Advice for Marriage
Three pieces of advice for every Married Couple. Practice these and you will see your love grow.
1.) Have a routine when you come home: 3 Things To Do.
1a.) When you come home, put your phone away. Your phone can be a relationship killer. Americans spend on average of four hours or more a day on their phones. That’s four hours a day away from your family and friends on a device that you control and that allows you to escape any situation with a click of a few buttons.
Honestly, and we are all equally aware of this simple fact, our phones can offer us access to things that can destroy intimacy in your marriage. If your phone is a temptation, put it down. As a practice, your phone should be just that, a phone. It should not be your computer, should not be an escape from your daily chores. It can ring, if you need to answer an important call, then you can, but you don’t have to be on it while you are at home.
Create a routine when you walk in the door. First things first, put everyones’ phone in a single charging area, and put the ringers on if you need to. Children and parents should all follow this practice. When the phone rings, you can answer it, but there shouldn’t be any secrets, and you shouldn’t be worried about who is calling your phone, so long as your aren’t up to no good.
1b.) Leave your spare change at the door. It sounds silly, but we carry all kinds of things around with us throughout the day, the least of these being the change we’ve collected after our morning coffee, etc. At the end of the day sometimes we bring that “junk” home with us, and we lay it on our family. We forget to check the world at the door and instead we lay it on our family. Rather than bring that stuff in with you, rather than make your family the collateral damage of your day, check it at the door. There, at the door, you can share your day with your spouse, but leave it there, and live your life at home.
1c.) Hang up your keys. Your keys signify your independence. When you first began to drive, they were a sign of your freedom: the world was your oyster, you could go where you wanted, when you wanted, and your car was the means. When you settle down and have a family, get married and start living for others, you have to be willing to hang up your independence for something greater, a common goal that you all share. Hang up your keys, and remember that you no longer live for yourself, you live for your family, and everything you do has them in tow.
2.) Pray together. So many couples claim that they pray, but in their own way and on their own time. A newly wedded man once asked me if I had any advice for him. I asked, “do you and your wife pray?” He explained that they did, each on their own. That in the morning they were like ships passing in the night, each with their own schedule before work. They both took their faith seriously, but they hadn’t practiced praying together yet. I offered him this advice: pray with your wife every day before you go to bed, aloud.
The next day I got a call from the man to whom I’d given the advice to pray, and he said, “I’ve been married two weeks, but this was the most intimate thing I’ve ever done with my wife.” He thanked me and has kept up the practice since.
When you pray with your spouse and later with your whole family, you share your deepest longings, the ones that are reserved for God, and they can learn your heart. In your prayer, you also share a common goal, a goal toward which every family is ordered; life in heaven through virtuous living on earth. If you want to grow in your intimacy with your spouse, then you must be willing to pray with them every day.
3.) Say your vows every day. Your vows not only formed your marriage, they also give you the foundation for your married life, direction for your common future, and the “rules of the game” that will help you to achieve it. Too few couples actually know their vows because they seldom say them. You can’t practice your vows if you don’t know them.
Your vows will come in handy for all sorts of occasions after your married. When you have to have an important conversation, when you are dealing with a challenge within your relationship, or in your marriage, or if you want to make plans for your family, your vows will give you both grounding and purpose in your decisions. At every moment you can see in your vows the fulfillment of your common life. At various moments you can ask, “am I faithful, am I loving, in sickness, health, good times and bad?” These are all part of your wedding vows and contained in the promise you made to your spouse on your wedding day. They should serve your marriage every day, and help you find purpose and meaning in the various moments of your married life.
When you practice saying your vows, you can have them at the ready for when you need them. Before difficult conversations, before you blow up in an argument, in the midst of a tragedy, or when you have to make a decision that will impact your family, it would be good to begin with your vows. Say your vows every day and you will be ready to recite them at a moments notice.
You began your marriage with these promises, they should be the promise that gets you through thick and thin throughout your marriage. Say your vows every day and remember your goal, find your strength in them, and I can promise you will look back on a life lived well, despite the ups and downs. Say your vows.
