.  Even MM and I, who were without children and far from friends and family for SIX years started to fall into the all-too common trap of forgetting to really know each other.  We flat out REFUSE to let that happen to us ever again.

So, how do you maintain your friendship with your spouse in the midst of all the craziness that life throws at us?  Now, I am by no means any kind of expert and this is certainly not going to work for everyone, but this is how MM and I do it.

1. Date your spouse.  At least once a month, more if you can swing it.  Dates don't have to be expensive, or even take up a considerable amount of time.  MM and I sneak them in by:
• going to lunch together a few days a month while Bunny is at daycare during the work week.  An hour of alone time over a good meal does wonders for a marriage. 
• going on dates WITH Bunny.  I know this won't work forever, but she's small enough now that she doesn't interrupt us, but she's also big enough now that she can occupy herself for thirty minutes to an hour at a time.  Just last night, MM took his ladies out to dinner and Bunny sat quietly the entire time while MM and I had conversation reminiscent of our first dates together.
• having "dates" at home.  Sometimes we just can't get away or can't afford a sitter, so we order a pizza, camp out in the living room, and have a date by just working around Bunny's needs.
• once a month we will find a sitter, or employ visiting family, and go out to a nice dinner or maybe even catch a movie or head to the bar for a drink or two.
2. God calls us to, "...look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:4).  Every once in a while, take an interest in what your spouse is interested in.  MM and I are fortunate in that a lot of our interests are already shared interests.  There are a few things that each of us does, however, that the other one isn't always involved in.  I'm not saying to go hog wild and jump head first into something you've never considered doing before, but it is a good idea to listen when your spouse is passionate about something, ask questions, and maybe, just maybe, give whatever they love to do a try.  You never know!  You might love it, too!
3. Put your marriage first.  Bottom line.  Don't let outside influences like children, work, family, hobbies, and etc. interfere with the building up of your marriage.  
4. Talk it out.  Our spouses should be the first person we go to for advice, support, and even just friendly conversation.  If you have a big dilemma, or experience emotional distress of any kind, and your spouse isn't the first person you think to go to, something unhealthy is at work in your marriage.  Talk it out and fix it.
5. Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh.  Throughout high school, my favorite thing about my best friend and I was that we could laugh at anything, including each other and ourselves.  We had fun when we were together and were able to be completely goofy in front of each other without hesitation.  That's how every day with your spouse should be, in my opinion.  Marriage isn't always fun and games, but the bad times are usually the minority, depending on how you view your circumstances.  Even when the bad times come, MM and I do our best to have fun together.  We laugh until we cry and we're not embarrassed in the least to be as silly as we want to be. 
6. Study the Word together.  God's Word is a firm foundation to build a marriage on.  Study it together and you won't go wrong.
7. Love unconditionally.  It's not a hard concept, but it is hard to do.  Don't put expectations on your spouse and judge them when they don't live up to them.  Love without question.  Love without judgement.  Love the way we're loved by our Heavenly Father.

So there you have it.  MM and I by no means have a perfect marriage, but we have a happy marriage.  We show each other love by doing all of the above.  I know MM loves me because I see that he doesn't let our marriage just "be".  I see him stepping out of his comfort zone to work on it on a daily basis, and I hope he can say the same for me.  

Please, please, dear readers, put effort into your marriage.  Our throw-away society has applied it's throw-away philosophy to marriage, and far too many are ending up in divorce when all it takes is a little effort from husband and wife.  Marriage is one of the most blessed, joyous facets of life, and it can be that way for every one on this earth, if we're just willing to take our marriage vows seriously and put in the work.

Mrs. Cranky-Pants (And a 30-Day Challenge)

I'm pregnant. And cranky. I'm dealing with it at work by just staying quiet in my corner and doing as little interacting as possible. I'm dealing with it in social situations by avoiding as many social situations as is polite. (And anyways, WHO in their right mind invites a 6+ month pregnant woman to go dancing at a bar?!) At home though, I'm not really dealing with it. Unless you consider napping "dealing with it". So, who do you think is bearing the brunt of my hormonal outbursts? That's right. MM.

