Last Updated on May 23, 2018
Are you having fun in your marriage?
It sounds like a ridiculous question doesn’t it! After all we got married because we liked being with each other and we had fun. But now, many of us don’t even think about fun. We are just trying to get through the day-cleaning up the next poopy diaper, finding money to pay that unexpected bill, figuring out how to be at two different ball games at once, not to mention the dirty house, piled up laundry, work projects and…. Who has time for fun in marriage anyway?
We have a little farm in the hills of Virginia. When we bought the farm years ago we inherited a delicious red raspberry patch which produced the most delicious red raspberries twice a year in July and October. Every season the kids and I would carefully weed out the honey suckle and prepare the soil to ensure a good crop. And it did. We picked baskets of them and ate raspberry pancakes, raspberries on ice cream, raspberry muffins- raspberries in and on everything we could think of! It was great fun.
But as the kids got involved in more activities and life got busier. I just didn’t have the time to put into keeping the honeysuckle weeds out of my raspberry patch. I was sincere. I wanted a good crop but too many other commitments took up my time. Slowly and yes subtly the honeysuckle took over and began to strangle out my raspberries. Finally the day came when we had to mow down the patch. What a sad, sad, day.
As I thought about my raspberries I thought about my marriage. It was becoming easy to think, I’ll work on my marriage when life calms down. But the reality is that life doesn’t calm down. It just gets busier, more complicated. There are simply too many good options in today’s world for us and for our kids.
Our tendency is to put our marriage on hold-in fact to neglect it-thinking one day we’ll have time for us. But we’ll never have time. We have to make time or our marriage may end up like my raspberries.
Oh how we need to re-capture fun in our relationship with our husbands. We need to laugh together. We need to try something together which we’ve never done before. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Go for a hike in a new place, attend a lecture, take a dance class, go sailing or canoeing, light candles at dinner time, take turns reading a silly book out loud, find a field and make love in a pasture…you get the idea. Simply put, think of ways to grow your relationship with your spouse.
One of the things I pray every week for our marriage is that my husband John and I will laugh more together. I pray that for my children and their mates. When my sons were young I prayed that God would bring them wives who would make them laugh. (He did!). Now I pray that God would give all of us friends who would make us laugh. Life is hard. We need to lighten up. We need to restore a little silliness in our relationships.
So here’s a challenge:
Put on your calendar 2 hours in the next week for time alone with your husband. Write it in ink not pencil. Of course you don’t have time for this. But you can’t afford not to do this. Plan something crazy and fun. Leave a comment and let us know what you do! You will inspire us!
After 42 years we are still working at being silly and having fun – I hope you will make silly and fun part of your marriage!
Beautiful, Susan! And such a great reminder!
Thanks for taking the time to write Jenae! Have a great week.
Susan
Love the photo of you two. And I agree with your assessment: My husband's sense of humor has made an incredible difference in our marraige as we deal with normal life and hard times. I could have never guessed what an asset it would be to us–that, and our date nights 🙂
Thank ya'll for this! It's great to hear a wife appreciate something specific in her hubby:)
Blessings, Susan
What a great reminder!
My wife and I try to do something together, even if it's not actively fun, something that is enjoyable/relaxing. Sometimes just sharing in the breaks is a good start!
Thanks for commenting Matthew! It's great to hear from a guy!
Warmly, Susan
This is spot on. Thanks for sharing – I'll retweet too! ~ Ann Park
Thanks so much Ann!
Bless you,
Susan
Thanks for the reminder! Laughter is the best medicine in a marriage 🙂
Love the photo.
first time here.
Thanks Soulsista. I'm so glad you left a comment and found the site!
Blessings, Susan
This is wonderful advice! My husband and I are very intentional about doing something fun or relaxing together at least several times a week, whether it be watching an episode of an old TV show like "Leave It To Beaver" or just sharing dessert and tea after the kids are in bed. It keeps the sense of romance alive and reminds us that we're friends and lovers, not just the parents of our 3 adorable (but often exasperating) children!
Thanks Sharon!
I love it that you remind us that it can be something simple that we do together!
Have a great week,
Susan
I would love to have some simple suggestions about things to do for fun with my husband. We can both be way to serious at times.
Love the article! Thanks.
one thing that i love to do with my husband is just curl up on the couch with him and watch a silly movies and eat popcorn. another thing that i heard suggested is finding a websight with clean jokes and just pop one off at dinner..
Susan thanks so much for this article! it is so true that we need to make the time for our spouse, if we don't they suffer, the marriage suffers but even more so we do. for me i start feeling like i am not being the person he deserves and then i start to push him away. this makes me even more depressed, can be a terrible cycle! but returning my heart and faith back to christ and putting christ first again has helped me realize how selfish i have been to christ , my husband and family. it has been all about me and now its not, i am putting things back in priority! this gives me good ideas thanks so much again!!
I love this post! My hubby and I compete against each other on the xbox. Other times we have a dance off. Keeping the fun alive is essential in marriage!
thank you so much. i love momlifetoday.com. God bless you
Im from Panama, 4 Heras of Marriage and a 2 year oled son! That was soooo beatifull! Gracias!
Love this post! My husband and I are at year seven of our marriage but like you had four children in four years (including twins at the end). Our sense of humor has helped though lately it is lacking. The oldest is now five, so we are in the throws of exhaustion. I am excited for this weekend as we planned to do a Mud Run together…this should bring some good laughs. Thanks for posting!
My husband and I are 31 and 30 (respectively) and I feel very blessed to have this knowledge so early in our lives! We are high school sweet hearts but our marriage has not always been the best and we didn’t always take time for each other (even before our kids were born). Our children are 3 and 4 so finding complete alone time can be a little rough. We usually have lunch together (I’m a stay at home mom and he works second shift) as a family, but on the weekends we have a late morning coffee together while the kids are content in a different room. When the kids go to bed on the weekends, we play a game or watch a show on Netflix together.
We have invest a little bit of your time with our spouse per day. Make it a habit. It could be just 1 minute . Call by phone. Inform your spouse , you called ” just say hi my ( wife/husband ) “. It sound crazy but try it.