DO Something – PLAY Something – DREAM Something TOGETHER

As we step into the New Year, here are a few questions to prayerfully consider. Are you living the dream for your marriage? Are you enjoying spending your life together with your spouse? (We all go through marital ups and downs, but for the most part, is your marriage relationship a good one?) Do you regularly purpose to spend time together so you can emotionally connect with each other and keep your love relationship alive?

We’re finding that too many couples are making it a habit of doing too many things apart from each other, both physically as well as emotionally.

Of course, this is with the exception of doing things with and for their children. But that’s not what this Marriage Insight is about. We encourage you to do things together that can help you grow your marriage relationship. We also encourage you to find something to dream about together. And then enjoy the challenge of making it happen.

It’s amazing how many fun and interesting things we’ll do together before we marry. And yet after we say, “I do” we don’t. We forget to be intentional in spending time together.

Live the Dream Together

Yes, we’ll do projects around the house together. And we’ll do things for the children (if we have them). Plus, we’ll do things with others; but that’s about it. We forget to do fun things together that cause us to smile, as we used to do before we married. And that just shouldn’t be! Just because we have a marriage license, it doesn’t mean that our relationship will automatically grow in a good direction. As a matter of fact, it’s usually just the opposite.

Without making good deposits into our relationship, everyday pressures will eventually drain out the good we previously had going for us. That’s when spouses say they have “grown apart.” Please don’t let that happen to your relationship.

With all our hearts, we encourage you to do at least three intentional things to grow your love relationship.

First:

DO SOMETHING… TOGETHER.

This isn’t as difficult as you might think; we have a lot of suggestions in the articles posted in the Romantic Ideas topic that you can glean from and try. Just look and see what can work for your marriage. And know that we keep adding more and more. So, keep checking back.

You don’t have to do anything that is exciting to anyone else. Just make sure both of you are happy with it. Who cares what others think? Make sure both of you agree on what you do. It can as simple as taking a walk together. You could take a drive or a hike together. Or it could be that you have (or homemake) a pizza and watch a movie together. (This is something we do every week, and we love it!) What counts is that you both are happy with your marital connection. And don’t be afraid to try to mix it up. Challenge yourself (if you’re both in agreement to do so). However, most importantly, just DO SOMETHING… TOGETHER!

This is what helped you to grow in love with each other in the first place. You did things together. It’s now important to keep it growing. Love needs to be continually fed.

Also:

PLAY Something… TOGETHER.

Find a sport you both like to watch or play together. Play board games with each other. Or you can play card games, or bowl or play tennis together. The goal is to have fun; infuse fun… and look for fun things you can do together so you laugh with one another and enjoy your marriage. Laughter will expand your loving feelings for each other.

We love to watch funny movies, as well as interesting movies together. We also enjoy watching funny things on the Internet to share with each other. Plus, we like to share in reading funny comic books. A few of them are some oldies but goodies, such as: Calvin and Hobbs, The Far Side, Herman… etc.

Over the years we have been seeking them out and now have a whole collection of humorous books. We read many of them over and over again, laughing each time. And when things get too serious, we find something to read, watch, play, or do together that will make us laugh. It’s important to us to seek out ways to laugh together. Laughter really IS good medicine (as we’re told in the Bible). So, look for ways to laugh and PLAY … TOGETHER. Additionally:

DREAM Something TOGETHER.

The Bible says, “where there is no vision, the people perish.” We believe (and so do most marriage educators and experts) that when a couple forgets to keep dreaming and planning together about things that excite them both, their marriage is in danger.

It could be planning dream vacations and/or get-aways together. It could be going on mission trips together. This could be short term and/or long-term trips. It could be planning on building a dream home together. Even if you never build it, at least you enjoyed planning it. It could be mentoring other couples together. Your mission would be to help some younger couples that need it. And the bonus is that you do it together and grow your relationship, as well!

Years ago, we both dreamed and planned out how to pay off our home mortgage and be totally out of debt. Little by little, dollar by dollar we planned and worked on it. And several years ago, we accomplished our goal. It took a lot of sacrifice; but it sure has been worth it! And now that inflation is hitting us (and most everyone else) hard, we are SO thankful we did that

And now, we have gone on to other dreams.

A Dream Come True

That’s part of the reason why we’re working together on the mission of marriage, through the ministry of Marriage Missions. It all started with praying together, talking about it, and dreaming. And now we’re participating with God in amazing ways that have exceeded our dreams. It has been a great journey. And it all started with a prayer and a God-inspired dream.

We encourage you to ask God for a dream that you can enjoy working through together. This can infuse excitement into your marriage relationship. We know that from personal experience.

With all our hearts we encourage you to do these three things (and keep doing them):

Do something TOGETHER.
Play something TOGETHER.
And dream TOGETHER. 

Please don’t neglect your relationship. Be intentional in feeding it. Fill it with that, which will grow your love for each other, just as you grew it before you married.

And if you’ve already grown apart, then invest in your marriage again. Make sure you show love and care to each other with intentionality. Also, try to out-serve each other. You’ll be amazed at how little-by-little love will start to sprout and grow in ways that you never imagined. That’s what happened with us. That’s what has happened with a multitude of other couples we know. And we believe it can happen for you too.

But most importantly, if you have a spouse who will participate with you:

Pray TOGETHER.

It’s so true what Cheri Fuller wrote (in her book, “When Couples Pray”):

“Every time you pray together, you are letting God into your lives and into the particular situation you talk to Him about. In those moments of prayer as a couple, God wraps His arms around each of you and bridges any gaps between you. No matter how difficult the situation, there is no substitute for the flood of peace that results from a husband and wife praying together. There is no situation so dark or problem so hopeless that God can’t shine His light and provide help. And most importantly, when you pray faithfully through a crisis or extremely painful situation, you’ll find that the difficulty actually brings you closer together instead of tearing you apart.”

And if it’s not possible to pray together, at least pray FOR each other.

As you do that, the other activities in togetherness can come more naturally, as God inspires. And as you do that:

“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Romans 15:5-6)

Cindy and Steve Wright

— ADDITIONALLY —

To help you further, we give a lot of personal stories, humor, and more practical tips in our book, 7 ESSENTIALS to Grow Your Marriage. We hope you will pick up a copy for yourself. (It’s available both electronically and in print form.) Plus, it can make a great gift for someone else. It gives you the opportunity to help them grow their marriage. And who doesn’t need that? Just click on the linked title or the picture below:

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