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Time Spent Together
May
Little Time Leads to Weed Filled Gardens
Spending quality and quantity time together as a couple is not an unrealistic expectation.
You may not be able to spend as much time as you would like, but you must spend enough to keep your marriage strong and vibrant. Most likely, your dating and courtship was a time of intense focus on each other. You probably put a lot of work and effort into it, much like the preparation and planting of a garden.
Your married life together should be a time of continued nurturing that will lead to multiple and bountiful harvests.
Don’t let the garden of your marriage relationship be choked out and overrun by the weeds of neglect and complacency.
Couples who are courting or engaged to one another usually find a way to spend as much time together as possible and they usually find that time to be enjoyable. Once you get married you will take on some new roles and you may have different obligations that require more of your time. More time may need to be focused on school or employment, and if children become a part of your marriage they require a serious time commitment as well.
Although you may not be able to spend as much leisure time together after you are married as you did before, it is important to continue nurturing your relationship through quality and quantity time.
“Get a Life” and “Make Time”
As a marriage therapist, I have spoken with hundreds of couples that tell me they just don’t have as much time for one another as they would like and their marriage is suffering as a result.
Two of my most frequent responses to that complaint are to “Get a life” and “Make time.” Getting overworked and overburdened couples to make time for one another is not always easy.
So here are some questions to consider and a few ideas to try that may help you spend some needed time together.
Questions to consider:
- What were the most enjoyable things you did together when you were dating?
- How often did you do those things while you were dating?
- How often do you do them now?
- If less, how come you slowed down or stopped doing those things?
- What will happen in your marriage if things stay as they are now?
- Is it worth making some changes?
- What will it take to change?
When couples honestly answer these questions they usually agree that some changes are necessary. That’s because they realize that they need to make time for one another and that they have lost their life as a couple to other competing demands. “Getting a life” means to re-prioritize and structure your time so that you and your partner are building your relationship.
How to Get a Life and Make Time
Make lists of the events and rituals or traditions that you and your partner think are important to participate in together or that you would both like to do more often. Here are some examples:
| Events | Ritual and Traditions |
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Plan exactly when you will do certain things together. If you do not plan your time together it will be swallowed up by something else.
A willingness to spend both quantity and quality time together is a key to a healthy marriage. It is difficult to develop and maintain a quality relationship when you consistently limit yourself to only a few minutes together.
Cautiously preserve those times together and don’t let other “emergencies” get in the way.
Helpful Books
Source:
Sexual Relations. January 08, 2011, Web site: http://ocw.usu.edu/Family__Consumer____Human_Development/Marriage___Family_Relationships/Sexual_Relations_6.html.
