Making a Great Marriage by Dating your Spouse
Dating shouldn't stop with marriage.
Too often, married couples get settled, caught up in the routine of jobs, church, parenting, and other commitments.
Many couples are so busy that they don't take time to nurture the foundation of their family - their marriage and their relationship with each other. As we know all too well, when that marriage foundation begins to crumble, everything else comes down with it.
Your marriage is your most important relationship after your relationship with God.
Your marriage needs nurturing. Like a plant needs water or a car needs an oil change, your marriage needs consistent attention. It needs care and nurture every day; it needs a special "tune-up" once in a while. You need to reconnect with your spouse. You need to work at your marriage.
Keeping a marriage together and the romance alive takes TIME.
It means making one's marriage and spouse a priority and setting aside time for only him or her.
In other words, it means planning dates on a regular basis.
Here are a four more profound ideas to get you started:
Working It Out
If you have a joint health-club membership, turn that into a date once in a while. Use the health club as a place for a tennis date or a walking date (on side-by-side machines of course) or a swimming date.
We Belong Together
Here's a date where you both can make a recommitment to each other. Plan to go out for dinner. Beforehand, each of you should draw up a list titled, "Here's What Is Special in Our Marriage." Share those lists at dinner. Celebrate all that you've done together, all that you've accomplished, all that you've weathered, and all that makes you unique. Take joy in your future together.
Remember Those Vows
Surely you'll find yourselves invited to a wedding at some point. Take that invitation as an opportunity for a date. This can be a time to remember your own wedding.
Listen carefully to the pastor's words to the married couple - listen as if the words were being spoken to you. Then listen carefully once again to the vows. Remember that these are the words you spoke to each other.
Take time after the wedding to discuss ways that you have kept those vows and ways that you need to improve. Maybe even go home and pull out your own wedding video (or, if you are our vintage, the cassette tape). Revisit your wedding and the feelings and goals you had then. Reflect on God's goodness to you in the intervening years.
Growing Together
If you have an opportunity to attend some kind of marriage enrichment conference, go ahead and go together. Take the chance to learn a bit more about your marriage, to learn more about each other, and to grow together emotionally and spiritually.
Attend an America's Family Coaches conference (for scheduling, see the Web site: www.afclive.com), or experience a "weekend to remember" at a FamilyLife Conference (for scheduling, see the Web site: www.familylife.com). Listen to a radio program called America's Family Coaches LIVE if it's on in your city, then each day try to listen and then talk about the program over dinner and share new ideas and insights on how to strengthen your own marriage and family.
In Closing
Take advantage of an opportunity today. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. Don't wait to begin to work on making a great marriage.
_____________________________________________________
Click here 
