3 Important Recurring Events for Your Marriage

Marriage takes time.

Unfortunately, time is one of those things that we feel as if we simply don’t have anymore.  As we give our minutes, hours, days, months, years, and lives away to different pursuits, we can never take back the time invested.  The tragedy of how we spend our time is that often our marriages suffer.

The one who deserves your best often gets your worst.

Too Busy for Your Spouse

How do you know if busyness is affecting your marriage?

  1. If you interact with one another more as business partners managing financial responsibilities, household duties, and children’s schedules, you might be in danger.
  2. If you justify why you can’t spend so much time with your spouse due to other relational expectations, your priorities are out-of-order.
  3. If it is a rare occasion for the two of you to carve out time for a simple date, you need to make some changes.
  4. If you seem to get agitated with one another easily due to stress, you need to evaluate your responsibilities.
  5. If when you actually do have time together, you each live in your own world mentally, emotionally, or technologically, you should be on high alert.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:15-17).

If the days are evil, that means that we must be on guard against distractions and pursuits that could rob us of time.  To be wise, we must do regular, thorough investigation into how we spend our time.  If you have ever sought for the will of God, look no further – it is found in spending our time wisely.

If you allot your time wisely, you will make time for your marriage.  We make time for what we love.  Ignore the lie that once you get through a certain season of life, you will have time to spend together.

If you don’t take time to nurture your relationship now, you won’t have the relationship to nurture later.  Don’t let the most important relationship get the leftovers.

For the sake of your marriage, you must reign in your schedule.  Having a controlled calendar might mean lesser hours spent on a hobby, fewer activities for your children, or actually have to say “no” to good things for the sake of your marriage.  Don’t prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities.  If you don’t schedule your priorities, someone or something will schedule them for you.  When that happens, you spouse invariably will receive the pitiful and insufficient remainder.

Make Time for Your Spouse

If you discover that busyness in endangering your marriage, what should you do?  Schedule a daily connection, a weekly date, and a yearly getaway as recurring calendar commitments.  Anticipate, plan, budget, prepare, and enjoy these three events for the sake of your marriage.

  1. A DAILY CONNECTION provides you with a short yet regularly intentional time to foster togetherness.  This time reserves the right to ban technology, exclude children, exhibit eye-contact, promote touch, and experience cohesiveness.  Find a time during the day to have undistracted connection with your spouse.
  2. A WEEKLY DATE is a commitment to block out larger blocks of time to nurture intimacy.  The daily connection is great but that can turn into simple plans and updates.  The date serves as a way to slow down and enjoy.  It doesn’t have to be expensive but it will prove to be rewarding.
  3. A YEARLY GETAWAY seeks to plan a vacation to enjoy one another for an extended period of time.  As you rid yourself of daily responsibilities, you will be able to reconnect but also deepen your connection.  Sacrifice might be needed but you don’t have to break the bank.  While the price of having a getaway might be expensive, it is more costly not to have one.

What plans can you make for a daily connection, a weekly date, and a yearly getaway?