Prioritizing the Relationship

It has been said that in marraige, we must place our spouse's needs above our own. However, I disagree with this. I believe we must place the needs of the relationship higher than our needs or those of our spouse.

Here are some ways in which we can priortize the relationship:

• Spending time together
• Serving one another
• Romancing one another
• Sacrificing time for the other individual
• Sacrificing our needs for those of the other individual or children
• Asking them, within reason, to sacrifice their time for us
• Asking them, within reason, to support us in our own needs for personal care - alone time
• Taking ownership for our own needs for personal time - making them known to our spouse
• Setting boundaries - learning to say "yes" when we mean "yes" and to say "no" when we mean "no".
• Directly addressing wrongdoing on the part of our spouse without trying to shame them
• Prioritizing the relationship over our children - by this I mean getting our emotional support from each other and close adult friends instead of getting our emotional needs met by our children
• Working as a team to serve our children - meeting their physical and emotional needs
• Taking time out for our own needs as a couple - date nights without the children
• Honestly making our needs known, knowing they won't always get met by our spouse
• Having a desire to meet our spouse's needs even when we aren't able to meet them
• Taking ownership for our wrongdoings and finding a desire to accept responsibility for change

In short, prioritizing the relationship involves much more than just prioritizing the other individual.  It entails a variety of needs and desires of the couple, of each individual, of self, and our children.

Life Will Never be the Same

Once a person finds the courage to take ownership for his or her actions, refuses to beat themselves up over them, and somehow finds the deep down desire to move towards the one they have harmed to say “I am so sorry. I don’t want to do that anymore.” – life will never be the same. A person with a true heart like this one, a non-defensive and non-avoidant heart, will inevitably begin to change over time, regardless of the pace. They will seek help for the parts of themselves that they have been unable to change. They will find their confidence, love, and power through their vulnerability and the ownership of their responsibility.