The Intentional Marriage: Stop Talking About it and Do it

 

The disparity between what marriage feels like when you sign up for this monumental adventure and what it feels like when you are neck deep in it is…well, monumental.

That crazy anticipation for how exciting it was going be to share a house and new towels and gorgeous dishes with the boy that I love….well, I can hardly remember what that kind of disillusionment feels like any more.  Too much water under the bridge.  Too much…adventure?

And yet I don’t say that begrudgingly.  There is a unique beauty to that kind of excitement, that kind of love.  A beauty I’m not sure can be replicated once reality smacks you in the face.

And yet there is a richness to that water under the bridge, to that experience, that I could have never known when we said I do.  Something that lasts after the towels get old, dishes chipped.

In a couple weeks I will have been married 14 years to the boy I dated in high school.  Not long enough to be a pro at this, by any means, but long enough to beat nearly all the famous people so we’ll be hanging that award on the wall.

It’s also been long enough to put some mileage on.  We’ve sorted out finances.  Starting with separate accounts in the early years, a joint account that I was in charge of somewhere in the middle years, and a joint account that he oversees in more recent years.  We won’t go into details as to how I lost account oversight privileges. Suffice to say it’s better this way.

We’ve had a few babies.  We bought a couple houses and built another (bonus points for marriage sustainability through that one!).  We’ve been landlords.  We planned for a cross-country move that didn’t come to fruition.  We navigated loss and grief.  We went from two incomes to one.  We’ve done road trips and adventures.  We parasailed together and I watched him jump out of an airplane with my feet firmly planted on the ground.  We’ve done NASCAR races (yes, you read that right) and Vikings games and innumerable camping trips.  We’ve trekked back to Minnesota by land and by air several times to visit his extended family (no offense MN family, but I may have asked myself, just once or twice, why I didn’t think to marry a man from Hawaii).

We’ve argued and fought, over big things and little. We’ve competed and ignored and stayed silent or said too much.

So we’ve made memories and put a little mileage on.  And while all of this equal experiences and a track record, it in no way guarantees an awesome marriage.  In fact, in may very well guarantee quite the opposite.

It guarantees distractions and places to hide.  It guarantees we can get side-tracked and lose focus, fake it and ignore issues.  There is always something going on in this life with little kids.  We are running from here to there, trying to grow talents and interests and preserve free time and me time and if we are not careful we can forget about the us that started it all started with.

I’m guessing no one is going to argue with the concept of being intentional in marriage.  It’s a great idea, to do this lifelong thing on purpose, right?  But what does that look like? I mean really look like.  For today, for tomorrow, next year.

I don’t want to throw buzzwords around.  I don’t want to write blog posts that feel warm and fuzzy and get you absolutely nowhere.  I want a marriage that boasts grace and honesty, forgiveness and dedication.  A marriage that is messy, but tended to by two people committed to not just doing this, but doing this well.

I don’t just want to be married to this guy, when it’s all said and done.  I want to love him well.  I want to serve him well.  I want to have friendship and adventure.  I want to chase not just kids, but dreams together.  I want to model for my kids a thriving marriage rather than a surviving one.

And all that stuff is great and wonderful, but friends, it does not just happen on its own.  It slips away while we are checking our iPhones.  It fades each time we put our kids before our spouse.  It escapes us each time we give them our leftovers.  After work, after kids, after friends and working out, after cleaning house, there really isn’t much left to give.

 

 

 

So let’s not say intentional let’s do it.

Let’s make intimacy a priority.  Yep, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  In its purest form, intimacy is designed to make your marriage awesome.

Let’s make friendship a priority.  I’m going to guess 9 times out of 10 we treat our friends better than our spouse.  Friendship makes your marriage awesome.  Work on it.

Let’s make loving well a priority.  You know we are called to love well and we screw it up so badly with the very person we chose, we chose, to commit our lives to.

Let’s make “us” a priority.  These kids we have, they drain us.  Fill us up and totally drain us at the same time. And we are involved.  Besides work, we have meetings and commitments to the projects we choose to be involved in.  And when we’re exhausted and spent, “us” sometimes (often times?) goes on the back burner.  But we also find that “us” makes it all worthwhile.  Sharing this journey, raising these kids, building this life, with someone who you trust your entire heart to, your best friend, just magnifies the beauty of it all.  Commit to making “us” a priority.

I have to tell you, I got crazy lucky.  I’m crazy blessed.  Who really picks the person they will spend the rest of their life with, when they are 16?  16.  Who does that?  Who picks a man who will see you through immaturity, and failed submission?  A man who can put up with ridiculous expectations, far too many cutting words, and high demands.  Who, at 21, marries a man because he’s fun, completely oblivious to the fact that he is incredibly loyal, ridiculously hardworking, and faithfully protective.  I married for all the wrong reasons and, by the grace of God, got so much more than I bargained for.

But even with all that, we stand to lose it all if we don’t keep working at it, keep making our marriage a priority.

Do intentional, in your marriage, friends. This week and the next week and the next.  This relationship is far to important to just think about it or read about it.  Do it.

And a happy early anniversary to the boy that I’ve loved for more than half my life, the man I get to call mine.  There has never been anyone else but you.  Here’s to more adventures and more us.  Always us.

This post is part of the Intentional Series.  Other posts in this series, include Intentional Parenting, Intentional Friendship and, my favorite,  Intentional Faith.