Loving on Purpose in 2025
What can you do to enrich your marriage in 2025?
Guidelines
Spend time by yourself answering this question.
Keep it simple – no heroics.
Start at the current state of your marriage. Any marriage, no matter how good or bad, can accept some positive change even if it is only by you.
Ask your spouse to identify some ways you can enrich your marriage. (Be careful. This is risky and could easily devolve into the airing of grievances and complaints. Don’t let it..)
If you can manage to pray for each other and your relationship, you will have a great head start.
Our Experience
Libby: “Make sure you ask them to ask their spouse.”
Surprisingly, I had not planned to do that. That would require more vulnerability than I wanted at the beginning of a new year, along with expectation and accountability.
But I took the bait.
“What do you think is something I could do to enrich our marriage?” I cautiously asked.
“I need you to be my safest friend on the planet,” she immediately responded.
Instantly, I realized that I was no longer listening to her. I was listening to myself critique her answer.
“Safe? That’s pretty vague,” I thought and almost said.
Does that mean I can never give her ‘constructive criticism’?
“Yikes,” I thought. “I’m one comment away from becoming un-safe to her right now.”
Whose idea was this prompt anyway?
“And it would be great if you were always on the look-out for things that might bless me,” she added.
“This is getting worse,” I thought. An endless assignment for 2025. Couldn’t it be something I only had to do once?
As she named some things that would bless her, I realized that they were all minor, little things, like going on a walk with her. She was basically asking me to pay attention to what matters to her.
I have to admit, it would probably take me only thirty seconds to make a pretty good list.
What occurred to me earlier is that I would like to find ways to make our relationship special, ways to celebrate it, ways to make us look into each other’s eyes with curiosity, fascination, and affection. Many couples celibrate their
relationship with a regular date night. Our marriage has been dominated by a sense of responsibility for others which is very fulfilling to us. But what is stopping us from enjoying each other more?
Only the lack of a vision, a plan, and a new habit.
What can you do to enrich your marriage in 2025?
