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If your marriage has been on the back burner for too long, or you’re great partners in life, but the romance piece has faded away. When going on a date together, talking about personal things, or being physically intimate feels overwhelming and uncomfortable, how do you rekindle that flame? In this episode, Amberly shares actionable ideas for starting fresh and building a new relationship with your spouse. Step outside your comfort zone, the way you probably did when you first decided to date each other, and create a more prioritized marriage that you’re excited about!
In the last two episodes of the Prioritize Your Marriage podcast, I started out by talking about what a prioritized marriage looks like. How do you know if your marriage is prioritized, or if you’re doing enough to make your marriage a priority in your current season of life? Then in the episode just before this one, we talked about what is keeping you from prioritizing your marriage. And I shared that in my personal expert opinion, I think that a lot of couples are spending too much time telling us or telling themselves why they can’t make their marriage a priority rather than looking for why they can and how they can.
But today I wanted to kind of shift gears and continue that a little bit. What do you do when it’s been a while? What do you do when you feel like you’re at a point in your marriage where you just don’t know where to start? Have you felt like that? Maybe because your marriage isn’t a priority anymore for either of you or it’s just drifted that way or you feel like roommates or you do really well at the parenting or business partner piece, but your romantic partnership is nonexistent. If that feels like you, or if you felt like what a prioritized marriage looks like is not what yours looks like, or if you felt like you had all the reasons keeping you from not prioritizing your marriage, then this episode might be for you. Honestly, I think it’s for everyone because I think everyone probably has pieces of their marriage that are not as much of a priority as they would like them to be.
I wanted to share something that has stayed with me for a while. My friend Jamee from Date Crates once talked about on her Instagram stories a time in her marriage when date nights felt awkward. This conversation sparked a lot of great discussion in her DMs that she shared in her stories on Instagram, and it was really interesting to hear more from other couples about this topic. I’m going to go into a few different pieces of marriage and how to make them comfortable again, but I wanted to focus on that date night example that Jamee started because it was really good.
If you go out on a date together or you’re in the car together, how natural does it feel to be together, talking on a more personal level, focusing on that foundational part of your marriage? I often watch couples in their cars when we’re driving past them on the road or at the tables they’re sitting together at at a restaurant and I wonder if they are sitting together in silence and it’s comfortable easy silence or one that feels awkward and uncomfortable and there’s that tension that they just want to break and they don’t know how. Which couple do you feel like and how do you feel in various aspects of your marriage? When you’re out on a date. When you’re sitting together in bed at the end of the day. When you’re physically intimate. When you talk about finances. Or when you participate in a hobby together. Which areas of your marriage need work to get to the comfortable level where you’re excited and want to make each other a priority again?
Maybe you listened to the last couple episodes and you were like, Yes, there’s all these things that keep us from making each other a priority, but I know that we could do it if we just had the time. Or, maybe you’re one of those couples who feels like it’s gonna be awkward and maybe a little bit like torture and maybe it’s just better if you continue where you’re comfortable. I’m going to encourage you to step outside your comfort zone. When Jamee talked about the awkward dates on her stories, I shared a tip with her that I want to share here. And then I’m going to dive into a few other areas of marriage to give you some examples for how you can make that comfortable again.
Although your relationship might have been in a place at one point when you could go out together for hours or even days and never run out of things to talk about or never feel uncomfortable being together and just really have fun together. If you’re not in that place anymore, it can feel daunting, it can be overwhelming, and maybe even sound torturous to do those things you used to do together right now, how your relationship is.
Think of it like a first date. You don’t plan a full day of activities with someone you are just meeting for the first time. Or even someone that you know relatively well, but you’re not sure if you want to or even could enjoy spending that much of a chunk of time together. You start with something simple, like drinks or dessert, and then if things go well, you add to your time together or plan a second date. Do the same thing with your marriage. I know a lot of people that will plan their date up against a time constraint. So maybe they go for a lunch date and have to be back to work or they have somewhere they have to be right after but can meet for drinks before. This gives them an easy out if they need it and then you can plan something else.
Do the same with your marriage. Don’t make yourselves feel trapped in this time together. I know that sounds bad, I know that doesn’t sound like a prioritized marriage, but I recognize that there are couples who may be in that spot in their marriage, whether it’s for date night, shared hobbies, talking about your finances, talking about religion, talking about or being physically intimate, there may be parts of your marriage where you feel like you’re doing really well. And there may be parts of your marriage where you feel like you’re not, and you don’t know where to start to get back to where you want to be, or you’re not sure if you want to start to get back to where you were before.
Going back to that date night example, instead of going into it with a plan to see if this person is someone you could get along with and have fun with and want to go on another date or pursue a relationship with, go into it with the mindset that you are starting your relationship afresh with your spouse. Your end goal for this is to create a relationship with this person that you enjoy and want to last a lifetime. Because remember, a successful marriage requires falling in love again and again, always with the same person.
