Put Your Marriage First

FACT: When you are doing stuff that matters, you will become fatigued.

9 months and 22 days… This is the time that has passed since my husband and I welcomed Payton into the world. As parents, we strive to model a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, humility, confidence, hard-work, and self control.  In all of that, it is easy to be laser-focused on raising our children and lose sight of the driving force behind our children… our marriage. Although we have a great marriage, to say that “marriage is easy” would be misleading. We believe whole-heartedly that great marriages don’t happen on accident… A great marriage is never without hardwork, commitment, and a gritty determination to make it great.

It’s easy to forget how important a stable (dare I say ‘thriving’?) marriage is when we have so many daily responsibilities and demands on our attention and time. The following was a great piece of advice my husband and I received as newlyweds: “No matter what life throws your way (kids/work/hobbies, etc), remember to always make time for regular date nights and schedule periods of time to re-energize and reinvest in your marriage.

Put your marriage first, because without a united husband and wife, ultimately your kids/work/hobbies will suffer.  

Let’s be real… this is easier said than done. As moms, we take on a huge responsibility to make quality time happen. Let’s count some of the costs: finding & scheduling a sitter, packing the kids bags, packing our own bags, creating detailed instructions for the sitter, etc. We also take on the stress of possible sickness hitting at the last minute and compromising all of our plans (God forbid we schedule a trip without trip insurance!). Lets face it, making quality time happen is hard and requires significant effort and foreplanning. The path of least resistance is to simply not plan the away time and keep doing what you’ve always done.  But greatness is never the path of least resistance. These are the costs of making your marriage great… and they are well worth it, and one day your kids might even thank you for taking the time away from them to invest in each other. But even if they don’t, don’t let the costs and organizational pains stop you from investing in your spouse.

APPLICATION: Give quality time and invest into your marriage.

So that leads us to our first getaway since having our second daughter… Telluride, Colorado. When the opportunity arose to get away for a ski weekend, we counted the costs and considered it well worth it to get it booked and GO! With the help of grandparents who share the same belief in the importance of quality time away, we were able to leave our girls in good hands… for the first time in over 9 months!

While away, my husband and I were able to spent a lot of uninterrupted time talking.  No kids in the back seat throwing gold fish, asking ‘are we there yet?’, fighting with each other, etc.  We were able to recap our 2015 and thank God for all He has done. We looked forward to 2016 and developed individual and family goals for the year. By the end of our time away, our desires for the future were more clearly defined, our purpose in marriage was more unified, and ultimately our souls were more tightly knit together.  This time away allowed us to focus on what was really important in our lives.  As our family continues to grow and our lives continue to become more hectic, we were reminded of the importance to schedule this time away… and we pledge to not let another 9 months pass before we do it again!

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If you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, best friend, brother, sister, etc to a person with a young family at home, please know this… We wont ask you for help because we don’t want to be a burden, but if you’d like quality time with your grandchildren, cousins, nieces/nephews or friends, please make it known and be a blessing to ‘mom and dad’, and ultimately to the kids. The biggest gift a couple can receive is the opportunity to invest in each other without the day to day interruptions.

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Go ahead, put your marriage first today!

Click HERE to view my {RECAP} of our kid-free snowy mountain getaway in Telluride!!!