Monday, January 5, 2015

Marriage: A Top Priority

Is your marriage important to you?  How are you making your marriage a top priority?

We all have lives and responsibilities outside of marriage, so we need to find a balance and prioritize these other commitments to avoid getting too busy to make time for our marriage.  I know for me I’ve got school to worry about and my husband has his job, both of which require huge amounts of our time.  Maybe for you it’s the kids, the house, your career, PTA meetings, Church callings, or an elderly parent?

Marriage isn’t easy.  Though, it’s easy to say that our marriage is important to us and then skip out on date night to put in some extra hours at work or clean the dirty house.  When we value our marriage, but then let ourselves put our spouse on the back burner as we take care of our daily responsibilities isn’t showing that value.      

We take care of things we want to last; marriage is no exception.  Don’t neglect your role as a spouse, instead fulfills it by making simple and small investments in your marriage by: saying “I love you”, kissing & hugging, and making your spouse feel cherished daily. 

Marriage is a lot of work.  If you are not consciously refocusing on your marriage, then things can get in the way and become distractions.  Your thoughts actions must be intentional if you wish to strengthen your marriage.  Otherwise if you forget about making an effort your marriage will slowly decay, because important things untended to will eventually come back to bite you.  Think of your marriage as a living thing; like a plant you must nurture and feed it so that it might grow and bring about blessings.  When you continue to date your spouse after marriage, you increase your chances to maintain those loving feelings that caused you to get married in the first place.

Continuing to date your spouse is a must, assuming you want a lasting marriage.  I think so many people buy into the lie of marrying someone means they should know you love them for life.  This isn’t true and we need to continually reinforce and reassure our spouse that we are there for them no matter what and still love them after all the time that has passed.  Scheduling time for your weekly date night, even if you stay in, is extremely beneficial for your relationship as husband and wife.

I think another lie people buy into is putting the children first.  I recently learned about the divine triangle of marriage and love this system of including God in marriage.  With the divine triangle of marriage our relationship with God is at the top and then comes our relationship with our spouse.  Of course our relationship(s) with our children come second to our relationship with our spouse; this is contrary to what many parents believe.  The truth is that children benefit when parents put their marriage first.  The reason being your marriage is the foundation for your family.  You want to be a healthy example of a marriage for your children, not one that argues in front of them all the time.  Your strong relationship as husband and wife will spill into your relationship(s) with your children. 

Remember you can be a great spouse and be a great parent too!  It just takes some prioritizing, so make sure you don’t put your spouse last!

Make your marriage a priority today so you can enjoy the joys of marriage tomorrow.



-Watch both video clips below and then complete the activity below:



Activity:

1. Discuss how you can make your marriage a priority with your spouse?

2. Schedule date night for this or the next week, along with plan an activity for that evening.


By Tawnya