Money Saving Mom®

Since we’ve moved to Tennessee and restructured the way we do life, I will be honest and tell you that it’s been a challenge for our marriage. It’s brought a lot of new issues to the surface and we’ve had many long, hard talks (and yes, some out-and-out arguments) as a result.

As we’ve struggled through together, our marriage has grown and it’s been good. Not easy, mind you, but good. And I know our marriage is going to come out stronger as a result.

Working through these things and not giving up until we find resolution and oneness has made me appreciate our marriage even more. Some days, we might be at odds and frustrated with each other, but because we are both committed to our marriage “till death do us part”, these storms are making us stronger instead of ripping us apart.

If you’re going through a tough time in your lives right now, I wanted to share five keys that have helped us to have a strong marriage — even during the recent storms of life:

1. Stop Coasting

A good marriage doesn’t just happen; it requires a LOT of work and time and effort. Just like you couldn’t expect to build a muscular body without putting in a lot of time weight-lifting, so you can’t expect to have a strong marriage if you’re not constantly building it up.

Make time for your spouse. Go throughout your day looking for ways to build up your spouse, encourage your spouse, and love your spouse. If you’re too busy to invest in your marriage, you’re just plain too busy.

2. Don’t Keep It G-Rated

Seriously, people. You are supposed to be lovers, not roommates. Act like it. 🙂

Look for ways to keep the spark alive. Flirt with your spouse. Whisper sweet-nothings. Think about what you used to do when you were dating, engaged, and newlyweds and bring some of that romance back into your marriage.

Truly, what happens in the bedroom will affect just about every other area of your life. In most cases, if you make romance a priority, it will clear up a host of other problems and issues.

Need some encouragement and practical advice in this area? I highly recommend reading Sheet Music, Red Hot Monogamy, and Rekindling the Romance.

3. Find the Good and Praise It

There are always a host of things we can point out, pick at, nag, and criticize. If we spend all our time focused on that, we’ll be frustrated with how far short our spouse is falling from where we want them to be.

On the flip side, there are always, always, always good things to praise. Become a noticer of the good.

Go throughout your day looking for things to be thankful for about your spouse. These could be little, everyday things or big, major things. The more you focus on the good, the more good you’ll probably see.

4. Ask Forgiveness Often

A good marriage is built around a lot of humility and the ability to say, “I was wrong, will you forgive me?” Those are hard words to say, but they are necessary.

We all make mistakes. We all say words we shouldn’t say. We all respond in anger at times. When that happens, be willing to admit you are wrong.

Don’t stuff things and just try to be extra nice to make up for your short-comings. In addition, don’t blame your spouse. Owning our own mistakes and apologizing for them is the first step in restoration.

5. Learn Their Love Language

While I don’t like to box people into specific categories, every person has a unique love language — the way they feel most loved.

If you’re unfamiliar with the five love languages, they are: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. In many cases, you’ll be a mix of a few of these, but you’ll almost always have one that is dominant. If you’re not sure what you love language is, you can take this quiz here (and be sure to have your spouse take it, too!)

Once you know what someone else’s love language is, it really helps you to be able to demonstrate love in a manner that means the most to them. For instance, my dominant love language is Words of Affirmation. It means the world to me when Jesse tells me how much he appreciates me and how proud he is of me. This speaks love to me much more than buying something for me does.

Jesse’s love language is quality time. It’s very important to him that we spend time together and just be together — without me acting rushed or like I’m busy. As a Type A person who does not have the love language of quality time, it’s been a learning experience for me to figure out that just being with him is extremely meaningful to him.

It’s taken us years to figure these things out about each other, but as we’ve put forth effort to learn each other’s love language and to be intentional about expressing it, our marriage has grown much stronger. And it’s been every bit worth the effort!

What are some ways that you have found help keep your marriage strong?

Note: This post was written for couples who are in healthy relationships where both parties love each other and want to work on issues together and personally. If your spouse is abusive, please, please, please don’t hide the abuse out of fear or let your spouse convince you it’s your fault. Get help immediately.

I started out this week feeling quite overwhelmed. There were so many things that needed to be accomplished before we went on our week-long family trip on Wednesday.

As I scanned my calendar and to-do’s, I saw meetings scheduled, homeschool lessons to do, blog and business projects to finish, many loose ends to tie up… not to mention the laundry that needed to be done, and figuring out and packing up outfits for the kids and me for the trip.

All I could see were hours and hours and hours of work and just a few days to accomplish it all. I reminded myself of the verse I’ve been camping out on the past many months: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

This verse has calmed my heart many a time as I meditate on the fact that God has promised to give me exactly what I need for each day. He won’t give me what I need for 3 months from now or even 3 days from now, but He will be faithful to give me exactly what I need when I need it.

