Marriage Muscle

I recently bought a weight bench and some weights. My plan, my goal is to lift consistently, build muscle and trim fat. I also want to play basketball to offsite the weight lifting with some cardiovascular activity. This is not my first time lifting weights, or playing basketball. I played basketball every chance I got in high school and college. When I was in college I took a weight training class which jump started my love for the gym. I became a ‘gym rat’. The results started to show and the more I realized the results, the more I worked out. Areas that needed to be trimmed became lean and cut. Areas that needed to bulk up started to expand. I was excited, full of energy, and proud of the muscle I had acquired…and then…

I stopped…

My gym attendance became inconsistent, and my inconsistency turned into neglect. I stopped playing basketball as well. Of course you know what happened…I started to put on pounds and inches. I was always a healthy eater, my metabolism was very high. When I stopped working out however, I continued to eat the same way that I did when I was working out. It had a destructive effect on everything that I had built.

Now for a moment of transparency:
My wife and I did the same thing in our marriage early on. Before we were married we wined and dined each other, we invested time for conversation and quality time. Our heels were over our heads!! Our relationship ‘muscle’ was getting bigger and stronger. The result/payoff of this was marriage. After we got marriage, it was like we breathed a sigh of relief, we don’t have to ‘workout’ anymore. We neglected the stuff that made our ‘marriage muscle’ stronger. Conversations shortened, quality time lessened, sex was infrequent. The pounds of indifference and routine were piling on. We blamed it on the fact that we now had to be ‘serious, and ‘responsible’. We were parents and were overworked, tired and stressed over finances…blah blah blah. The truth of the matter is that we stopped ‘working out’. Thankfully we did not get so out of shape that we could not recover…

We have since then gotten back in the marriage gym as it were. We started working out our marriage muscle. We are not where we want to be but over the years the muscle has gotten bigger. Areas that needed to be trimmed have taken shape over the years. Less complacency, more quality time, great conversation, and even greater sex has helped to grow this muscle. We are on our way to developing a consistent ‘marriage workout’. The same issues that we faced in the beginning have not gone away. We are still stressed over finances, still working hard and very tired. We still realize and accept the magnitude of our responsibilities. But, we have decided to be intentional in our approach to building a better marriage.

How is you marriage health? Are there some pounds that need to be shed? Could you use a new workout regiment?
Start today! Prayer, communication, quality time, affection, compliments, kisses, laughter, more sex…add all of these and more into your daily workout. You will begin to see a huge difference! If your marriage muscle is looking great, don’t get comfortable. Continue to workout and look for even more creative ways of maintaining what you have developed.
Muscle shirts for everyone…LOL

God Bless

“A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt everyday.”
– Andre Mauoris (tweet this)