5 Routines That Promote Unity In Our Marriage
5 Routines That Promote Unity In Our Marriage
By Amanda Bennett
If you are anything like me you thrive off consistency and routine. Not necessarily because we like playing it safe but because routines bring peace. Our lives can get crazy, but routines act as a wall that keeps the crazy from interfering with the things we care the most about.
I personally enjoy and look forward to specific routines. Whether they are ones that I do by myself that serve as a much needed break or if they are ones Brad and I have together. I want to talk through what Brad and I have found about routines and how they are helping us build an Us Marriage.
Routine #1: Working Out
This is one of my favorite routines to do by myself. Not only does it allow me to decompress after my work day, but it is time I’ve designated for myself. I know you may be thinking, “wait…. Amanda just told me that in an Us Marriage we need to stop thinking about ourselves and focus more on our spouse, so why are you being so selfish.”
Hear me out.
Once I get home from work, my routine goes like this: I immediately change into my gym clothes, download my favorite Netflix episodes and head to the gym for about an hour or an hour and a half depending on the day. While at the gym I either run on the treadmill (while watching my Netflix of course) or I do a circuit routine. Once I am done, I stretch without any music in my headphones and sit in silence (or as silent as a gym can be) and reflect on my day.
I do this pretty much everyday. It’s something that I crave after a long day of work. It’s my happy place where I’m able to put things in perspective. I’m working on an individual goal of mine where I feel motivated.
By the time I get home I’m ready to shower quickly and get dinner started before Brad gets home. Not only does he get a nice and clean me, but I’m also able to give him my full attention.
I’ve found this to be crucial because when you’re married you do A LOT of things together. It’s great that you get to do life with your spouse, but you also need to schedule time for yourself. If you aren’t careful you can become overly dependent on your spouse. That’s one thing Brad and I try to avoid. As much as we want to lean on each other and be supportive, we still have to remember we are our own person. It’s important not to neglect our personal goals and needs when we get married.
You can show your spouse you truly love them by working hard to take care of yourself.
It’s also important because I get to decompress and get over anything that may have been bothering me at work that day. We all have those days where something rubs us the wrong way. Using this time to forget about it or to let it go is healthy. You don’t want to spend the entire night venting over something small that happened at work. I have learned that yes, it ‘s important to talk about work things with your spouse, but it shouldn’t be what all your conversations revolve around.
Taking this time to myself makes sure I can make the most of our time when we are together.
Routine #2: Cooking/Eating Dinners
Surprisingly…. cooking dinners has become made this list. That wouldn’t have been the case a year ago. I used to think it was pointless to cook for one person.
However, this all changed once we got married. I am not saying I am a professional or anything like that however I really enjoy cooking now.
It’s become a routine in our daily schedule when we get home from work.
Like I mentioned before, after my workout I start dinner. Brad and I plan out our meals every Sunday and go grocery shopping for everything prior to the week so everything is ready to go on week nights. We try to make our meals as healthy and balanced as we can. We usually have some sort of protein (our favorite is chicken), a good carb and a vegetable. Our favorite meal to make so far is our MEX BOWLS!
The routine in our house is “I cook, Brad cleans”. This started as a joke when we first got engaged. Brad kept saying he did not want to cook, and I kept saying well I hate cleaning. We realized we had a real good trade off and went with it.
While I’m cooking, Brad usually sits at the bar and we talk about our days. This is a good time to catch up, hear about each others day, and hang out.
We’ve made it a priority to eat dinner at our dining room table every night… no phones, no tv, no exceptions. We protect this time to foster intentional conversation.
That doesn’t mean we are having conversations about our deepest darkest secrets every night. But we are eliminating any distractions and giving each other our full focus.
We talk about everything from our day, to what we have planned this week, to random topics about life.
We’ve realized this routine is so important because we both know our roles in the process. Cooking dinner and cleaning up can be a time consuming task. If one person is responsible for it all then it can become frustrating.
