{"id":2104,"date":"2019-02-22T22:20:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T22:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2019-02-24T05:09:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T05:09:48","slug":"10-ways-to-make-your-marriage-a-priority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/22\/10-ways-to-make-your-marriage-a-priority\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Ways to Make Your Marriage a Priority"},"content":{"rendered":"

By :\u00a0Sheila Wray Gregoire<\/span><\/h4>\n

How do you make your marriage a priority?\u00a0<\/strong>We talk about it all the time, but how do you actually\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>it?<\/h4>\n

Having a great marriage doesn\u2019t happen by accident. Marriage requires active effort to\u00a0drift together, not drift apart.And today I\u2019m excited to have Leah on the blog giving some practical tips to keep your marriage a priority, even when life is hectic and overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Leah!<\/p>\n

\n

Making your marriage a priority. It feels like it should be pretty simple, right? \u201cMy husband is my priority,\u201d we say.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often said that you can tell someone\u2019s real priorities by looking at their calendar and their checkbook.<\/strong>\u00a0If days and weeks are full with all the things in life and you\u2019re not getting that connection time with your husband, you may be wondering how to reset the priorities and make your marriage a priority again.<\/p>\n

Here are some life-tested ways to make your marriage a priority \u2013 even when you have kids at home!<\/p>\n

1. Teach your kids that marriage is your number one priority.<\/b><\/h3>\n

One of my favorite authors tells his kids that he loves God the most, and then mommy, and then the kids.<\/p>\n

How we\u2019re teaching this to our kids (5, 3, and 1) is by having a weekly date night at home. Every Saturday night, we have a date night at home. The kids go to bed a little early. And they know it\u2019s our date night, our time to be together. We\u2019ve started eating together, just the two of us. And we talk to them about how it\u2019s important that mommy and daddy spend time working on their marriage so they can be better parents and better husband and wife to each other. As they get older, these conversations will no doubt grow.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Say no to other stuff<\/b>.<\/b><\/h3>\n

Focusing on your priorities means\u00a0saying no to other things.\u00a0That can mean not making other plans on the night of your weekly date night or keeping your schedule generally less full so you can spend time together each evening.\u00a0It may even mean saying no to something like a TV show that you like watching so that you can spend time talking or connecting.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Be thankful<\/b>.<\/b><\/h3>\n

What you look for is what you\u2019ll see. And if you focus on just the areas where you feel like your husband falls short, you\u2019ll continue to see areas in which your husband falls short.<\/p>\n

But, if you look for things to be thankful for about him, you\u2019ll notice those things start to grow and they\u2019ll become easier and easier to see.<\/p>\n

This turned one of the hardest seasons of my marriage on its\u00a0head when I started focusing on things to be thankful for.\u00a0It\u2019s amazing how the perspective change will impact you.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. Assume goodwill.<\/b><\/h3>\n

If you are in a good intentions marriage and none of the 4 A\u2019s (abuse, abandonment, addiction, and adultery) are present, then you can and should assume the best about your husband.<\/p>\n

We all make mistakes in how we present things, say things, do things.<\/strong>\u00a0But if you can take a step back and assume that he meant to do it as a good thing and didn\u2019t intentionally make a mistake and certainly didn\u2019t mess up AT you, things diffuse a lot more quickly.<\/p>\n

I ran our car battery dead yesterday.<\/strong>\u00a0We have a fickle headlight system and I left a door open. My husband knew I didn\u2019t run the battery dead on purpose or to make his life harder. He just pulled his car up and jumped it. No yelling. No passive aggressive down talk. Just fixing the problem. Because we all make mistakes.<\/p>\n

Imagine how differently that interaction would go if he didn\u2019t assume good things about me and instead assumed I was trying to make his life hard or that I messed up on purpose?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

5. Drop the expectations.<\/b><\/h3>\n

We\u2019d all be a lot farther ahead if we didn\u2019t assume our husbands could read our minds. Don\u2019t expect him to know you had a hard day and that he should somehow compensate for it. Don\u2019t expect him to know you think it\u2019s time to mow the lawn and your dreams of being featured in Better Homes and Gardens is presently being crushed.<\/p>\n

