Like many other women these days, I have been drinking up the Rachel Hollis Kool-aid, complete with reading her book, consuming all of her online content and listening to her new podcast with her husband. She is a force of a woman and I love that about her. I also appreciate her intentional moves with her husband to connect and plan their life….something that’s been nagging at my heart and our marriage for a while as we navigate a new life with 3 older children.
Once I thought through some of the latest squabbles in our relationship, so many of them came from little misunderstandings about our busy schedule. Honoring your partner’s need for hobbies, and interests and yes their own life AND getting all the kids to all the things is a tricky balance. I love Rachel’s suggestion of sitting down each Sunday and going through the week…we are one month into this new adventure and it’s been a great connecting point at the end of each weekend and has made our weeks (filled with three different school schedules, my volleyball schedule, and Scott’s hunting) feel a little bit smoother.
We have also been trying to get a monthly date night in starting this summer and hopefully continuing….making this an effort will not only improve our own connection, but also show our kiddos who are starting to be interested in romantic relationships a positive model of respect and pursuing your partner, even as adult married (yet still independent) humans.
One conversation we held during a date night during the summer was setting our VALUES as a couple. I thought I would document those here (just in case we lose our way and the only way back is to google search my blog for important life contents).
Scott and Patti’s Relationship Values (in no particular order of importance):
1. Quality time together – yearly vacations, building downtime into weekends (saying no to all the invites)
2. Communication about conflict/feelings – we don’t keep things under wraps and we don’t allow our children to let things go “unresolved” (we also resolve our conflict in front of our children….hoping they see the problem solving, grace, and forgiveness involved in a true relationship)
3. Personal Growth – we believe in therapy, we believe in personal growth books, we believe in moving forward and becoming better selves
4. Pursuit of passions – each of us has passions outside of our family and we support each other in time away to enjoy those things
5. Traditions/Celebrations – we love yearly chances to celebrate family moments and we do so, unapologetically…..live-a-versaries, forever family days, birthdays, behavior improvement rewards, etc.
Have you tried this with your partner or children?? It turned out to be a great conversation and led me to do some analyzing about how we spend our time and whether or not that REALLY matched up with the values we agreed upon. Happy Thursday everyone!