“You’re on mute!” That just might be the most overused phrase of the past 24 months. A second-place phrase could easily be I have to restart or reboot my computer. At this time when our lives have been controlled by Teams or Zoom meetings, Work from Home (which for many means that you never really stop working) and endless email chains (often lengthened by the dreaded series of reply all messages “great,” “thanks team,” “love it,” “awesome”). Our computers have to be restarted or rebooted because at a certain point that device can only do so much processing before it needs to re-set or re-boot itself. When the computer reboots in many cases it takes things back to their original setting, so it is able to do more calculations. That sounds eerily very much like within a marriage.
Marriages today are as busy as a computer on a Thursday afternoon when everyone is trying to get their work done before the weekend hits. We have so many things on our plates. For those of us of a certain age we will remember the guest that would come on the Ed Sullivan show and spin plates on the top of a pole. He would have to go from plate to plate to plate and the whole goal of the exercise was to simply keep the plates moving with no true goal in mind. Likewise, our marriages have become so busy spinning plates (work, children’s activities, church, civic duties and oh yeah, your spouse). Sometimes just like that busy computer needs to restart or reboot.
How do you restart or reboot your marriage? Here are a few suggestions.
Agree that you both will stop working at a certain time of the day
Begin truly observing Sabbath rest as a couple
Establish a consistent practice of date night at least once or twice per month
Pray with your spouse before you begin the workday
Learn your spouse’s Love Language and act on it
Identify something that both you and your spouse enjoy doing together and make appointments to do that together on a regular basis
Walk together, Exercise together, Bike together. In other words, do something to keep both of you living a healthy lifestyle
Spend time with other married couples
On a yearly basis invest in your marriage by attending a married couples retreat together (Hint: A great place to start is the 2022 Heart of Marriage Retreat.)
Mike Watkins Atlanta, GA