4 Ways to Thrive When Hard Times Hits Your Marriage
Is your marriage facing hard times? If so, there’s hope! Here are 4 Ways you can learn to THRIVE when your marriage is in a hard season!
How to Make Couple’s Devotions Really Happen
If you’re like most Christian couples, bringing God into the center of your marriage is important to you, but making that happen can be difficult. First of all, know that you’re not alone. We’re professional Christian counselors and it can be hard for us too. Just like any good thing, it will require work and intentionality, BUT, let’s also not forget that we have an enemy who is finding great pleasure in our busyness, chaos and fatigue. Jesus is here to offer us an abundant life, but there’s also a thief who is here to steal, kill and destroy it (John 10:10).
In order to not let the Enemy take away what Jesus came to give us, we have to develop a little tenacity when it comes to protecting our time and the things that are important to us, like the establishment of doing a couple’s devotional together. Opening up God’s word to grow as a couple will almost always have opposition. Here are some practical tips you can use to actually make this God sized marriage goal come to fruition.
For starters, be committed. Decide together that it is important to you both, and that your marriage is worth investing in. It’s amazing how many other things we invest in that don’t pay back even close to the same dividends. Like most of you, I enjoy a good Instagram scroll, but I can’t tell you the last time it’s given me back anything.
Next, schedule it—take an honest look at your schedule and put it in your calendar during a day and time each week that works for you. A lot of couples, including us, go with a Sunday evening. It’s a good time to spend together and prepare for the week ahead. Nothing will start your week better than time in God’s word together.
Lastly, if you want to make it easier to do, it helps if you make it fun. Grab your devotional, we highly recommend ours, the Newlywed Couple’s Devotional, for all newlyweds and newlywed wanna-be’s, and make a special dessert, enjoy a cup of coffee, or if you’re able, go sit at a place you enjoy, like your front porch, a coffee shop, or make it an early relaxing night in the bed.
Over time, you might actually find that this time together discussing God’s word, hearing stories of other couples, learning practical marriage tips, answering real purposeful questions together, and then closing it all in prayer, is exactly what your marriage needs and what your heart begins to crave.
Make the decision to invest in your marriage, check your calendars, and then head on over and grab a copy of the Newlywed Couple’s Devotional. You’ll be glad you did!
5 Ways Weekly Devotions Will Change Your Marriage
I don’t know about you, but I crave time with my husband. I have a desire to know him deeper and feel more connected to him—but what I’ve noticed is that married life doesn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for those things. In fact, quite often it’s a cream-colored carpet with muddy little footprints all across it.
Long story short, if you want that deeper connection with your spouse, you have to be intentional about it. We have found that a weekly devotion is a great way to find all that you’re desiring for a more connected marriage.
Shameless plug ahead—This is why we wrote a weekly couple’s devotional, entitled the Newlywed Couple’s Devotional. It’s a devotional with the newlyweds and all the newlywed wanna-be’s in mind. We wrote it specifically for YOUR marriage, to help fulfill your desire to be deeply connected and to have a God-centered thriving marriage. With all that being said, we want to share with you 5 ways we truly believe a weekly devotional can change your marriage.
Let’s get started!
A weekly devotion together allows good face to face time. This may not seem like much but there’s a lot of research behind eye contact and face to face time. You listen more intently, and you connect on an emotional and brain level. Good eye contact creates safety and makes your spouse an insider in your life. This type of contact tells your brain that your spouse is a safe person that you can let in and begin to drop any walls that you may have up.
Weekly devotionals also create an opportunity for quality AND quantity time. Spending intentional time together is life giving to a marriage. Why—because we all know we make time for what is important. When you pick a day and time regularly to get together, you’re telling your spouse, “You are important to me.”
In addition to having devotional time, it’s important to use one that has questions included. In our devotional we were very specific with choosing questions that would inspire real connection. By asking one another intentional questions, you each have the opportunity to get to know who your spouse really is, and learn new things.
This weekly time together will also provide opportunity to gain new insights, not only about one another, but also about yourself. Personal growth will always take your marriage to the next level. A better you equals a better spouse. That’s a win/win for both of you.
Lastly, by taking the time to do a couple’s devotional, you are also setting aside time to place God in the center of your marriage. The more God has His rightful place in your marriage, the more purposeful and fulfilling it will be. You can be assured that God has way more planned for the two of you than you could ever possibly imagine on your own.
Are you ready to give a weekly devotional a try? We’d love it if you started with our Newlywed Couple’s Devotional. It’s packed with scripture, stories of other couples, practical tips, connecting questions, and a closing prayer. Invest in your marriage today!
Ep.10: Gratitude, God & Science
/
RSS Feed
Are you grateful for your spouse? They don’t always make it easy, do they? But did you know there’s a lot of science behind what gratitude does to your brain and mental health? There are also big impacts it can make in your marriage.
When you show gratitude towards someone, you are saying that you respect their value, and that you treasure how unique, beautiful or indispensable they are. Wow, what a gift to a spouse that is!
Join us today as we chat about cultivating gratitude in your marriage, Gods way! And then go grab your free download activity to do with your spouse!
Find my show notes at https://expeditionmarriage.org/post/podcast/ep-10-gratitude-god-science/
What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew
Husbands often get a bad wrap in the communication department, but what if it’s actually not all on them? How about the many times in marriage when husbands actually do share how they feel, but as soon as they do, they get dismissed or perhaps told they’re wrong. Yikes, I know.
As marriage counselors, a common theme we see in our practice is that when men get shut down, dismissed or rejected, they are quick to just give up. In other words, when they try and compliment their wife and she refuses to receive it, they stop complimenting them. They don’t want their words to fall on deaf ears. Same goes when they share a reason why they do something and their wife refuses to believe them and instead says, “That is not why you do that, I know why you really do it.” Whelp, they likely won’t be sharing that answer again.
Before I get ahead of myself with this, I do want to say that a lot of husbands actually do need to get better at communicating. They do have some ownership in this too, but to give them a bit of a voice today, here are 4 things many husbands wish their wives knew:
When he tells you you’re beautiful, he’s not just saying it. He means it.
Many women struggle to receive compliments, but as a wife, you need to learn how to receive them from your husband. No one wants to share an encouraging, heartfelt word only to have it met with rejection. Just simply say thank you and choose to believe it. You will be better for it.
He loves your naked body and enjoys seeing it. Really.
You may be keenly aware of every flaw and imperfection your body has, but your husband really doesn’t care about those. He is looking past all the imperfections and finding fulfillment in just your willingness to be vulnerably exposed in front of him. He just wants to enjoy you.
Sex with you is much more than a physical release. It is a way he feels more connected and closer to you.
He doesn’t just want you for sex. Being emotionally connected with your husband creates a desire in you to physically be with him. But, being physically intimate with you, helps him feel emotionally connected to you. It truly is a blending of the best of both worlds when you can grasp this.
Things stress him out more often than he lets on. He doesn’t always tell you because he doesn’t want to stress you out too. Here’s where it’s on the husbands, however they want you to know that they do want you to support them under stress but they often hold back as a way to protect you. Your husband’s intentions aren’t to withhold from you, they are to keep you safe.
All in all, there’s room for growth on both wives and husbands alike. That’s why it’s always good to leave assumptions aside and allow room for grace and good intentions. Wives truly do want to believe in compliments and husbands really do want to share their struggles. So the next time your husband says “You’re beautiful”, simply smile and say, “Thank you,” and the next time your wife asks how your day was, be honest and just tell her.
If you want to take your communication a little deeper, check out Episode 7 on the Expedition Marriage podcast where we chat about The Masks We Wear in Marriage.
Recent Comments