So I took a deep breath and asked God for the grace for each day — and for Him to multiply my time and give me a lot of productivity and energy. And would you believe it? When Wednesday morning rolled around, the laundry was done, the house was picked up, and the suitcases were packed. I’m not even sure how that happened, but it did!

And what was really impressive is that we were planning to leave around 4 p.m., but instead we got around early, and left at 10 a.m.

For. real.

Yes, HOLD THE PHONE. The Paine family left on vacation SIX HOURS EARLY!!! Those of you who know us well know what an amazing feat this fact is. I’m still not sure I believe it.

{And all of those always-so-very-early people are reading the previous paragraph and wondering what the big deal is. Because you consider yourself “so behind” if you’re not all packed up at least 24 hours before you leave on vacation instead of starting to think about packing an hour before you’re supposed to leave… not saying I have personal experience with that or anything. Ahem.

You probably also have all your Christmas presents all handmade for the next two years, have them wrapped in homemade wrapping paper, and probably have them sorted in categorized bins, and alphabetized on a spreadsheet. Yeah. If that describes you, I think you’re amazing, but I’m not sure we can be friends. ;)}

So, basically the whole drive to North Carolina, I was feeling so pumped because we are so. on. the. ball. We kept commenting how good it felt to be so organized and early and ahead of schedule.

I had visions of how we’d get to the hotel early, we’d go to bed early, and we’d get up the next day and get ourselves looking presentable before we drove over to the hotel where the SheSpeaks conference was being held.

All was going along perfectly. Well, okay, except for mom getting a wee bit frustrated at the noise level in the car and a few issues with whining children.

{Truth: I had to ask for forgiveness from one of my children for snapping at them… before we even left the driveway. Yep, totally Best Mom Ever moment.}

We finally made it to our hotel around 8:15 p.m. and were looking forward to getting to our hotel room and getting to bed after a long day of traveling. But when Jesse went to check-in, he discovered that there was some mix-up with the hotel and they had booked our rooms in August — not July.

All of their rooms were already booked for that night, so they checked multiple other hotels in the area and finally found one that had one more room available. Jesse snatched that one right up.

When Jesse got back out to the car and broke the news to me about the hotel, I suggested that maybe he should call the hotel to double check that they had our reservation and a room available. Just to be sure, you know.

Jesse called this other hotel and told them our name and that a sister hotel should have just put a reservation on file for us. Well would you believe it? They told him, “I’m so sorry. We just booked our last room.”

Sigh.

At this point, we were just hoping to get a hotel room room somewhere. We talked about our options and decided to call the hotel that the SheSpeaks conference was going to be at. We’d been told they had been sold out earlier, but they had a few cancellations and were able to get us in.

By now, it’s past 9 p.m. and I’m just grateful that we have a hotel room somewhere.

But then it hits me: I was so focused on getting out the door early that I never took a shower, still had on the yoga pants and t-shirt I’d worn to bed, never had fixed my hair or put on makeup, and hadn’t brushed my teeth in hours. My kids were all disheveled from hours of being in the car, too.

I take this all in and realize that all of us are going to troop into the hotel — where hundreds of women are already gathered for the SheSpeaks conference — completely disheveled, unshowered, and me still in my PJ’s.

But then I thought: I bet we can sneak in really quickly and no one will see us or notice us.

Of course, that’s not what ended up happening. 🙂

When we pulled up to the hotel, my good friend, Ruth, was pulling up at the very same time. We’d been counting the days until we got to see each other, so I was so thrilled to see her that I forgot completely about my messy, yoga-panted, no-makeup appearance and just jumped out of the car, squealed, and ran to her.

We hugged and laughed and acted like giddy little girls. And I couldn’t care less.

After checking into our hotel room, taking a quick shower, and getting a little makeup on, I spent the next hour and a half hanging out with Ruth and Michele — which was an unexpected gift that wouldn’t have happened had we not left as early as we did or had the hotel mix-up.

Most of all, I felt so grateful to have friends like Ruth. Not only is she a brilliant blogger and online entrepreneur, but she’s an amazing friend. She loves me for exactly who I am while also encouraging me to be the best version of myself I can be.

That, folks, is a very rare gift. And I don’t take it for granted.

I’m so very grateful to have friends who look past the messy imperfections in my life and who love me for exactly who I am — even when I show up in my PJ’s. 🙂

P.S. Want to hear the story of how Ruth and I met? Check out her blog post from this week here.

I’ll do you a favor and show you a picture of me when I was showered and out of my yoga pants! 😉 I was so blessed to get to hang out with Ruth and meet the amazing Edie for the first time this weekend. Spending time with these two was so refreshing and encouraging. Not to mention they are both hilarious… I think I’m sore from all the laughing we did, but it was so very worth it! 🙂