Investing in your marriage
Let’s be honest, after several years of marriage or perhaps even just a couple, it’s really easy to put our spouse at the bottom of the list. It’s easy to stop investing in your marriage. Especially if there are kids involved and that means lots of care-taking, food prep, entertaining, playing and EXHAUSTION! It’s super easy to put the kids and to-do lists at the forefront and the spouse at the bottom. It’s no surprise this leads to a recipe for disaster and the relationship will slowly disintegrate into something you no longer recognize. More of a ships passing in the night sort of thing instead of the strong marital relationship you always dreamed of.
Getting Away
My husband and I try to get away every year, even for just a few days. Sometimes it’s a couples trip and sometimes it’s just the two of us. While I absolutely love our couples trips and feel so blessed to have the most amazing friends, nothing can replace getting away as husband and wife. In fact, by the time we’ve started the road trip or boarded the plane we are already relaxed and remembering we actually like each other.
I mean, of course we love each other, but we tend to get into the daily grind of life, work, kids, schedules, activities, laundry, and the list goes on. Before we know it, we feel more like roommates and everything else seems to take precedence over each other. On our little escapades, it doesn’t take long for us to remember why we fell in love in the first place and that we do, in fact, still like each other. We have found there is no better way to reconnect than to escape just the two of us.
We recently were able to escape for a week to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary (are we really that old!?). A special shoutout to my awesome parents for holding down the fort while we were away. It was the most romantic trip we’ve ever taken, and we were able to unplug, enjoy each other and relax. I’ll share a few moments here for memories sake! We chose to stay at two resorts to mix things up a bit and were so happy we did. It kept things fresh and it was practically like having two vacations in one.
(*As a side note, this trip was taken and most of this post written prior to Coronavirus)
Our second stop was our favorite and provided opportunities for hiking and exploration.
All in all, I can’t recommend vacationing with just your spouse enough. We returned invigorated, connected and refreshed.
This was an obvious splurge and we look at it as in an investment in our marriage. However, an escape doesn’t have to be anything extravagant! Do a staycation and spend a night at a swanky hotel in your own downtown area. Send the kids to the grandparents for the night and make a fancy dinner right in your own home. Don’t love the beach? Go on a hiking trip, biking trip,whatever floats your boat! But do it. Make time for it. Make time for each other. Make time for each other JUST THE TWO OF YOU.
Date Nights
I’m not saying other “dates” can’t help you stay connected, that absolutely can! Often if we can find a night for a date night, we’ll schedule it with another couple. We don’t often get to catch up with other couples and it’s super fun to connect with friends. However, just the other night we were saying we’ve (oddly) had a fair amount of nights out lately and they have all been with other people. While we have loved every second of it, we haven’t connected just the two of us. In an ideal world, we’d go on a weekly date night but that is impossible for us right now in our phase of life.
The main key to staying out of the “roommate rut” is to invest time in each other daily, if at all possible. Do we do this perfectly? Absolutely not! But finding a few minutes to chat each day (which, I know, seems impossible most days) can be the key to feeling and staying connected. Marriage takes work. Like, a lot of work. It takes giving each other grace, putting each other first, supporting one another and showing each other you care. It means having each others backs, especially in front of your kids. Investing in our marriage is something we fail at often but keep working towards. My parents recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and that is certainly a goal of ours.
I’ve love to hear how you invest in your marriage, how you keep things fresh and what you do to stay connected!
