I love my husband. He’s my person, ya know? My best friend, my partner, my most trusted confidant, my lover, my steady rock, my leader, my biggest cheerleader. I know I’m biased here, but after seven and a half years of marriage together that has included a pandemic, multiple entrepreneurial endeavors and new businesses, a miscarriage, becoming parents to our baby girl, moving states, moving homes, finding a new local church family, losing loved ones, navigating health challenges, and learning how to parent a toddler… I have come to the conclusion that I have married the greatest man alive and I can’t imagine anything more wonderfully fulfilling than growing old with him.
He’s also the guy who can get under my skin like no one else, challenge me way beyond what my ego would prefer, invade my personal space when I am already over-stimulated after a long day, and just plain annoy the heck out of me.
Anyone who has been married longer than a minute gets it. Your spouse is your absolute favorite human, but also the one who you can butt heads with the most.
Ben and I are incredibly similar in a lot of ways. Both of us have always been very driven, like trying new things and taking risks, place a lot of value in our ability to achieve, enjoy travel almost as much as we like starting new things, and prefer staying active and busy. When we are on the same page, we are really on the same page, and running together and building a life together is incredibly rewarding!
When we aren’t on the same page… Well, it can create the kind of fireworks you don’t want in a marriage! We’ve had some pretty epic fights over the years, and through them, have learned how to listen to each other, submit to one another, prefer one another, and believe the best in each other.
That’s easier said than done, and we don’t always get it right, even on our best days.
We have, however, discovered and developed some helpful practices to operate as a team, and more often than not, a winning one at that. Here they are. Of course, I am no self-prescribed marriage expert; I’m just a married woman who loves her hubby and wants to have a strong, thriving marriage in a full and busy season of life. I’m sure you can relate, so here it goes…
1. Pray for each other and with each other.
This seems so simple, but prayer can often get neglected with busy schedules and full calendars. I’ve made it a point to pray for Ben every morning. We pray every night together with our daughter Quinn before she goes to bed. And when Ben’s traveling, he sends me texts letting me know he’s prayed for me.
We aren’t trying to build a marriage on our own. We need the Lord and we desire Him to be at the center of all we do– leading us and taking care of us through the highs and lows of life.
2. Listen to each other… even when you don’t want to.
This is a tough one… especially when you are in the middle of a disagreement. Instead of actively listening to Ben, I have a tendency to silently make my case and prepare my rebuttal. That never works. Never. Even when I win an argument; I’ve done so at the expense of our trust and intimacy.
When we choose to be present and open-minded in our posture towards each other, we not only end up resolving issues with little to no drama, but we get to learn more about each other and draw closer in the process.
3. Assume the best about each other.
In our marriage, Ben and I are teammates, yes, but also roommates. This part of marriage isn’t always filled with romance, but it’s a very real part of marriage nonetheless. If you’ve ever had a roommate, well, even the best roommates can irritate each other over the smallest of things. So we try to live by the rule of assuming the best about each other in these moments. If Ben leaves his gym shoes and towel in the living room, I’m going to assume he meant to put them away and just forgot. If I’m running late, Ben’s going to assume something important came up. We choose to fill the gap of what we don’t know with trust.
When a behavior becomes a perpetual source of frustration, then we are going to approach it with the assumption that the other person is not intentionally trying to irritate or inconvenience us, and we are going to seek to understand where the other person is coming from.
4. Dream together.
One of the reasons I see marriages grow stagnant is that couples stop taking time to dream about their future together. I understand how easily this can happen with work demands and deadlines, social engagements, parenting, taking care of finances and household needs and all the things… Couples become so busy with just trying to get through each week that they are either too tired or distracted to sit down together and simply dream.
When Ben and I take even as little as 30 minutes together to talk about the future with eyes of hope, we are both encouraged and strengthened for what we are currently stewarding and navigating. We become motivated, our marriage is invigorated, and we are reminded that we are on the same team.
5. Know who’s taking the lead.
Ever heard the expression, “too many cooks in the kitchen?” Well, you can’t have both spouses trying to take the lead on every aspect of their marriages. It creates unnecessary power struggles and inefficiencies. So, when we both have a project that needs planning or a larger to-do item that needs to get done, we ask ourselves these 3 questions:
- Who cares the most about this?
- Who’s better at this?
- Who has the time to give to this?
Based on how we answer these questions, we determine who’s taking the lead. Quinn’s 3rd birthday party is coming up, and after asking these questions it was pretty clear that I’m taking the lead. We recently bought a new truck, and based on these three questions, we were able to seamlessly make Ben the leader of that project. We have a speaking engagement together later this month, and based on these questions we decided for this particular audience, Ben would take the lead in our planning. These three questions really do work!
6. Own up to your stuff quickly.
We make a lot of mistakes in our marriage. One of us is tired at the end of the day, and is short with the other. One of us forgets to do the thing we promised the other we would take care of. We hurt each other’s feelings and let each other down. We love each other deeply, but we are both flawed individuals trying to do the best we can.
So, we apologize and own our stuff quickly. Once we realize we were in the wrong, we make amends. We try to model this same behavior with our daughter, who has received more than a few apologies when we reacted impatiently to her, or scolded her without hearing her out first.
Owning up to our stuff, creates a climate of trust and grace in our home. Yes, it keeps us humble, but it also keeps us hungry to grow.
7. Have a weekly huddle.
This is super tactical but effective. Meet once a week for at least 30 minutes to talk about the week ahead. Look at the calendar, but also talk about what’s most important to you this coming week, and how you can support one another. You are a team, which means you need to sit down and plan and work through things together.