Marriage requires consistency, effort, and selflessness, and a Christian marriage requires great sacrifice and being rooted in abundant love. Regardless of if you are a believer or not, we can all agree that marriages takes work and a new level of dedication that we’ve never experienced before. This is why it is so important to cultivate healthy habits to maintain a joyful and healthy marriage. In this blog post, we will discuss the three most important and powerful habits you can cultivate today to transform your marriage.
What it takes to maintain a healthy marriage
Having a happy and healthy marriage requires first and foremost: selfless and sacrificial love. Love truly covers a multitude of sins and grievances, and enhances the quality of life. When you’re upset I bet it takes one kind gesture or a few loving words from your husband to diffuse the tension. Now imagine how else loves functions in the moments where everything seems to be going just fine!
Marriage also requires: faithfulness, loyalty, effort, consistency, effective and constant communication, consideration, quality time and more. If you’re looking for a quick fix to a struggling marriage, let me reassure you that there isn’t one. Building a great marriages not only requires all that I’ve mentioned above, but it also requires time. Your marriage needs time to be ‘watered’ and nourished. Through the tough seasons you will learn and grow the most; and if your marriage can make it through the hard seasons then you will be just fine. I promise.
Important Habits To Have A Great Marriage
While there are an array of important habits a wife can cultivate in order to have a happy and healthy marriage, I truly believe that these three are the top habits for a great marriage. Once you begin to implement these habits in your life your marriage will begin to reap its good fruit.
I encourage you to put in the appropriate amount of effort and allow for plenty of time, and have patience with your spouse (especially in point #2!).
1. Spend time together without distractions.
It is so very important to have dedicated time every day to connect with your husband. Let’s call these moments “pockets of presence.” This concept can also be applied to busy mothers who stay at home to care for their young children or toddlers.
A pocket of presence: take a pause from whatever you’re doing in the moment, if it’s not urgent, and spend a few minutes talking to your husband or just sitting with him. I believe that it’s also important to make or schedule time together in your evenings, best especially for when the kids are in bed and asleep!
For a season my husband and I played Battleship right before bed. It was quiet time that was also a pocket of presence. He had my full and undivided attention-no electronics-and we both were able to destress with a fun game.
When my husband gets home I am quick to greet him with joy and a hug and kiss. After a long day at work and having to commute over two hours each way, the last thing my husband (or yours) wants is to come home to a complaining and stressed wife and a dirty home. My goal is to create a home where my husband feels peace and is excited to walk through the doors. He shouldn’t feel like he has to decompress by sitting in the car outside before he walks through the doors of our home!
“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Mark 6:31
2. Pray together every day.
If any of these habits would bear the most fruit and reap the most benefits for your marriage-it’s this. This one thing will help strengthen the bond and spiritual unity between you and your husband: praying together. Prayer is an act of intimacy that requires you to be vulnerable and honest. Praying for your significant other also requires you to communicate the honest desires of your heart.
Praying together doesn’t have to be for more than a few minutes, especially if this is something new you’re doing together. This habit is also something that shouldn’t be forced upon your spouse if this isn’t something they’re open to doing at first; though, I suggest praying for this! A moment of prayer can also be time to read the word, or a devotional, together. Whatever you choose, it is so very important to commit to this together.
Apart from being intimate in the bedroom, what could be more intimate and bonding than praying together, just the two of you?
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them”
Matthew 18:20
3. Talk about your future often.
While not everyone is a planner, talking about your future as husband and wife is very important to maintaining a healthy marriage. It’s also very important to be aligned in your values and vision for your family as a unit. You do not need to talk every week about the amount of kids you want to have (unless that’s something you both want to discuss frequently). You also don’t have to talk about every aspect of the future in one day or hour. The point of having conversations about your future is to make sure your plans are aligned with the Lord’s and that you are heading in the right direction as a family.
When having these types of discussions I suggest focusing on short-term goals (between 1-2 years) and long-term goals (more than 2 years). This will help reduce the overwhelm and also highlight the areas of focus. Talk about your goals as a family and your individual goals. Maybe you both are ready to start trying to have children within two years, but you want to focus on building a business to be a stay at home mom and your husband wants to focus on improving your financial situation. Have a big picture vision of the future you want to have together, but don’t forget about the things you can work towards tomorrow or achieve next month.
As husband and wife you always want to be aligned and moving forward together, in the right direction for your family.
“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
Proverbs 16:9
How To Implement These Habits
Making the time to cultivate these habits, and with great effort, will help you to build a stronger, more united and spiritually aligned marriage with your husband.
Making time without distractions
When you start to focus on spending quality time together without distractions it’s important to just start. Don’t get hung up on the little details of the perfect time or finding the perfect opportunity to do this. You may also be tempted to fill the time with something more.
You don’t have to fill up the quiet with more anything, not words and not activities. Just focus on being present in the moment with each other.
It will feel weird at first, especially if you’re so used to doing things like watching a movie during dinner. Here are a couple of ways to just start:
- Keep a bucket or basket to collect all devices before dinner and be sure to put them on silent.
- Have dedicated family entertainment time. For example Friday nights at 6PM you go watch a movie together.
- Remove all devices from the dinner table and dinning room.
- Switch from watching movies to having light background music, like lofi or instrumental.
Praying together daily
While this is so important for you and your husband to make a daily habit, it’s not something that you should force each other to do together. Pray for new perspective or an openness in heart posture. Once you both are ready to implement this habit together, here are a few tips:
- Make a commitment to pray, or read a devotional, together.
- Pick a time and write it in your schedule.
- Be collaborative! Take turns praying, reading or choosing a devotional.
To make this habit stick, you both must commit to setting time to do this together no matter how busy the day gets or how tired you are.
Talking about your future
I hope this is something you are already doing, but if not, below are a few tips for implementing this habit in your life. It is so important to be aligned and moving forward together in your marriage:
- Schedule time each week or month to sit down and talk about the future.
- Set weekly date nights and take the beginning or last 10 minutes to talk about your goals and dreams.
- Set one topic to discuss each quarter of the year and set monthly meetings ahead of time.
- Make the mood light and set up your environment. Set some soft background music, light a candle and have your favorite drinks ready to go.
Here are a few other resources to encourage you regarding habits and marriage:
How I get it all done as a homemaker and mom of 8
Building a Stronger Marriage with Bob Lepine
“The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer
The Naked Marriage: Prioritizing Your Marriage in a Busy World
Let’s Talk About It…
Share your thoughts or stories in the comments: What daily habits have strengthened your marriage?
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