When I hear from customers about their particular marital problems, there are a number of issues that all of these couples have in common. Apart from the usual reduction in sexual intimacy, when I ask customers how long it has been since they went on a date or went away for the weekend, I am usually greeted with a blank stare.
For many customers, it could be anywhere between a year or 18 months since they last had a break or even a date. When I use the term "date", I mean an evening out specifically with the purpose of spending quality time together. Family dinners or nights out with friends don't count, and actually sitting down and calculating how long it has been since the last date or break away as a couple can be a very sobering thought.
Even myself when I sat down and had a think, made me realize that it had been several months since me and my partner had done anything that fitted the criteria of a date or a break.
It may not be intentional, but often weeks can turn into months, and months turn into seasons, and you fall into the trap of spending so much of your time doing the day-to-day things in your marriage, you lose perspective of what is really important. Do you think on the day that you got married when you imagined what your marriage was going to be like that it would be like this? Or like me, did you have visions of weekends away together, driving out in the countryside, attending parties and functions as man and wife, and growing old together doing the things you love?
So what happened to that image?
Jobs, demands on your time, children, family commitments, budget constraints and the daily stresses of life soon got in the way of the image of the perfect relationship, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that it was simply a dream.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Making the effort to go out on a date or go away for a weekend doesn't have to cost a lot of money, and it doesn't have to involve huge amounts of time. If you put as much effort into your relationship as you do into your friends, children, pets, or sporting commitments, the time to do these things would simply be there. If you want a night out or a weekend badly enough, there are most often very simple ways to make it happen. Send your children to their grandparents for the night or a weekend. Send them to stay with friends.
A date could even be something as simple as a pizza in a park or a walk on the beach. A weekend away could be as simple as locking the doors and renting DVDs and pampering each other with baths and massages. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you choose to make it. I recently hired a house for a couple of nights up in the mountains and spent a weekend either sleeping, watching movies, or walking together and eating special food. I was surprised how cheap it was and how little effort it involved in putting it all together.
A good life and a good marriage is not measured by minutes, hours, and days, but by special moments and special memories spent together. If it has been too long since your last special memory, make a commitment today to creating one. One small effort might make all the difference.
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