How to Make a Better You – Relationship Tune-Up
By Nina Sabin
Do you ever feel stuck in your relationship? You don’t know why you continue trying or staying with this person? Then you haven’t had a relationship tune-up.
Most relationships, especially marriages, start with two people who fall in love and they have on blinders to anything that the other person may do that could irritate them. The honeymoon period often tends to be over quickly and then you realize you married a stranger. Two different people with different backgrounds trying to become one seems crazy, but it is possible when you keep God in the center of your relationship.
My husband and I just went on a marriage retreat weekend – A Weekend to Remember. I highly recommend everyone go to this weekend or at least find an online marriage program you can do together. We had our tune-up and now our marriage is running smoother than before. We are more in love with each other because we are being open to both listen and share each other’s needs, hopes, concerns, and desires without feeling threatened or not understood.
Think of your car. It can run ok, even sometimes roughly, but with a tune-up it runs smoothly. For a car a tune-up includes oil changes, rotation of tires, and maybe replacement of breaks and spark plugs. We also give our body a tune-up when we go to the doctors to get a yearly checkup. Why don’t we do a relationship tune-up? Well, it is time to start.
Here are some tools to get you to begin that tune-up:
1) As I mentioned earlier, go to a marriage retreat weekend.
2) Do a marriage online program.
3) Check to see if you are filling each other’s love tank. In a previous blog, Is Your Love Tank Full, I wrote about the Five Love Languages. Find out which one you are, which one your partner is, and then how to show each other love in their language.
4) Schedule time to be together. Put it on your calendar.
5) Write a love note each week to each other. It doesn’t take much time and it adds to that tuning-up. Here is a site to help you with topics to write in your love note. Another name for writing a love letter through Marriage Encounter is doing a 10 and 10. Ten minutes to write the letter and ten minutes to read and discuss. The important thing is you are communicating and filling that love tank.
6) Be open and honest. Allow your partner to share without interrupting. Listen to their perspective.
Remember you fell in love, God wanted your relationship, and even though there are rocky times, you will persevere through.
God created relationships - Gen 2:18 Then God said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” He made women to be a helper to the man. That doesn’t mean a servant but rather a partner to support, encourage, make decisions together, and have a family.
Take a look at your relationship with your partner – is it coming closer together or is it drifting apart?
Isn’t it time for your tune-up in your relationship? Contact me for a complimentary break-through session where I can guide you into how to get that tune-up going for your relationship. You will be so happy that you made the first step in improving your relationship with your partner.