Ask your spouse on a date. Maybe do what you did for your first date that pulls out the power of reminiscing and those feelings that you had on that first date. Or you can plan something that you know you’ll both enjoy, like appetizers at your favorite restaurant, or picking up your favorite soda and snack, and driving up to watch the sunset together. Meet up for coffee or drinks and pretend you’re meeting for the first time, adding a little roleplay and fun into it, and that can kind of break that awkward ice for you. I think about Lorelai and Luke in Gilmore Girls, (if you don’t know already, I use Gilmore Girls a lot) after they’ve had a fight and Lorelai just needs to talk to Luke and she comes in and pretends to be Mimi and they talk as if she is Mimi and they are meeting for the first time and it’s just what they need to break that awkward ice. And it takes them a bit from there to get to a comfortable spot again but that definitely helps.
Work your way into that relationship. and fall in love all over again. I think you’ll be surprised how quickly you start to become comfortable with each other and look forward to your date nights together rather than being nervous or anxious or dreading it like you might with a date night when you were dating in your dating days and you’re just not sure how it’s gonna go.
Here’s another example. For many couples, physical intimacy is the one thing in their marriage that has gone cold. They have shared hobbies, they find ways to have fun together daily, they connect on a personal level through their conversation, and they might even get away together on a regular basis, either overnight or for an extended trip. But their physical connection may be limited to hand holding and sitting close to each other, or may honestly be nonexistent.
Again, it’s like starting that relationship at the beginning. When you first hold hands or share a first kiss, it can feel uncomfortable and awkward, but it’s kind of exciting at the same time. When you’re sitting next to each other on the couch or somewhere out in public, maybe on a walk or in your car, hold hands or put your hand on your spouse’s leg, or even something as simple as linking your arm through theirs. Create that connection, that physical touch side of your marriage at its base, and work up to where you want it to be. Don’t expect to go from haven’t been physically intimate in any way shape or form for years to being totally comfortable being in bed together again.
I’m going to give you one more. Are you at a loss when it comes to knowing what to talk about outside of the kids, your house projects, and the business side of your life? This is one I talk about a lot. Conversation starters are my recommendation as a great place to turn to get the personal side of the conversation rolling again. Create that time together and then use a resource to help you connect. I’m going to link to a post in the show notes with some of my favorite resources, but I would highly recommend the Gottman Card Decks app as a first place to start. It’s free and you can pull it up on your phone when you’re in the car, at the dinner table, out on a date, or sitting together in bed at the end of the day. And then you can pick one or two questions to ask each other, it doesn’t have to be interrogative…. interrogative. (That’s a really hard word to say.) You don’t have to interrogate your spouse. It doesn’t have to feel pressured. Just a fun conversation starter and maybe it’s going to start that you’re going to get one or two word answers.
Maybe it’s going to take a while to get that conversation going but the point is you’re starting somewhere and you’re making the effort and it is going to have an impact in the end. The biggest thing is that you start somewhere. You just have to start, but start small. Be all in, but don’t dive in and hope you’ll start at the height of your relationship before it got put on the back burner or that point when you look back and say this is when things were good, why can’t we be there again?
Make one little change and see the impact it has in your relationship. Then make another small change and keep that momentum going. My book, Beyond Date Night, was written with this goal in mind. It contains lots of ideas similar to the three examples I shared in this episode It gives you those small things you can do every day that will bring your marriage back to greatness or that will take your marriage from where it’s at and make it even greater. Because I am of the belief that no matter where you’re marriage at there is always something that you can make better.
Step outside your comfort zone and be better together. Do one thing every single day to make your spouse a priority and build your relationship. I want to encourage you to go back to the first few episodes of this podcast where I talk about having fun together, creating a meaningful connection, and increasing physical and emotional intimacy. And use those episodes as kind of a where are we at in these areas to give you ideas of where you might want to start to get better.
My challenge to you this week is to create a list of those areas in your marriage that you feel have hit the back burner and may feel awkward or impossible to make a priority again. What did you do when you were dating or first married to build that part of your relationship or just to enjoy that part of your relationship? What can you do now that might be similar or the same and can have the same impact of growth and creating a relationship that is enjoyable and that you want to last forever? Share this episode with your spouse and see what they think. Work together to make your marriage a priority and get it back to better than it was the day you got married. Because the day you got married was great, but I am going to guarantee you that there are many even greater, more in love days ahead of you if you will make your marriage a priority.
I’m really excited about the next couple of episodes and I wanted to give you a little sneak peek. With the holidays coming up, I want to talk about how you can make your marriage a priority through the hustle and bustle. Could you set your marriage aside for a month or so while things are crazy and pick up where you left off when the season is over? Sure. But when you drop one thing, other things fill in the cracks and it can be hard to make that room for it again. But if you continue to make time for your marriage when life gets busy, it will be easier to keep that momentum going and even pick it up more after the chaos ends. You’ll just maintain that homeostasis so you’re ready to just continue growing.
The other episode that I have planned and recorded is going to focus on making gratitude a priority in your marriage. This goes right in line with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, but it’s something that I think is an everyday, evergreen thing in your marriage.
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I wanted to thank you for being here and being part of the Prioritized Marriage community. It really fills me up to see you guys listening to this, to hear that you are listening to this, both from people in my everyday personal life. My mom listens to it, my friends listen to it, to just those of you who have connected with me on Instagram or Facebook or simply listen to this and share it with me in an email, so thank you for being here and I’m excited to continue.