Marriage Challenge Day 6: Play

I bet you are thinking that todays challenge looks pretty easy, huh? Well dont jump to conclusions, because, in all seriousness, finding time to play can be hard.

After all, life is busy; life is chaotic; and life is stressful.... and as a result, couples dont put their relationships at the top of their priority lists because everything else that screams for their attention seems more important or urgent. But eventually that lack of closeness and time together, results in awkwardness, tension, distance, and waning feelings of love. Over time, the lack of time for each other, takes its toll on the marriage.

All work and no play can make a marriage feel like a job instead of a joy.

So many of us get caught up doing life, that we forget to stay caught up in our marriage, in fact, a lack of spending time together is probably a huge factor that leads to the astronomical divorce rate that exists today. Even for couples who deeply love each other, if there is a lack of focus on togetherness, the friendship part of the relationship may begin to fade. If it fades long enough, it might disappear altogether.

I began thinking of some close friends I had from high school, college, former jobs and years past. Friends that I loved and adored and had everything in common with. Friends who had been through thick and thin with me. Friends who were precious and important. But due to living in different cities or states, changing jobs, having kids, and living increasingly busy lives, we grew apart. The phone calls became less and less. The emails got shorter, until they stopped altogether. And eventually, communication ended. Relationship over.

There were no problems in these friendships, I treasured each person and was thankful for their presence in my life. But the lack of focus on both ends, and the pull to more important things in life, resulted in some wonderful friendships simply fading away.

In my opinion, "play" is not something to take for granted at all, especially in marriage.

I tend to think that women care more about spending time together than men, or at least that is my unofficial opinion. It just seems that women, with the nurturing spirits God placed in us, do seem to be more inclined to think about quality time with the ones we love, than men do. However, regardless of who thinks it is more important, or whose fault it is that we may have not been making each other a priority, it is never too late to push time together back up to the top of our priority lists.

If you were to ask my husband to name one thing that I consistently "whine" about, it would be that we dont seem to have any alone time together; or comments such as " I have hardly seen you all week", followed by sniff, sniff, and head hung low.

Michael is a wonderful man who is very involved in my life and our kids lives. He does so much for me and for our family - but, as a result of work, and having three social, busy, and very active children - we are always busy, which makes time alone as a couple a rare thing around here.....and for a girl whose love language is time, I cant help myself but to whimper and whine a little when I am feeling neglected and in need of some of attention!

I just believe that time is the most priceless commodity that we have, and once it is spent, we can never get it back. How we spend that commodity, can impact our lives, and our marriage, in big and life changing ways.

Your challenge for today is to think of some ways that you and your husband can find some dedicated alone time to spend together. Make a list of things you used to do together, and check out opportunities to do some of those again.

If your husband has been unreceptive to your attempts for 'date-nights' or suggested activities or romantic getaways, my suggestion is to pray for God to soften his heart, and for God to help your husband see how important his time and attention is to you. Just as we take respect for our husbands for granted sometimes, husbands take for granted that we need to feel their physical touch, and spend time with them, so praying for our husbands hearts about this subject is always worthwhile.

If you have a great idea for couples to do together, from the most basic of activities to some suggestions, maybe you could share them with the rest of us. Or maybe you have a sweet tactic for how you got your husband to begin seeing the importance of spending time together, and how he came around to understand your point of view and your need for his time attention. If so, we are all ears!

Happy Saturday!