Six months ago, my wife (Jody) and I decided that our lives were way too calm and predictable. We didn’t own nearly enough things that had been peed on or chewed on. So we decided to remedy all that by purchasing a Golden Retriever puppy.
The first few months of dog ownership were predictably tough. After a couple of weeks of it, I toyed with thoughts of ‘accidentally’ leaving the gate to our fence open so our puppy could answer the call of the wild.
But alas, I never gave into that temptation. I decided to ride it out, believing that he just had to get easier with time.
Our dog, Chewy, isn’t a puppy any more, although he still acts like one in many ways. He certainly lives up to his name, chewing on anything and everything within his reach. The lanky dog’s bite has left impressions on more things in our home than I care to count, including our marriage.
Before we got Chewy, we had developed some habits that helped us focus on our marriage, but those habits promptly evaporated as we had to dedicate time and effort to incorporating the new recruit into our clan.
For the past few years, Jody and I have had a ritual of getting up early to exercise and read. As part of her routine, Jody would send me an email nearly every morning, so the first thing I saw when I got to work was some insight into what was going on in her world. And I would respond, giving her a glimpse into my world.
This was a small, yet important, part of our communication that helped create closeness and understanding in our marriage. But the first few months of having a puppy are almost like having a newborn. Our sleep suffered, so we started getting up later to offset the loss of sleep. And Jody’s morning routine now included walking a dog, which meant there was no time to email me.
Another one of our disciplines that suffered was what we call ‘No-Tech Tuesday.’ One night a week we turn off the TV, phones, laptops and tablets and simply talk to each other. We usually have some questions in hand to guide our conversation beyond surface-level chatter, and through this process, we learn what is happening with each other.
This has been a vital way for us to create intimacy and to help me gauge the pulse of our marriage. I believe in this practice so much that I started a web site called no-techtuesday.com. Yet as our time and attention spans were spread thinner, this well-established routine fell.
Losing these two seemingly small practices from our marriage hurt our relationship. As the communication dropped, the distance between us widened. In the absence of intimate conversation, doubt crept it. And I was reminded of the years our marriage spent in the wilderness before we developed these habits.
We got back on the bandwagon recently, and almost instantly, I felt the temperature of our marriage change. It amazes me how we survived so long without these practices. But then, that pretty much sums up the first decade of our marriage – just surviving.
If that is where you find your marriage today, I would encourage you to develop new habits of your own. Find out what your spouse’s greatest needs are, and build new routines into your life that help you meet those needs. Small habits can truly be the difference between surviving and thriving.
