When my husband and I tied the knot, I was pounds lighter–and not just because that was four kids ago. I was peering over the edge of anorexia.
My carefully constructed salads for most meals and stringent rules for all things eating meant I was consuming around 1200 calories a day. I jogged relentlessly. And I was only beginning to recognize the deep dysfunction beneath my white-knuckled control over my life–complete with spiritual overtones.
Before my husband’s last (pre-COVID) international trip, I realized one of the things I miss most about him.
As he was packing–so methodical, everything in precisely-sized containers, shirts carefully folded over a packing template–I told him quietly, “See, you humanize me.”
Reading Time: 4 minutes
This is one of those posts where I need to hand it to my husband. He’s a master of the mini-date (and he probably hadn’t heard of those till I told him about this post).
I read the following from a reader of Real Simple this month–in answer to the question, “What do you admire about your parents’ relationship?”
“Even if it’s just a silly thing, like taking out the trash together every Monday night, they always carve out time to connect. May parents have been married for 36 years because they’re masters of the minidate.” (@thedapple_)
So this made me realize all the cool ways my husband does this–and ways I’ve learned to do it back. It means our day brims with potential for little touchpoints, especially when we’re both working from home.
Mini-dates are all about intentionally forming intimate connection in the little moments. It turns something as simple as driving or making the bed together into a time that says, I see you.
A mini-date doesn’t substitute for longer, more meaningful conversations or quality time. It’s not so you can check off your box: Well. You should be satisfied for the day!
(It’s like how quickie sex can be a nice little addition to a day, but you wouldn’t want every sexual encounter to be record-setting in that particular way…?)
Note: Mini-dates are also not a great time to bring up what’s irritating you about your spouse. (Nothing screams “romance” like “You never put the toilet paper on the holder,” right?)
Maybe like me, you have four kids, but it feels like six. You could be hoping your next mini-date doesn’t involve a diaper pail (at least not one you’re carrying) or scrubbing something out of the carpet.
Wondering when or where a mini-date could happen?
Ask good questions that help you see your spouse’s world. Bonus: The more you mini-date, the easier it is for you to get deeper in the future.
Other tips:
Keep a few items on hand to ratchet up your mini-date:
Another option to kick things up a notch? These pairings of a sweet, clean movie with takeout.
Connection doesn’t have to be non-existent when you have kids. Start with a mini-date–and branch out from there.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
This week it passed rather quietly, thanks to quarantine: our 20th anniversary. Holy moly, it’s weird to be this old. (Though yeah, marrying at 19 and 20 years old–that happens.)
But this is what I loved, guys. Even as I typed away at work, as you woke up and poured cereal and forgot to put bowls in the dishwasher, my insides felt like I was bubbling over with liquid gratitude.
On May 27, 2020, I woke up yet again next to my best friend in the whole world.
In the next 16 hours, you’d find me like any other day: squealing in the kitchen because your dad’s making me laugh out loud again. Sighing because we were annoyed with each other. Sneaking a kiss in his office, his beard lunging at my chin (not my favorite, but he likes it, so, cool). Enforcing discipline for sassy kids (you’re taking turns). Chatting about the now and the future. Me snapping from exhaustion. Resting silently, comfortably beside each other before bed.
I think of the smooth-cheeked kids we were, grabbing hands as we loped through a hail of rose petals. As we jumped into the unknown in its pain and ecstasy.
Truth: Real love holds a lot more buzzing clothes dryers than flower petals; a lot more checkbook-balancing and carpool lines than dancing in the half-dark.
But I’ve found holiness in both kinds of moments. It’s kind of like Jesus passing out crusty loaves and grilled fish for an eye-popping miracle.
Sometimes the miraculous nestles right up to the mundane.
We’re both such different people now.
We’ve been changed: By years in Africa. Grandma dying. That accident that left me stricken. By years smothered in apple juice and wet wipes, then the creativity and plodding of homeschooling overseas.
But also by unloading the dishwasher and getting handsy in the kitchen. Of mowing the lawn and decorating the tree. Of changing diapers and playing board games. Of arguing and going on long walks where yet again, your dad saw me like no one else.
To walk with God for twenty years together will leave you indelibly different. In many ways, this is an anniversary for three (I know, I know, that sounds weird). God loved us both just as we were, and still enough not to leave us there.
I thought I’d be this single missionary somewhere, feeding refugees. Your dad thought no one would want to follow him to seminary (which he hasn’t done yet).
But marriage has left us both barefoot on holy ground.
Being married is a different kind of love than lust or that giddy, fairy-lights feeling.
No, my heart doesn’t beat faster when Dad walks in the room. I just feel safe, like I hope you always feel coming home.
C.S. Lewis wrote,
People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on “being in love” forever.
As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change–not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one.
In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last.