Sort out needs from wants in the expectations department. And be realistic with your resources. Then tell him.<\/p>\n

6. 10 second\u00a0<\/b>kiss<\/b>.\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

I could not stop kissing my husband once I started. My lips were all kinds of chapped and still all I wanted to do was kiss him.<\/p>\n

But somewhere over the years, kissing just for kissing sake has turned into more of a quick thing on the way in or out the door.<\/p>\n

Reclaim the passion with a 10 second kiss at least once a day (I say more like 4 -10 times a day).\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

7. Go to bed at the same time.<\/b><\/h3>\n

This isn\u2019t ALWAYS possible with work schedules or baby sleep schedules but make it a priority to try to\u00a0go to bed together. I love just lying in bed and reading with my husband. It\u2019s one of my favorite parts of the day.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0Learn his love language and use it.<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

It took us a few years (and actually taking the 5\u00a0Love Languages\u00a0assessment) to figure out my husband\u2019s love language. Thankfully, it was what my default giving language already is and is probably how I\u2019d won his heart years ago. Just kidding. Well, kind of.<\/p>\n

I think we all can assume we know what a man\u2019s love language is\u2026I mean\u2026*wink* right\u2026and forget that there are 4 others that play a HUGE part in this equation<\/strong>\u00a0(and that the physical touch love language is WAY more than just sex).<\/p>\n

It also helps to know YOUR love language.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0How you both give and receive love (which can be different). I\u2019ve explained it to my husband like this \u2013 On a good day, I can see the acts of service that you default to as love. I can translate that from acts of service into love when I\u2019m rested, happy, and having a good day. But if I\u2019m having a hard day or you and I are having a disagreement, I need you to speak MY love language. I need you to touch me, take the freeze off, and help me thaw out. I can\u2019t translate when I\u2019m like that. I need it plain and simple in my love language.<\/p>\n

9. Rock a daily communication method.<\/b><\/h3>\n

Technology is a beautiful thing when it\u2019s used well.\u00a0There is absolutely no reason we can\u2019t spend a good chunk of our day talking,\u00a0flirting with each other.<\/strong>\u00a0This is not meant to be a continual all day dump of things the second they happen like a play-by-play. This is meant to build into your relationship.<\/p>\n

This can go from texting the \u201cthank you\u201d from earlier all the way to definite flirting time. Your call.<\/p>\n

10. Share an interest or hobby.<\/b><\/h3>\n

My husband is SUPER into gardening and permaculture. I like eating fresh food but frankly the work is a little harder than I\u2019d like if I was choosing a hobby. There are parts of it I love though and I want to try to learn to love more of it. So I head out to the garden with him. We talk about broad forks and seeds and starts and soil blocks and how much composted manure we need. Sometimes I help, get my finger nails good and dirty. Sometimes I watch. Either way it\u2019s great. We are sharing an experience together and that is great shoulder-to-shoulder building time for any marriage.<\/p>\n

Start small. You can try one of these today and the rest of the week, and then add another and another as you go. When we start small, it\u2019s easier for our new behaviors to become habits that\u2019ll stick with us for the long haul.<\/p>\n

And marriage is all about the long haul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By :\u00a0Sheila Wray Gregoire How do you make your marriage a priority?\u00a0We talk about it all the time, but how do you actually\u00a0do\u00a0it? Having a great marriage doesn\u2019t happen by accident. Marriage requires active effort to\u00a0drift together, not drift apart.And today I\u2019m excited to have Leah on the blog giving some practical tips to keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120,322],"tags":[1150,1149,1152,1154],"class_list":["post-2104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-relationships","category-for-married","tag-dating-apps-for-muslims","tag-dating-muslims","tag-muslim-website-for-marriage","tag-online-dating-service-for-marriage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2170,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions\/2170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}