Prioritize Your Marriage

During our first few months of marriage, every time we talked to couples who had been married longer than us, they would always remind us to “enjoy our marriage”

I did not understand what they meant till one day, when talking to a coworker who said something that made so much sense. It was simple, yet profound enough to get me thinking. Her and her husband have been married for over ten years and have two beautiful children, a seven-year old and a one year old. She shared how she and her husband had spent valentines with their children eating take out. In conversation with her husband the one thing they wished they had done was enjoyed their marriage more before they had children. Spent time road tripping, doing things together as a married couple instead of investing all their time into their careers.

Being married seven months now, I can admit that our marriage life although a beautiful journey has made the both of us lazy. Yes sadly I can acknowledge that seven months into marriage, my husband and I have become a bit complacent. We spend Monday to Friday or during tax season Saturday working, attend church on Sunday’s and the rest of our “free” time cuddling, talking and just being a couple. You may ask what is wrong with that, well it is simply this, we have allowed life’s day-to-day to pull us away from the things we wanted to do as a couple before marriage.

My husband and I love traveling and exploring new places, but we have yet to take one trip. the last trip we took was back in 2013 and that was to visit his parents in Ghana. Before the wedding, we planned to travel or at least take mini trips once a month, and seven months in, nothing. We put together an impressive list of goals we wanted to carry out before the end of 2014, and two months into 2015, we have made minimal progress on those goals. Instead we have invested more and more time into working and lying around when we have free time.

The solution although seemingly simple, is not. As a couple, we have to learn to be intentional in going out and crossing things off our bucket list. Do not get me wrong we both enjoy laying in bed just talking, laughing and planning. But there is so much to explore and experience as a married couple. The time spent laying in bed can be used to explore and still share laughs, conversation and create memories.

 So my goal is to be intentional with how we enjoy our marriage. First thing, get hubby to renew his passport so we can actually go on a honeymoon–since we never went on one. Secondly making a conscience and intentional decision to go out there and build memories. We will work till we have enough to retire — hopefully early– so in the mean time, Filling our free time with things we both enjoyed doing together before we got married. Before we both became comfortable and collectively gained almost 60 pounds.

Yes it is that bad! but we have started working out and eating healthy, but boy is it hard! We both get off work really late, get home late and after driving almost 30 minutes from Maryland, neither of us are in the mood to work out. So again making that intentionally effort is going to be essential.

So in conclusion, enjoy your marriage, build memories together as a couple, do not allow complacency to creep in. Intentionally carve time in for each other. Plan date nights, mini road trips, vacations and taking lots of pictures!