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.