3 Easy Ways to Stop Taking Your Spouse for Granted

Somtimes in marriage it’s easy to get into a rut of taking your spouse for granted.

On the last day of the year, my husband andwill celebrate 10 years of marriage. I ‘m embarrased to say that sometimes I take him for granted.

He’s a good man.

He knows how to braid hair. The kids love spending time with him equally as much as they do with me.

We have a great time alone AND with the kids.

But sometimes the rush of our daily routines gets old. We get stuck in the rut of what we have to do and we forget to be thankful for what we have.

We took vows to love and cherish each other because we couldn’t imagine doing life without each other.

If you feel like you are struggling with taking your spouse for granted, try these 3 things:

Dating Them

When my husband and I first got married, he was a travel agent. The year we were married, we traveled to St. Lucia for our honeymoon and Jamaica later that year.

Our lives were all about each other. We looked forward to Friday nights when we would make plans to go out on a date, or begin planning our next trip. Life was easy.

We had our first child a year after we were married. She went almost everywhere with us, but we still carved out time for each other. We even took her on a trip to Jamaica with us.

Now that we have three children and my husband is a farmer, it’s more difficult to carve out quiet time with each other.

We have every intention of spending quiet moments together, but sometimes my husband works late, or the baby is cranky at night. By the time we see each other, we are too tired.

Touch Them & Give Eye Contact

When we were in our 20’s, we held hands all the time.

In public, at home on the couch, walking in the park…..anywhere and everywhere.

There were some evenings that we just spent talking into the wee hours of the morning. Just staring into each other’s eyes and dreaming together.

As life got a little busier and more demands were placed on our professional lives, we looked forward to unloading and unwinding seperately.

I noticed that when we took time to touch, it ignited the old feelings of love I had when we first met. Something about physical touch reminds you of the love and support your spouse has for you.

And in the age of social media, we spend more amounts of time on our phones than face to face interactions some days.

Putting the phone down and having uninterrupted bonding time can catapult your marriage from mundane to on fire.

Kill Them with Kindness Even When You are Mad

I’m calling myself out on this one.

I’m the queen of wanting to give the silent treatment when I’m mad with my husband. Sometimes it seems like we are communicating in two different languages and I get frustrated when he isn’t hearing what I’m trying to tell him.

Unfortunatly we often mistake not being on the same page with love. Love is an action–not a feeling. Not being on the same page is not the time to retreat, rather to get on the same page through tough love and working it out.

It’s easy to feel like taking your spouse for granted when the communication is off.

Sometimes it’s just a season. Raising kids, changing jobs, moving, experiencing a loss…all of these life changing events can cause tension in a marriage.

Next time you are upset with your spouse, try killing them with kindness. Trust me, I know it will feel weird. And your spouse will probably wonder what’s wrong with you.

But trying something different can sometimes be the key to a breakthrough in communication.