You’ve heard me say it before, and it’s so essential I’ll say it again: having a loving lasting marriage is NOT a passive process.
Why do we think that love should just thrive on its own? It’s like thinking a car should run forever without giving it any gas. Or a garden should yield an abundant harvest without ever watering or weeding it!
One of the most important, basic, but often overlooked keys to having a vibrant marriage is to prioritize time for cultivating your relationship.
Yes, even if your partner doesn’t prioritize it, YOU can. Sometimes it’s a very simple energetic shift in YOU that makes all the difference in restoring or deepening the love between you--as simple as you putting your relationship purposefully back into the center of your life again.
(Ahem, this doesn't mean just dwelling on the bad parts, like I did in my first marriage!).
One of the biggest objections I hear to this is “I'm too busy with the kids.” Or, “I’ve got work and family and all sorts of other things going on.” If these are your reasons, too, for not investing time and energy into your marriage, then I made this video for you.
In it I share a story about my own mental mix up about what mattered most, why it was such a mistake, and one of the biggest things I’ve done differently that's made my marriage now so much better than my first--and what you can do, too.
If you have a family or career, and your marriage isn’t thriving, this is for you:
Re-thinking my priorities has made my marriage a magic one.
Here are some questions to ponder on to help you begin to do the same (share your answers with us in the comments below, if you like):
How much 1:1 time are you spending together?
How often do you put other things above time with him or time where you're proactively addressing things on your own that will increase your sense of closeness with him?
What are you currently modeling to your kids about love?
What do you imagine you would model to them when you heal your marriage?
Which do you prefer to model?