This Is A Must – There’s No Way Around It – Stop Fooling Yourself
I don’t care how long you’ve been marred, or what the relationship gurus teach, after great communication, you and your spouse REQUIRE a LOT of quantity AND quality time together.

Anyone who tells you differently either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or has a string of failed relationships trailing behind them.

Time. Time. Time. You and your husband or wife need LOTS of it. And not just quality time either.

Massive Attention
Your marriage needs and deserves massive amounts of attention from you and your spouse. Your relationship needs your time – and lots of it – to grow.

The Quality Time Myth
It’s a myth I wish would die but I don’t think it will anytime soon.

This idea of quality time.

If you have kids, let me ask you, do your kids want quality or quantity time? Both!!

Nothing is more important than our relationships. And our marriage relationship is the most important one of all.

Your marriage deserves more than quality time. It deserves quantity time, too.

I’ve learned in working with many couples that when a husband or wife gives their marriage quality time then their marriage isn’t their number one priority, something else is is more important to them, and their marriage suffers as a result.

What Did You Prefer In The Beginning?
Think back to when you first started dating.

What did you want? Limited time with your girlfriend or boyfriend or unlimited time?

Unlimited!

You couldn’t get enough time. There was never enough time. You hated saying goodbye. And you couldn’t wait until the day you were married so you could be together forever.

What happened? Where did those feelings go? Where did things change from wanting to spend every minute together to being satisfied with quality time?

Don’t Let Life Shove You Around
But I can hear you thinking: “I don’t have the time. I have to work, go to they gym, take care of the kids…”

I know. And all of those things are important. But there are people with careers, kids, and who take care of their health who are able to find time to spent quantity time with their spouse and one of the ways they do it is by spending a lot less time in front of the television for starters. There’s always a way to organize our time better so that we the time to give our attention to what matters most.

Don’t let life push you around. Take charge. Make love your first priority.

Stay focused on each other.

Give each other your best attention.

Give each other massive amounts of time because no one else will ever love or care for you as much as your spouse.

So do whatever you can right now to give them your focus.

A New Code
Here’s a new code for your marriage. Repeat after me: “I will no longer neglect my spouse (name).”

Decide right now that you will do something this week to make your spouse feel like he or she is the most important person in the world to you.

Make them your number one priority.

And then watch miraculous things begin happening in your relationship. One of them will be this: Joy will revisit your marriage.

A New Attitude
You say, “But we don’t have time.”

That’s not true. We have time for whatever matters most to us.

Here’s a new attitude: Consider giving time to your marriage to be a relational requirement.

You show up to work don’t you? Why? Because you have to if you want to keep your job and provide for your family.

If it’s important enough to your family’s well-being for you to show up to work then it’s important enough for your family’s well-being for you to show up to your marriage.

Time. You have the time you need right now. Everyone has 24 hours. No one is getting anymore time. We must learn to organize it in ways that support what matters most to us.

A New Habit
If you and your spouse haven’t been spending a lot of time together in recent years, then it might feel pretty weird when you start spending time together again.

Any new habit requires a “breaking-in” period.

So give yourself time for this new habit to feel good, comfortable and right.

Give yourself time for the habit to become automatic – to be so important to you that you wouldn’t even think of living life any other way than by giving large amounts of time to your spouse.

Time For What?
A common excuse of couples who push back against the idea of spending quantity time together is this: How are we going to fill ALL of that time – what are we going to do?

It’s a valid question because the last thing we want is for two people to simply take up space together because they don’t know what to do.

For couples who are in trouble, what we’re talking about here is interacting with each other, engaging each other in conversation, taking time to enjoy each other.

Two Ways To Spend Quantity Time Together
There are at least two ways to enjoy more quantity time together. But you have to be careful with one o f them.

1. Take time to focus exclusively on each other
2. Take time to do things with other people

If you’re facing marriage problems, then make #1 your priority. Take time to focus on each other. This helps you to re-establish communication and develop healthy interaction.

Make each other your focus not the activity. Put your attention on one another not the event.

In #2 above, the event or other people get your focus and attention. This is healthy. But if you’re in a struggling marriage then it can work against you because you can be together BUT ignore each other because your attention is on the event.

During your quantity time, you need to be interacting each other.

Socializing with other people whether it’s through programs, special events or hobbies is important to strengthening the interpersonal relationships that you share as a couple.

But this isn’t spending time together as a couple because you’re not giving one another your undivided attention. You and your spouse need time to strengthen the personal connection that you share.

Giving your husband or wife your undivided attention lets them know that he or she is the most important person in your life…and that you wouldn’t have it any other way!!