5 Ways To Jump-Start Your Flat-Lined Marriage

I’ve been writing for pay for the past 17 years, during which I’ve also had kids dwelling in my body or my abode. For the past 4 years, I’ve had teenagers (and pre-teens) in my house. Also for the past 4 years, it’s been harder to date my husband than getting Republicans and Democrats to chat about universal healthcare. Can you guess what the core obstruction is to my romantic life?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about because you’re too blurry-eyed from ferrying your teenagers all over the earth (while simultaneously working a day job, carving out time for your passion project and attempting to have your home not look like a Motel 6 for the Coronavirus) then this article is for you, too.

Hey, you, tired parent… wake up!

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According to The Guardian, who shared an article on how often married couples communicate, it reported, “The Office for National Statistics finds that on average we spend two to two and half hours a day together, including weekends. And what do we do when we’re alone with our loved ones? Watch TV (one-third of all the time spent together), eat (30 minutes) and do housework together (24 minutes).”

Couples On Average Spend 20 Minutes a Day Together

I’m no mathematician, but if you take out the TV, chores, and eating, you’re left with maybe 20 minutes a day of quality time with your spouse. If you’re like the rest of us, there’s a decent chance this does not include bonding over great literature or breaking out the yoga DVD so you can Downward Dog together on matching exercise mats.

Driving the Teens to Their Events Does Not Count as Quality Time

While in the past your date nights used to include dinner and movies, perhaps it’s now morphed into driving your teenagers to their dinners and movies. (No, you don’t get to slap the label “Fun Family Time” on it either. Stressing over sunscreen, missing lawn chairs and ballet shoes is not family time. It’s a busy time; it’s exhausting.)

While I wouldn’t swap this crazy season with my teenagers for anything in the world, I realized a few years back that my kids were having an epic life at the expense of my own; it was taking its toll on my marriage.

Don’t Blame the Kids For Your Lack of Scheduling

I didn’t intentionally blame my kids for my lack of balance when it came to their needs and my marriage, but I wasn’t exactly the best version of their mother in not setting limits. I was tired, strung out and feeling weirdly isolated given I’d been married to their father for 16 years.

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Between running our family like a corporation, we definitely had a well-run house, but a happy home was another story. Something had to give.

Despite how strung out I was, and despite how annoyed I was at my husband that, enter victim story, I didn’t feel as connected to him as I once had, I began to look at my part in our poor communication. It was far too easy to pretend I wasn’t upset at our lack of intimacy than to… oh God… wade into vulnerable waters.

The sad truth? Communicating with my spouse was like sitting in a big pile of crap. It smelled something awful, but it was warm. I was used to it.

As I mentioned in my last post on marriage, I didn’t want a divorce, and neither did my mate. Giving everything to our kids and nothing to our union, however, had taken a very dark toll on us — not to mention it was not a healthy dynamic for our children. Our kids did not need one more outing to feel loved. They needed us, their parents, to model what true love looked like.

So, while the following list does not on the surface appear romantic, I can guarantee you that if you employ these techniques, you will feel closer to your spouse before you are even halfway through. (Yes, that’s a promise!)

5 Ways To Spend More than 20 Intimacy-Producing Minutes a Day with Your Spouse!

1. Communication Contracts

“What’s that? You mean like something you’d use for your dishwasher?” you might ask. “Yes, sir (and mam)!” I will heartily reply. You would not invest in an expensive piece of machinery without certainty that it will deliver clean, squeaky dishes. The same goes for communicating. My spouse and I each individually made a list of trigger topics that made us nuts. We took the top five that overlapped and made a new contract together. Then, like our marriage certificate, we signed it.

2. Set Time Limits for Hot Button Issues

In addition to writing down our triggers in a contract, we agreed not to discuss these explosive items when we were in the car together, in public, on the way out the door and one hour before big events. (Um, things started getting crazy quiet.)

While drawing up a contract sounds clinical, so does divorce papers. Contracts turned out to be a huge help in bringing some much-needed levity into our lives — especially the bedroom. It was amazing how just not talking about sticky subjects (special needs, money, parents, work) created space for more fun-filled topics that once used to unite us (travel, house projects, hopes, and dreams).

3. Find Someone Safe to Discuss Trigger Topics With:

We found a 12-Step Group to discuss our most pressing problems. That group alone was responsible for adding intimacy to our marriage (and no, the teenagers were not invited!). If you are not a group joiner, you can find a therapist, a person of faith or even a few friends to get real with. Just opening yourself up to another person or two goes a huge way in bringing a husband and wife closer together.

4. Date Night

With a contract in place, my husband and I felt much safer about going out to eat together and not spending $50 to discuss our kids’ grades and why exactly their laundry makes it to the washing machine but never the dryer. (’Cause yeah, that was romantic.)

As with communication, we created a contract where we committed to spending a few hours a week with each other outside the house. If we had to miss it, we made it a point to reschedule it as soon as possible later in that week. Even though at first we were having a rough time talking, just knowing that we were making each other a priority really softened our attitude toward one another.

5. Bring Spirituality In

I can’t stress this enough. Whether you want to call God Jesus, Yahweh, Muhammad, the Universe or the Ceiling Fan, it matters little. What matters is you begin letting go of the idea that you or your spouse have to fix everything.

The very act of releasing your worry to something greater than you will allow more intimacy into your life. (Bonus points if you pray together.)

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“This List is Too Hard… I Don’t Have Time with The Teenager’s Needs”

I can hear your complaints from here; mine were the same. But I’ll be frank: If you don’t attempt to find something to bond you with your spouse, your teens might not have a set of two parents in the same house. For some of you, that might be okay. I’m not judging! But if you’ve read this far, chances are you’d like to avoid a break-up if possible.

Trust me: your teenagers might act like they don’t care, but they are watching you. In seeing you transform they, too, will learn the valuable lesson of intimate communication. Friends, that’s far more important than getting to a soccer match on time.