How Are You Prioritizing Your Marriage?
the question of ‘how are you prioritizing your marriage’ came up for us multiple times this weekend. i am sharing this with you because it’s important to me that this blog depicts the highs and lows of what marriage can go through and what to do about it.
the previous week, my husband was supposed to travel from monday and come back wednesday. thanks to chicago’s ridiculous weather, he sat on a plane for three hours before his flight (and 80 others) were eventually cancelled. he finally made it home thursday evening – thank goodness because i really needed him to massage my swollen feet and get my water bottle that was 7ft away.
on friday, he worked with a client for a full day training (home at 7:30pm) and my bedtime is now truly about 9pm since i now wake up between 2-3am consistently. we had a friend invite us out to dinner but explained that we needed time together and about my new bedtime. we took a pass.
oh and remember how ravery is training for an ironman? for those that aren’t familiar – it’s extreme. you swim 2.4 miles, then bike ride for 112 miles followed by a full marathon (26.2 miles). i know – insane and impressive.
i share this with you because his workouts for training are currently taking him 5-8 hours. that’s not a typo – hours. our saturday was spent with him riding 100 miles (crazy proud of him), which took about 8 hours and then we went to postpartum success class at the birth center for most of the afternoon. we totally sat in the back so that he could eat 2 pieces of pizza, a PB&J sandwich and a bagel. he literally burned over 7,000 calories during his workout!
he was exhausted from his extreme workout and i was exhausted from growing a human. we went to bed early but neither of us felt like we had spent much quality time together that day.
sunday wasn’t much better. i was out the door at 4:30am to drive to boulder for a photoshoot. i am super excited to share the photos with you because i helped out a henna artist/photographer in search of pregnant ladies. check!
as i returned home, ravery was headed out the door for his 2.4 mile swim and 18 mile run (!). he made it home just in time for us to head out the door to our hypnobabies childbirth class, which is great but lasts for 4 hours.
we were supposed to come home and have a skype-dinner-date with our bestest newlywed friends who just got back from their honeymoon in greece and croatia. we had been looking forward to catching up with them and hearing their adventures but my husband and i were also starting to feel a bit disconnected. he travels again for most of this week and neither of us felt like we had spent adequate, quality time together.
so how did we choose to make our marriage a priority? we asked our dear friends if we could reschedule that we could spend the last 3 hours of our sunday night together, just the two of us. we are grateful to have amazing friends who understood and fully supported our desire to take the time we needed – thank you alison and matt! surround yourself and your marriage with people who understand and value what you value.
if neither of us communicated how we were starting to feel disconnected, nothing would have changed. if neither of us valued the importance of uninterrupted, quality time between the two of us, our marriage would be in trouble.
we spent last evening taking a sunset walk and talking about how excited we are to be where we are in our lives together.
we realize it’s going to be even crazier when we welcome our newborn to our pack so we are creating behaviors now to set us up for success. i would encourage you to do the same.
what can you change or shift around so that you both choosing to make your marriage a priority?
life is bound to get crazier so it is up to both of us and each of you to choose to make your relationship a priority!
Elyse
July 18, 2016 at 10:20 am
I love seeing how others prioritize their relationship especially when they are in a different stage of life or just have a different way of life, so thanks for showing us how you prioritize!
I especially love what you said here, Chelsea, “life is bound to get crazier so it is up to both of us and each of you to choose to make your relationship a priority!” that’s a whole lotta truth!
Elyse recently posted…Awkward and Awesome: Vancouver Edition
chelsea
July 18, 2016 at 4:51 pm
it’s definitely been a new type of challenge with how frequently he is traveling and this year i am not! i am grateful it’s important to him too. yes. cue the crazier times nearing!
Nina @ Hugs and Lattes
July 18, 2016 at 10:37 am
Man, I really needed to read this today! Pai & I have been feeling (or I have been feeling) the same way lately, except neither of us were properly communicating our feelings. I was snippy, and he was the suffer in silence type and so we ended up just being grouchy and arguing all weekend until I just ended up crying because we hadn’t had any quality time lately. Our date nights currently consist of us having to do wedding stuff (which is a big no no- it’s for quality time!) but we don’t have any other night of the week where it is just for the two of us and when we are together the rest of the week it’s short snippets or with other people. So I totally feel you. Yesterday was spent napping on the living room floor and just talking about life. MUCH needed. Going to try to make quality time a priority this week!
