How do you guard against complacency in marriage?

It’s hard to believe that my husband and I are already marking our 28th year together! I vividly recall when we first met. I had just started attending the young adult bible study of the new church I was attending. It was during our prayer time one evening that I noticed two attractive men. One of them was zealously talking about a scripture in the book of Deuteronomy, as his head was shaking a bit. LOL. (Note: For those of you that have not read that book, it is a bit dry, but an important one in that it shares the Ten Commandments, among other key elements). 

I am certain that you’ve already suspected by now that this was my future husband… I would later discover that when my husband gets overly excited about things, such as when he watches an action movie or reads a captivating scripture in the Bible, his head would shake. That night, I also spoke with the other guy during the break and within minutes, I knew that he and I would only be friends.

Back to Deuteronomy Man…

My husband and I would talk after church, outside in the cold, for hours. When we started dating, we’d spend hours on the phone getting to know each other, and laughing about everything, until the wee hours of the morning. We had such an intense connection and attraction to each other and still do. However, as many of you can attest to, daily life happens. It has taught us a big lesson, which is that we have to pay extra special attention to our marriage and what we are putting into it on a daily basis.

A few things that have worked for us…

We pay particular attention to the way we speak to each other during the day. We both try to speak life and encouragement into one another. Of course, we fail at times and put our foot (or both feet) into our mouths. However, we have two key rules in our marriage, and the first one deals with forgiveness. #1 - If you hurt the other person intentionally or unintentionally, it is your responsibility to ask the other person for forgiveness. The #2 rule is that neither of us can say “I told you so,” regardless of who was right. Both of these have helped us greatly over the years and have contributed to a healthy marriage.

One of the things that we try to do with each other regularly is to be playful with each other. I have a few “secret” (Wink wink) things that I like to do with my husband, that demonstrate my love for him, that convey that I’m in love with him, and that he’s still my “One and only” and vice versa.  

One thing that we’re fairly consistent about is our Friday date night. That means unless it is a super special event with family or friends, Fridays are off limits to others, unless we can move our date night to Saturday or Sunday. We don’t always go out on date night, but we make sure we spend concentrated time with each other that night.

Years ago, we read a book called Sex Begins in the Kitchen (Sex Begins in the Kitchen, repack:... book by Kevin Leman). It showed us how to bring more passion into our marriage. The author shares how intimacy is an expression of the care that a couple shows each other in all areas of life - communicating, sharing thoughts and feelings, and in pitching in around the house.

We read another book that talks about how we demonstrate our love towards one another, that had quite an impact on our marriage, called The Five Love Languages (The 5 Love Languages book by Gary Chapman) by Gary Chapman. It describes five ways in which couples express and experience love, which the author calls “love languages.”  These love languages include Words of affirmation, Quality time, Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. The book includes helpful questions to help the readers identify both their own and their partners primary and secondary love languages. The author believes that people tend to naturally give love in the way that they prefer to receive love, and that better communication between couples can be accomplished when one can demonstrate caring for the other person in the love language that resonates mostly with their partner's love language. 

Both my husband and I have found that to be absolutely true. During the early years of our marriage, I used to make dinners and do things for my husband that I would want done for me (And I still do!  LOL.). However, as we’ve grown as individuals and as a couple, we both try to love each other according to our key love languages. Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially after a long day, but we keep trying. When we fall short, we both try to extend as much grace as possible to the other.

Note: For those of you that are interested, Gary Chapman has also written books on the five love languages for children, singles, workplace relationships, as well as for military families.

One other thing we do annually to “keep the love and passion alive” is to participate in a marriage retreat or some type of marriage seminar that inspires us to focus our attention on each other and our marriage. 

Although I have focused more on my marriage relationship in this blog, much of what I am saying is true for all relationships.

One of the main lessons I’ve learned in my marriage, as well as in other relationships is that hard work pays off!