Hi Everyone,
If you’ve been following along this week you know that Mark and I celebrated three years of wedded bliss on Wednesday! In honor of that, we shared Our Anniversary Story on Monday, more about Mark on Wednesday and are wrapping up with a post about our relationship today.
While we are by no means experts at this marriage thing, we feel there are things we have learned in the past three years that have kept us close, kept us grounded and help us to grow with one another – and we want to share that!
L: When people think of getting married, the phrase “happily ever after” often comes to mind. That happily ever after can all too quickly come crashing down though (and we see that in marriage divorce rates) if the expectation is simply taking the phrase for what it’s worth – and not putting in the work. Mark and I have committed to one another to put in the work it takes. To work on ourselves as individuals before seeking change in the other. To look up to mentors. To read and seek out resources pertaining to healthy marriages. To continue dating each other. To understand one another and love each other fully. We want to uplift one another, communicate productively, go through life’s trials and joys together, parent our children together and have fun together. We strive to be intentional in every way we can to make our relationship a priority. We want to thrive as a couple and last a lifetime.
M: It is fun to reflect back on the journey that Lisa and I have had thus far. As with any relationship, we’ve had good times, great times and not-so-great times, but are committed to each other and have our faith has a common bond. We have much to learn, but I feel a few things have stood out for important lessons we’ve learned or things we’ve found that help us stay connected in an overly busy life that we have.
L: Here we will share with you 3 strategies that we use to keep our marriage healthy {seemed appropriate to pick a correlating number ?}.
1. Date nights.
M: Lisa and I struggled after Maven was born on making this a priority. I remember a pastor telling us before she was born, that taking time away for ourselves was an investment in our children’s future, since we were investing in our relationship together. Although we sometimes feel ‘old’ because we may come home from a date before 10 pm, it has been very fun to have time to ourselves. We also try to create quality time together after the girls are in bed by watching a show together or playing games, etc.
L: Our definition of date night varies according to what our schedules (and pocketbook – yikes those babysitters!) can afford. Sometimes it means staying in for a date night together after the girls go to bed and other times it means making ourselves more presentable and venturing out for dinner, drinks or activities we enjoy. We made a New Years Resolution for 2016 to go out on dates at least once a month, and that has been really fun. It also holds us to a standard, gets us out of the house {we can be homebodies} and we look forward to scheduling that date. We have been taking turns making the plans. I’ve been getting creative, as I took my 6’4” husband ice skating for Valentine’s Day. ? He’s so good to me to just go along with it!
Some of you may think ‘oh, once a month, that’s not a lot’. And while it may seem that way to some, we see it as we are doing our best to fit in what we can. (This doesn’t count the times we stay in and spend time together.) We also enjoy spending time with our family, friends and doing activities with other families too, so getting out once a month ‘just us’ has been a good goal. It helps us somehow strike a balance all the while making our relationship a priority.
2. Thoughtful & productive communication.
L: When I asked Mark recently if he could remember what my love language was he threw about three different answers out there. How could he forget something so important?! All jokes aside, he was actually correct in his response. I have a mix of love languages, but my top is typically acts of service and he knows this. He knows what speaks to me, to my heart, and what I appreciate. Communicating with one another not only requires a lot of active listening and constructive conversations, it also requires knowing how to speak to one another’s hearts. If I thought I was doing something so great for Mark because it was what I love or appreciate, it likely wouldn’t resonate with what he appreciates and therefore wouldn’t be very meaningful. For example, if I were to tidy up the house and fluff the pillows at the end of each day to appease Mark, he would likely laugh at me. Whereas if he does that for me, it makes me feel like he really went out of his way to think about me. {Okay, don’t make fun of my OCD clean up and fluff tendencies!} I, in turn, make an effort to speak his love language.
If you haven’t figured out what your love language(s) are yet, I highly recommend you do so. It’s always beneficial to learn more about yourself and learn more about each other simultaneously. Check out this site to get started.
M: Communication is an integral component of our friendship and relationship. With our busy lives, it is easy to sit down after the girls are in bed and be exhausted from the day. It could be easy to just sit quietly or go to bed. I recall several mentors telling us how important intentional communication is. It sometimes is hard to not just get in the routine of discussing daily schedules and the brief how was your day, etc. Understanding what it means to be intentional with your communication may involve putting your cell phone away and removing the countless distractions we have around us. Being intentional means asking about the details of her day, how she is feeling, what can I do to help her today/tomorrow, and what else has been on her mind. We may not always succeed in doing this, but is something we both try to stay focused on for each other.
I truly believe that communication also involves intentional listening, too. I typically am overly optimistic so when posed with a concern or problem that Lisa has, I have a tendency to quickly offer my input and reassurance to Lisa that ‘everything will work out’. I’ve found by being intentional and just listening is often more important to Lisa than any ‘everything will be okay’ answer I could give her.
On reflecting on our friendship and relationship, I can say that Lisa and I are much closer when we practice active communication and listening.
3. A faith that surpasses it all.
L: I remember back to when we were taking a pre-marital course at our church and one of the speakers drew a triangle on the board. At each of the three points there were places: the bottom corners were each the husband and the wife and the top point was God. Arrows pointed up. As the husband and wife draw closer to God, they will also draw closer to one another. It seems like a simple principle. If we keep ourselves focused on God, we too will become closer. Just as we unite as one in marriage.
Life pulls at us in a million ways though. Sometimes the intensity of our faithfulness changes or is challenged, and sometimes one of us may draw closer to God than the other. We recognize that it is our responsibility to support one another in that way and to build each other up when it’s needed. Our faith is foundation to who we are as individuals, as a couple and as parents. We remind ourselves in this life filled with distractions, busyness and chaos, to quite our minds and settle our sight on the big picture. To remember who and what is most important and to let our lights shine brightly in everything that we do.
M: Our faith is centered around grace and forgiveness that is unconditionally poured upon us. Have Lisa and I disappointed each other by our words or actions/inactions? Of course! Stress from work, busy schedules, lack of sleep, etc. can wear us down at times. But by understanding the grace and forgiveness that is given to us from Christ, we are able to forgive each other. We strive to be purposeful with expressing our faith together. We use our faith to guide our decisions and actions. We also make an effort to do dinner time devotions as a family and discuss sermons on Sundays in order to stay active in our faith, in addition to praying with and for one another. While are always looking to improve in our faithfulness, we also are looking for additional ways to be intentional with it together whether by volunteering our time or reading a study book or devotional together.
From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for following along this week! We hope you have found some inspiring words or encouragement here or there throughout it all. It has been a pleasure sharing more about us, something we don’t often open up and do, particularly this broadly. And it has been so great hearing from some of you in the process! For those who are interested in our anniversary celebration, we spent time with our little family this week and are looking forward to our date this month and gift to one another: We are going to see Coldplay in Chicago next weekend!
It truly is amazing how quickly three years can pass. In three years of marriage we have had two houses and two babies and incredibly busy lives… We wonder what this next year will bring. ?
Happy Friday, friends! We hope you have a great weekend!
XO,
Lisa & Mark
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