Nina @ Hugs and Lattes recently posted…Monday Perks
chelsea
July 18, 2016 at 4:54 pm
it’s tricky to express ourselves, especially when there are big life events happening (like a wedding!) i am sorry you had a rough weekend of this nina – i have been there too 🙁
hopefully you can make a date night where you both agree to put wedding things aside (we have to do this with business talk and even baby talk at times). i am very glad you were able to spend yesterday talking about life. cheers to making time and making your relationship a priority!
Amberly
July 18, 2016 at 11:27 am
Definitely important! I love that you guys shifted things so that you could make your marriage more of a priority!
Amberly recently posted…Four Boundaries to Set to Save Your Marriage from Your Smartphone
chelsea
July 18, 2016 at 4:54 pm
i am quite grateful for it too otherwise i know i would be sitting here at this exactly moment in time feeling extra sour and sad that he won’t be home again for anther 4 days.
jenniferhastonsays
July 18, 2016 at 11:44 am
How appropos ! This is our anniversary weekend and we spent a lot of it on baby stuff- Getting her room ready, adding to the registry, then we went to church and our pastor talked about being closer to God and he used the analogy of how you get closer to your spouse. My spouse always takes notes, so these are his
D)aily delay (for 15 minutes you should put away your phone and just talk
W)eekly Withdrawal (date night once a week
A)nnual Abandon (go on a vacation)
I was thinking of that last night when Jeremy and I had dinner and I said, “Five years married, what have we learned?” and we started talking about that and it really hit me, we are about to be us plus and life is really going to change, our marriage is going to change and that is scary and exciting! We also did the four questions thing you and Ryan talk about though not his favourite thing, he did it and I was really surprised at our answers. So thanks for that, again, and this post reminds me how important it is to prioritize “our” time.
chelsea
July 18, 2016 at 4:56 pm
oh DWA is a great acronym jennifer, thanks for sharing! sounds like you had an action packed weekend! absolutely love that you did the 4 questions!!!!! i hope he tries it a few more times because it is now something i really look forward to each and every night – regardless of the states that separate us!
Kate
July 18, 2016 at 12:36 pm
It’s good you two are doing that now, because it obviously becomes even more important when you’ve got a baby! We try to plan together time in advance….next month we’re doing a mini getaway and are staying the night at a local resort while his parent’s watch Aida–close enough that we can be there immediately if something goes wrong. We also try to take time for ourselves, because that’s pretty important too.
chelsea
July 18, 2016 at 4:57 pm
so happy the two of you are having a mini-getaway next month, kate! yay! sounds also like a great compromise of changing your environment but still being close enough to your sweet new baby should she need anything. i bet planning becomes so much more important once you are parents!
chelsea jacobs
July 18, 2016 at 1:35 pm
I adore how much you guys love and respect each other. And I’m learning lately, you just have to make it a priority-it’s as easy and as hard as that. It almost always means saying no to something else, and that something else is almost always good, but quality time in marriage is just so important!
chelsea jacobs recently posted…Don’t Grow Up.
chelsea
July 18, 2016 at 4:58 pm
we both feel pretty grateful to feel that way for sure, chelsea 🙂 well said as making it a priority – easy AND hard to do that! you are right that it may mean saying no to certain things. as i am sure we have all experienced, it never feels good not to be connected or on the same page as our partner so very important!
Audrey
July 19, 2016 at 1:10 pm
I totally get this… We shared our vacation with my parents which was great, but we were so happy to retire to our own room at the end of each day to have time together. When life gets crazy we both find ourselves super grumpy when all our time is spent apart. I’m glad you and Mr. WS were able to take a few hours on Sunday and unwind together.
Also… I’m going to start calling him Mr. SuperWifeStyle (Mr. SWS) because that Iron Man thing sounds totally insane for a mere mortal. DANG!
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Elizabeth
July 20, 2016 at 1:47 am
Love that you’re sharing this with us, Chelsea, and that you’re not afraid to shift things around to make your marriage a priority. I’ve noticed lately that a lot of the husband’s and my quality-time conversations have revolved around getting ready for baby and, while that’s important, I definitely think we need to make time as a couple a priority too! Ps–Huge props to R for doing the Iron Man–the training alone sounds insane!
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