Sam and I were married 8 years before having kids.

Pre-kids we had our ups and downs… but we also had endless time and space together to work things out.

Post kids, our time together was mostly slouching on the couch each night, or working behind our laptops and not actually making much of an effort to talk or connect.

Our relationship was suffering, and cracks were starting to show.

After another heated ‘disagreement’… it dawned on me one day. We were not intentional about nurturing our relationship.

In every other area of my life, I’m pretty intentional. I have routines for fitness, spirituality, meals, budgeting, friendships, and how I run my business. BUT, for something I would consider a top priority in my life – my relationship with my husband – I had no intentionality with.

We’d been taking each other for granted, and as a result we were disconnected, out of sync, unaligned, and it was affecting every area of our life.

We needed to have fun again! We needed to laugh together. We needed to re-learn how to communicate more effectively.

This is our plan:

1. We agreed to go on a date once a week (only requirement was to get out of the house together).
2. Every Sunday night we’re using a marriage journal to check in with each other, and to guide our conversation.

And guess what? It has been LIFE-CHANGING.

Love these words from Mark Groves:

Fabulous relationships require equally as fabulous challenges… and the fabulous challenges are neither fun nor comfortable… Love is meant to crack us open, it’s meant to take us to places we’ve never been and to heal parts of us that have never been loved. Relationships, by design, are meant to have difficulty. That’s how we build new skills, that’s how we teach ourselves “we can”.

Real love teaches us that we are always students. Real, true partnership, humbles us. I’ll take those lessons any day of the week. I’ll make a better me, through you. Be grateful for your teachers… for they often bring difficulty.

I want to take a moment to honour my husband Sam. (If you’re wondering, I’ve written this with his permission.) He is our family rock. I love him so much. I am honoured to share this life with someone who recognises it’s not just about the good times. It’s about facing challenges in life together, side-by-side. We are a team. Our relationship is not perfect, we are still on a life long journey. Together. xx