Poor MM. He has been so supportive, helpful, accommodating, comforting, and every nice and wonderful thing a pregnant woman's husband is supposed to be. And how do I repay him? With my snippy retorts and eye rolling every time I get a bit peeved.

Now for those of you who are already mothers or are currently pregnant, you know that it's hard. It is hard to be pleasant every moment of every day, especially when there's a little River Dancer stomping on your bladder and you are experiencing aches, pains, and discomfort like you've never had before. But, it is not impossible.

I started reading "We Are That Family" a few days ago. I just Stumbled Upon it and loved it immediately. Her posts are inspiring, uplifting and convicting. None have been so personally convicting, though, than her post from Tuesday. God meant for me to read her post and take it to heart. You can read "30 Day Challenge For Wives" for yourself. But I'm warning you...don't read it if you don't want God to speak to you and move you to make changes in the way you respond to your husband.

I can't count how many times I've snapped at him even though he's trying to help me or how many times I've rolled my eyes because he wouldn't agree with me. All needless negativity in our marriage. So, starting tomorrow, Friday, May 20, 2011, I am taking the challenge.

What is the 30 Day Challenge? Well, for the next 30 days:
* You can’t say anything negative about your husband …to your husband…or to anyone else, about your husband.
* Say something that you admire or appreciate about your husband…to your husband…and to someone else, about your husband!*

Daily encouragement for the 30 Day Challenge can be found here.

Yes, I am committed to this challenge. I'm telling my family about it, I'm telling you readers about it, and I am going to tell MM about it. He reads this blog, so he'll find out about it sooner or later, right? :) I want to build up our marriage, especially before Bunny arrives. There are so many broken homes these days and I want her to know that having a Daddy and Mommy that get along is normal and is God's plan for us (and her!).

Are you willing to take the challenge with me? Even for just a week, a weekend, a day?

What difference could this make in your marriage?

I will be updating at least once a week on my progress throughout the next 30 days. Please lift me up in prayer as I do my best to uplift my spouse.

*This was quoted directly from "We Are That Family's" blog post.

Flying By

Can you believe that it's the last weekend of January 2010?! I can't! I feel like so much time has passed and I've gotten so little done. Things have been, well, crazy.

Here's what's going on with us:

*Work, work, work. My busy season at the office seems to have started early this year. I'm usually not up to my ears in stuff until April, but it's already happened. There is so much change going on and all of that change has to be documented, trained, implemented and etc. It's going to be a team effort for our office, but we'll all be better for it afterward. It'll be one year of hard work that will result in many years of knowing we're doing everything as correctly as possible.

*Working out. I have been a work-out fiend lately. It is my calming activity every day, and sometimes two or three times a day. I work out to de-stress.

*Devotional. MM (Mountain Man) and I started working through The Ten Commandments of Marriage by Ed Young. We're doing one commandment per week on our own and then having breakfast meetings on Saturday morning to discuss the commandment. It has been eye-opening, profound and incredibly wonderful. We are closer now than we ever have been and that's saying a lot because we've always been close. It has been nice to take a good, hard look at our marriage and make sure we're making God #1.

*Ladies' Bible Study. The Ladies' Bible Study group at FBC is meeting on Monday nights and we're doing the study, Lord, Teach Me to Pray by Kay Arthur. It is the first time in quite a while that I have implemented and kept a daily devotional time and I'm loving it. My heart's desire is to thirst for the knowledge of the Word, pray constantly and fall into the presence of God every day. This study is helping me get closer to that.

*Vacation planning. MM and I are headed to Ruidoso again this spring. We cannot wait for the break and are planning on having a bit of an encouragement/planning weekend for ourselves. We'll be looking at our goals for our lives including for our marriage and financially and also talking about what our expectations are. It's going to be really good. (And I'm really looking forward to our cabin on the river, shopping and not doing any dishes and I KNOW MM is looking forward to fly-fishing a bit.)

*Plans for the future. We've got a lot going on. Things are getting done around the house, big financial goals are going to be met and we're both growing into the content adults we've always wanted to be.


Well, that's my life in a nutshell for now. We've been so busy that we're both just pooped by the weekend and want to stay far away from the computer. Things will slow down soon and I'm sure I'll get back to semi-regular posting eventually. Until then, God Bless!