By splitting up the task and knowing what is expected from each other really helps eliminate any confusion and friction.
Some of my favorite conversations have been over the dinner table. It’s something that we have established now as a routine so when we have a family (one day) we can be a model for our kids.
Routine #3: Rose, Rose, Thorn Bud
I look forward to this routine every single night. Brad and I try to go to bed together at night because we believe it builds unity and keeps us in sync.
The first thing we do when we get settled down is share specific parts of our day with each other. We like to call this our ‘roses’. We share our two ‘roses’ for the day, or two good things that happened. Then we share our ‘thorn’, or one thing that we did not like that happened that day. Lastly, we share one ‘bud’, or one thing we are looking forward to within the next few days.
This is a great time for us to share our day with each other and it also allows for some personal reflection. We get to pick our two great things that happened, one thing that may have been frustrating as well as one thing we are looking forward to.
When Brad and I first started doing this it brought me a new perspective. It allowed me to see that, “hey, some days you are going to have a lot of roses and everything is going great.” However, there will be days where you want to share 18 thorns and not just one and that’s ok.
You get to really pick apart your day together and realize what’s important.
Sometimes we forget things that happened during our day. It takes intentional (there’s that word again) thought to reflect and think about how your day went and share how you are feeling.
This routine has helped me look for ways to make my day better (create more roses) and get excited that the best is yet to come (lots and lots of buds)
Routine #4: Date Night
I love date nights! We try to make them happen weekly. Yes, weekly. We set aside a night each week to intentionally date each other. We try and keep it consistent and the same night every week (Fridays), but you know how crazy schedules can be.
Each Sunday we talk through our week, what we have planned, and pick our date night. There is nothing that can cancel that plan. We are both intentional to protect that night so that we can look forward to it.
Our date nights can either be us going out to eat, eating in, going to the movies, walking on the beach. Whatever we are feeling that week. We have intentionally budgeted (time and finances) for us to be able to enjoy date nights together.
We believe it’s an important component in our marriage. We don’t want to be a marriage that stops pursuing and dating each other after the “I Do”.
If anything, this is time for us to unwind and spend time together. We get to talk about serious things and act silly. We get to be adventurous or cuddle up and be lazy. There is no secret date to make you more unified, it just requires you to set aside quality time to spend with your spouse.
I loved dating Brad before we were married. I still love dating Brad. Now, we are married and our dates (in my opinion) are more fun. We get to enjoy going out and coming home together.
Routine #5: Sunday Night Game Night
This is one of our favorite routines with our friends. Every Sunday night we get together at someone’s house to hangout and play games.
The guys play their crazy games (I’m still trying to figure out what they play) and the girls get to hangout and spend time together catching up on their week, or playing our own (not as complicated) games.
This has been in our routine for about 8 months now and it’s honestly something we look forward to every week.
We find that being around our closest friends and being able to spend time with them not only gives us pure joy, but it also allows us to build a solid community.
Most of our friends are in the same stage of life and being around them has helped Brad and I. Having people who you can relate to and talk to consistently is a huge part of our life.
It’s easy for life to get crazy and for us to put our social life on the back burner. Sometimes we lose track of time and realize we haven’t seen our friends in months and wonder how that happened. This routine keeps us accountable to spend time with other people.
We know we will get to spend time with our friends weekly. We intentionally set that time aside and protect it. We put it on the calendar and it rarely moves.
Conclusion
I can’t tell you how much these routines have helped build our marriage. From fostering intimate conversation daily, to scheduling time to build our community, our routines help us protect what is vital in our marriage.
What you decide to protect and do on a regular basis becomes the foundation of your marriage. For us, you can see the values we are intentionally building into our marriage through our routines.
Maybe you’re reading this and need to sharpen up your routines or you need to start some from scratch. Wherever you are, I hope you see the importance in them and make the decision to be intentional about protecting the vital areas of your marriage.
Love intentionally,
Amanda