Tomorrow, my husband and I celebrate 17 years of marriage.  We dated for about six years before we were married, so all together we have been together for 23 years. We have grown and changed so much in those years. Mostly for the best I think!

Through it all, the infertility, the adoptions, the raising {so far} of a pack of kids, by the grace of God our marriage has managed to grow stronger. It’s not perfect, but we are perfect for each other.

My husband and I brainstormed and came up with 17 suggestions {for 17 years of course!} of things we think have helped our marriage thrive.

It’s worth it to put in the time and effort to nurture your marriage.

Recharge Your Marriage

1.  Pray – Pray for your spouse, pray for yourself to be a better spouse as well.

2. Encourage One Another – don’t be a dream killer and don’t be afraid to let your spouse grow and change and be the person God created him or her to be.

3. Bite Your Tongue – Sometimes the best way to deal with something is to say nothing at all.  Zip the snarky comment, don’t say I told you so, don’t try to get in the last word.  Often one dumb comment can turn the beginning of an argument into a full blown argument – over nothing.

4. Make Time for One Another – Find ways to connect even in the midst of busy, large family living. Sharla @ Chaos and the Clutter has some great tips for dating your spouse.

5. Share a Hobby – Find a hobby or activity that you can do together. My husband and I share many common interests, but we never really had a specific activity that we did together, like golf or tennis. For the last few years we have enjoyed exercising together.  Next on our to do list is tennis!

6. Be Your Spouses Biggest Fan – Nothing beats knowing you always have someone in your corner. No matter what.

7. Speak Highly of Your Spouse – Unfortunately, woman can sometimes get together with their friends and spend the entire evening bashing their spouse. Men aren’t immune to this either. Find better things to talk about with your friends than tearing down your spouse. If you can’t say anything nice, well you know the rest.

8. Be Friends with Other Couples with a Happy Marriage – Choose to spend time with others who place importance on a good marriage.

9. Share the Same Dreams – Do you know what your spouses dreams are?

10. Talk About Big Financial Expenditures – My husband and I very rarely make any kind of purchase without the other knowing. No, this is not an issue about control, this is an issue about respect.

11. Present a United Front – Always be in agreement about matters concerning the children, especially in front of them.  When the kids ask for something I will often say “let me talk to Dad and see what he has to say”.  For one thing it buys me time so I don’t have to answer right away and again, I value my husbands opinion. Not to say that we never disagree, we do, we just try not to disagree in front of the kids.

12. Pray for Future In-Laws – It’s never too early to start praying for your children’s future spouses, assuming they are called to the vocation of marriage of course. It’s a blessing to have a good relationship with in-laws and one less point of contention for your own marriage.

13. Marriage Retreat/ Marriage Encounter – For the past several years we have been able to get away for a weekend, just the two of us. It’s a time to reconnect, talk and pray for our children and talk and pray about the future. Consider getting away for the weekend and either do your own thing or try a World Wide Marriage Encounter  By the way: I realize this is a challenging thing to do. There were many years when it wasn’t feasible for us either.

14.  Husband’s Help Your Wives – Wives are usually in charge of keeping it all together on the home front. We have to remember appointments, remember everyone’s shoe size, remember birthdays, plan birthdays, buy birthday gifts etc. Along with all the other minor details like getting 3 meals on the table each day, cleaning the house, and here’s a tiny one – educating the children! A little help goes a long way.

15. Wives Make Time for Your Husbands – Don’t make your husband feel like an after-thought at the end of the day. Our husbands have long and busy days too. Try not to launch into all that has gone wrong during the day as soon as hubby walks in the door.

16. Appreciate One Another – Life is short, don’t take one another for granted.

17. Read a Book – Make the time to read some good, informative books on marriage. I have given the Power of Praying series as a wedding shower gift!