The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there.*
Scientifically, the first flush of love can last at the most two years.** (That’s about 48 years less than one would hope.) There’s a lot of great brain chemistry God brewed up to get us on our feet in marriage. 
But it’s real love–each of you cheering and sacrificing for, being changed by each other, each of you tuning in more to the Holy Spirit than feelings. He’s what changed your dad to be this kind of humble and gentle, to be a strong leader and a truly good friend.
God’s changed the fabric of who I am, to be a better partner than just the “yes” (wo)man I thought your dad would want. To be a strong, more secure, more authentic woman than the passive, fearful, pretentious one I was.
When your love story becomes a real one–a little like the Velveteen Rabbit–it is sacred ground. And an anniversary makes you remember that all over again.
I’m praying that someday, each anniversary of yours is a gift like this.
Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.
–Sweet Land (PG, 2005)
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So my husband is a classic introvert, which may (rightly) make you wonder what it’s like being married to a person like yours truly.
He’s also a friendly introvert. His entire occupation is dedicated to taking care of people, and sometimes his entire day is full of meetings. With, y’know, people who talk.
That is to say, sometimes he arrives home with The Look on his face.
The Look is a very kind one, mind you. It’s just a little strained around the edges, bulging with other people’s words he’s been kindly receiving all day.
I, on the other hand, work at home all day. So I’m delighted to see him! My best friend to process with! Yippee!
Uh-huh.
So together, he and I have learned a lot about this funny dance when one of you likes to externally process more than the other. We’ve actually got a good rhythm–but it’s not one we just woke up with one day.
I’m writing over at FamilyLife.com today about 7 Ideas to Get Your Husband to Talk to You.
Want to hop over and check it out?
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Maybe you know all too well that awkward, disappointing moment. When a spouse doesn’t step up.
When the person you’re married isn’t the spiritual hero. And then? Your kids ask about it.
I need to communicate that what he’s doing isn’t fine … Should I be shielding him (or her)? Should I fake it, and pretend he’s just tired?
GAH. I feel like I’m on damage control for his decision. Since when am I the PR department?
All the complexity and emotion behind your spouse’s decision runs through your mind’s machinery, and you’re hoping for something to pop out, simple enough for a kid to understand.
(Maybe it would be a poop emoji?)
If this is you: I hope it somehow offers a hand for a slumped shoulder. Hop on over and check it out.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So I wrote you recently how a podcast had opened my eyes to all those Hollywood writers (whose techniques, as a writer, I thought I was studying, but who suck me in just the same).
If there’s any possible time when my husband doesn’t respond to me like a guy in the movies, I’m pretty sure it’s me, and my subpar level of attractiveness.
Basically, if I’m amazing enough, my husband will want me right. Now.
Because all those hours at work, the commute, the game of catch with the kids in the yard, the bills he paid after they hit the sack, and that argument with a surly teenager didn’t drain this (fictional) version of a husband one bit. Um. Not to mention one leeeetle sarcastic comment from his undoubtedly surpassingly-attractive wife.
No libido-suckers there.
Let’s get it on.
But in response to a recent post on FamilyLife’s Facebook page, FamilyLife requested an article from me for wives in the other 20%–that is, the 1 in 5 women who have a higher libido than their husbands. (True story.)
Today I’m writing over at FamilyLife.com for those of you occasionally encountering painful questions when your husband doesn’t respond sexually–and perhaps are dealing with some sexual frustration.
If you hop over and check it out, I won’t tell. (Or know.)
Keep fighting for closeness. These incredibly weird, uncomfortable conversations matter.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Who did you think you’d marry?
My husband–I unearthed this a few years into our marriage, when we finally had the fortitude to be more vulnerable with each other–thought he’d marry someone more athletic. (I am laughing out loud as I type. Poor guy.) To his credit, when he met me, I was running every morning, performing pushups and situps at night. We played intermural sports and pickup games of soccer together. We hiked together. And to my own credit, I still live an active lifestyle. But none of these has approved the actual coordination factor.
(My parents laugh about me as a child falling repeatedly into the same hole in the yard on my way over to the bus each morning. I do not share these memories. And one has to ask, if it were true: Why did no one ever fill in said hole?)
Reading Time: 4 minutes
It’s an interesting dynamic for an Americans traveling to Asia or Africa when we first encounter the shame/honor thing in cultures. To my naked eye, it’s sometimes looked like them not telling the truth.
I’m probably going to botch this story–but I think of my sister and her husband in Asia looking for a pair of shoes. The shopkeeper says, Of course we have your size! but comes out repeatedly with pairs too small…and then actually hides. (Yes. Literally.)
But is there an element of truth to graciously covering someone’s weakness? What if they…don’t have what we want?
Reading Time: < 1 minute
This infographic is based on this full-text post, Ideas to Be Your Spouse’s Wingman. Print it here!
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