9 Comments
User's avatar
Josh McIntire's avatar

Great stuff! We've been going on nightly walks just around the block, and that's been a game-changer! Longterm, we've also been learning to paint together, which can be conversational when we're both not frustrated at our lack of skill.

Expand full comment
Jeremiah Greenwell's avatar

My wife has this habit of when I show up she leaves. It's not deliberate. But then that's usually the problem.

Expand full comment
Citizen Sane's avatar

Why not ask where she’s going, and follow after her?

Expand full comment
Von's avatar

Interestingly I don't think that most marriages, in the Scriptures and in history, would fit this. It seems to me that what they tended to do together (outside of sex, and I wonder how much sex these modern couples are having anyway) was work related. The husband would bring home the deer, the wife would preserve the meat. Or all the boys would be out harvesting, and the girls would bring a meal out to them.

I wonder how much of the 'doing together' that we should be doing is work. Advancing the goals of the household. As for me and my house... we will serve the LORD.

Expand full comment
Michael Foster's avatar

Of course they wouldn't. The examples were just examples, not prescriptions.

Expand full comment
Von's avatar

Well, yes. But I am suggesting that one class of 'together thing' that a couple/family should be doing is 'advancing the goals of the household' through work. Remodeling the garage so you have room for the next few kids, or to put in a schoolroom, for example. Take the wife and kids when you man a witness booth at the local fair or something.

IE not just leisure activities, but work activities. Together.

Expand full comment
Michael Foster's avatar

Agreed, that’s why I wrote this:

“One of the best ways to future-proof your marriage is to develop habits of shared work and shared play. Fix something around the house. Raise backyard chickens. Serve in a church ministry together. Learn a new skill. Take a dance class. Do a project. Work side-by-side.”

Expand full comment
Gordon R. Vaughan's avatar

My wife and I take walks, several times a week, and often go out to eat. You mentioned puzzles, as an unusual example. I can still remember evenings on the patio, when I was little, with my parents reading a book out loud together. As a kid, I thought that was a bit odd, but have since read of numerous couples who really enjoyed that.

After a few years, my parents got too busy and stopped that practice, and didn't really replace it with anything else. We never really had that kind of peaceful family life again.

Expand full comment
Judah Cofer's avatar

Good word brother!

Expand full comment