Valentine’s Day

My husband is not big on Valentine’s Day. Honestly, he’s not big on any holiday. He has a hard time remembering things like that. So it’s up to me to plan things if I want something special and up to me to remind him of them. This year for Valentine’s Day we attended a Marriage Rendezvous put on by Dan Seaborn at Winning At Home. Dan is a pastor who teams up with counselors to help people with their marriages and with their families, so it’s no surprise that these marriage conferences are a big deal. The team goes out of their way to make the night a lot of fun!

Bull, my husband, made it home early. He’s a truck driver, so planning thing on a Friday night is always a crap shoot. This weekend, he arrived home in the afternoon, so he had plenty of time to shower and change into real clothes instead of his high-visibility work shirt and grungy cargo pants, which are his everyday work uniform as a flatbed truck driver. That’s kind of huge! Often if I plan an event for a Friday night, he’s either flying in by the skin of his teeth and we end up going with just a touch up of deoderant on his part and still in his work clothes, or he misses the even entirely and I end up going by myself. There was no way I was going to attend a marriage event solo, so I made sure to include requests of an early arrival home in all of my prayers that week, and God came through.

There was a fun time of getting in the spirit of a marriage conference with love songs sung by the Rendezvous band, a group of seriously talented musicians that includes several members of our own church’s worship team. It was a participation event, so there was singing along, clapping, and even some dancing going on. I mean if you’re going to take your Valentine’s night date night and attend a marriage event, the least they can do is make it worth your while. They song love songs that spanned a wide range of decades and music styles, so there was a little bit of something for everyone.

There was a brief survey of the audience to see who had been married the shortest amount of time. In this group, that was 6 months, unless you counted the one guy who stood up and proudly announced that he had never been married! Now that took courage, my friend. Not just because it’s got to be awkward attending a marriage event when you are unmarried, but also because announcing that to the audience and Dan Seaborn resulted in a lot of jokes at his expense–all told in love and good fun, of course! That was followed by a brief survey of the audience to see who had been married the longest amount of time. In this group, that was 66 years, with quite a few couples married in the 40-60 year range!

The actual speaking portion of the event was based on Dan’s book The Necessary Nine. We were given the nine areas necessary for keeping longevity in a marriage and asked to rate ourselves on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being “not doing so good” and 10 being “I’m doing awesome at this.” My husband rated himself at a steady 5, mostly because that meant he wasn’t really screwing things up and that he had improvement but also because he’s a big fan of the middle of the road (no pun intended.) I’m not sure where to rate myself. It’s hard to know sometimes. I think our natural tendency is to be very generous when we’re rating our own success at something. It’s easier to be honest about rating how you feel someone else is doing. And it’s not like asking your spouse about how you’re doing in key areas of your marriage is an easy or natural thing to do.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day and championing marriage, I’m going to give you a brief rundown of the nine areas we covered and my reaction to them. Take a minute and rate yourself. See what you think about some of these areas and where you might be able to intentionally invest so that your marriage can reap the benefits.

1. Establishing a cherishing attitude. Does your spouse ever feel like you value something else more than you value them? Would your spouse say, “I wish he/she cared as much about me as they do about ______________”? What can you do to make sure your spouse feels valued, appreciated, and cherished?
2. Pursuing financial security. One of the leading causes of divorce is money issues. Pursuing financial security isn’t about being rich. It isn’t about having retirement savings. It isn’t even about being debt-free. It can be about those things, and those things might be goals you agree to work toward in your relationship. But ultimately, it’s about knowing how your partner feels about money. What makes them worried? What makes them feel secure? How can you handle conversations about money in a way that support them when they feel scared or uneasy? It’s focusing on the fact that each of you comes to a marriage with your entire childhood behind you, and that can change how you interpret conversations and how you respond to money stress.
3. Discovering sexual satisfaction. This is the number two leading cause of divorce. You have to be able to have an open and honest conversation about your expectations in this area and come to agreement on how you can meet each other’s needs. It’s an awkward conversation, but it’s a necessary conversation.
4. Spending time together. This one kind of goes along with cherishing. Are you taking time to be together? Do you do things together that you enjoy so that you can spend more time together? This might include taking up a hobby together or learning to do something the other person enjoys doing so that you get more of that quality time together.
5. Developing genuine friendship. You want to move to a place of “confidante” friendship where you are all in. You want to make sure that your partner feels comfortable sharing intimate things with you and that you extend unconditional love toward them so that a deep, meaningful friendship can develop. Season of marriage come and go, but eventually the kids will be grown and gone and you want something foundational that you can grow from at that point.
6. Valuing physical attraction. If you divorced today would you join a gym? Would you change your appearance in order to attract someone new? If the answer is yes, you might want to consider making those changes now. Give your spouse the best of yourself. Take care of yourself so that you can spend a long life with them. Pay attention to your health. And just like sexual satisfaction is important, physical attraction is important. It shows respect and care to your partner to take care of yourself the best way you can.
7. Chasing emotional connectedness. This is about sharing your feelings and experiences with each other. Are you emotionally connected? Are you treating their family as if it is your own? Do you care about the things that they care about? Part of becoming one is embracing what your partner brings to the relationship and caring about those people they care about and those things they care about. It can make a huge difference!
8. Guarding home harmony. We spend a lot of time and money making the outside of our house look good. It’s called curb appeal, but how much time and effort are we putting into making the inside of our house look good? Are we striving for peace? Are we bringing joy and love and peace and the fruits of the Spirit with us when we come home? Or are we putting on a good show for outsiders while the people inside our house suffer?
9. Spiritual fusion. This is the foundational peace. You need to rely on God to make these things happen. Your spouse is a broken, fallen human being just like you are. They can’t meet all your needs and expectations. They can’t heal your hurts. They are going to screw up. They are going to let you down. The only person who can fill all the empty places in your life is Jesus. Are you pursuing Jesus and letting Him love your spouse through you? Are you worshiping together? Are you praying together? Statistics show that 1 in 2 couples will get divorced in America. Only 2% of couples pray together. But of that 2% the divorce rate drops from 1 in 2 to 1 in 1,056. The couple that prays together, stays together.

So how are you doing in these areas? Are you knocking it out of the park? Are you barely making it on the scale? Pour some intentionality into your marriage. Invest in it. You’ll be amazed at how good your relationship can get when you make an intentional effort to improve in any of these areas. It’s a process, and we’re all working toward it. And if you can, buy the book, and use it to get ideas on how to pour into your relationship.

My husband and I really enjoyed our night out. After the event, we went to IHOP for some food and had a good talk about some of the topics discussed and how we were doing. Sometimes it’s just good to get away, to focus on your marriage, and to realize that while Valentine’s Day comes only once a year, your spouse deserves to be loved 365 days a year!