How to Stay Married

Background

When I was still a newly wed, an older Christian man recommended a date night. He had been married 20+ years and saw great benefit in still dating his wife. A few years and 3 children later, I took up his suggestion.

How We Did It

Sometimes another young mother would trade baby sitting with us. Eventually, we found a teenage girl willing to regularly babysit. At that point, we were able to go out every week.

When money was tight, we would use a 2 for 1 coupon so we could afford to go out. We would take walks at the mall or maybe even Walmart, just to spend time together without the children.

At first in our dating career, we would do something like go bowling or maybe see a movie. We discovered that while that might be fun, our time together was centered around our activity. While our family was young, we learned it was more important to just be together to talk.

The children became the most talked about topic. It was important and necessary to discuss what was happening with them and what we needed to do as parents. At some point, we realized that we also needed to not talk just about the kids, but us.

Seven Suggestions

Through all that I just described, we grew as parents, and we also grew as husband and wife. Forty-five years later, here are a few suggestions I would make:

• Date Your Wife -Have a regular date night, preferably weekly. It doesn’t need to cost anything. A walk together, just the two of you, can help you grow together.
  
• Spend Time Together -Find 3 or 4 things that you like to do together. My wife and I like to work jigsaw puzzles, go to garage sales, eat Mexican food, and watch football together. Eventually, it may be just the two of you living at the house. You don’t want to discover that you don’t really know your mate.
  
• Talk Spiritually -Have conversations together about your spiritual lives. It can be as simple as talking about what you have been reading in the Bible. Or perhaps, discuss a recent sermon, in a positive way, and how it impacted you.
  
• Make a Disciple -Your wife is your first, and most important, disciple. If we define a disciple as a follower of Christ, then we can make disciples by influencing people to follow Him -especially our wives. This doesn’t mean that I am smarter or a better Christian than my wife. But one way I can be a spiritual leader in my family is by encouraging my wife to follow Jesus.
  
• Be Committed -We took the ‘d’ word out of our arguments. We made a commitment before God and our friends and family to stay married. Since we took that seriously, that meant that divorce was not an option. Therefore we had to work through our disagreements and learn to love each other.
  
• Rejoice in our Wives -Proverbs 5:18-19 says, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.”
  
  The phrase ‘wife of your youth’ implies that you are older now. As we get older and we change physically and emotionally, we should continue to rejoice in our wives. We can’t expect things to always be the same, so we need to adjust to what we might call the new normal.
  
• Grow Love -The type of love I am talking about is not just a feeling, but is closely related to the commitment mentioned earlier. It is acting in a loving way toward each other despite whether it is deserved or not. As we love sacrificially, the feelings of love develop and help us act in love.

Conclusion

I highly recommend a date night. You were initially attracted to each other, and a date night can keep those attractions active and help develop new attractions.

In order to do all the things I have mentioned, a liberal dose of grace will need to be provided for each other. This is true with any friendship, and in a marriage, can provide many years of loving companionship.

Appendix

In my post, Graduation Speech Causes Crying, I write about how non-Christians might respond when they turn their back on God’s design for marriage.