When Your Marriage Feels Like Roommates Rather Than Romance
The stages of life with kids can either grow our marriage or hurt our marriage. It can leave a gap if not carefully guarded.
What I am about to write and share with you is a hard one to write, but one we walked and overcame. One the Lord graciously led us through to help us overcome the barrier from stopping us from growing deeper in the Lord and one another.
“Behold, I am making all things new.” Revelation 21:5a
At the time we had our 2 kids and I was pregnant with our third. Things seemed to be fine in our marriage. Til it wasn’t. The Lord graciously showed me, marriage was never to look or feel like you are living with a roommate. Hearing this from the Lord left me in sudden denial while also stinging a bit.
“Roommate? How could this be? Our marriage is fine.”
Until it wasn’t. Inside, my heart craved my husband’s closeness and nearness. But I didn’t know it. With his work, it required travel. So much travel we would only see him on weekends. Late Friday nights he would arrive leaving it too hard to even speak to one another as we both were tired from the long week we had. Saturdays trying to rush in our time together knowing Sunday was quickly coming and he would soon have to head back. It was not enough. But in those days, we really didn’t know how to be husband and wife. We were being more of roommates. Never really asking the details of our days, feelings, having deep meaningful conversations. No date nights, just living and moving on with life.
Only by the Lord’s grace was He able to restore, redeem, and renew our marriage by providing a new job offer that would have us all to move. Moving six hours away from our newly home we purchased a year prior, from everyone, from our church home, from friends, to a whole new city, new people, new climate, new everything. This is where the Lord began to plant in us both a meaningful marriage with open conversations, dates, fun, laughter, and what marriage should be and represent.
Sometimes the call to a new city is the best place the Lord wants for you to be. The call to a new place, new city, can be the planting and rebirthing of something new. It takes acknowledgment. Acknowledging that your marriage is on the stench, feeling like there could be more, and also accepting the Lords invitation to His way for your marriage.
Your marriage was never meant to be like living with roommates.
Your marriage was never meant to feel “boring” or limited because kids came along. Or if you don’t have kids, it was never meant to be “hi”, “bye.”
Your marriage was CREATED to reflect Christ.
Your marriage was CREATED to have open conversations. Having open conversations with one another helps you both to see where you are needing improvement on.
Your marriage was created to flirt with one another. It sparks and reignites the flame that once was there but somehow died along the way.
While living in Corpus Christi, the Lord mercifully healed the wounds and filled that gap in our marriage by first healing and restoring me. My own heart. I did a study in our bible study group called, What’s it Like to be Married to Me, with other women from the church. As I began to read it, I also setup my prayer closet and began to pray over my spouse and marriage while allowing the Lord to mend and heal my own life. In that time, my husband and I both did a questionnaire to help strengthen our marriage and to see where it stands. It was a biblical questionnaire helping us to better understand one another and where we felt the least “seen.” Though I do admit, our husbands are not God and should not replace God, but in marriages, we do need to support one another and see one another to a level of love just as Christ loves the church.
But in this time, in the time living far away from home, starting to date, we found connection again. We simply lost connection while having our kids. We began to be too focused on kids and our home, work and chores that we lost sight of one another.
When your marriage feels like its crumbling, or a gap is there, and you feel you are living with a roommate, here are some helpful tips to help restore your marriage and bring spark into your marriage.
Tips to Respark Your Marriage
- Pray. Always pray and ask Abba Father for direction and clarity on your marriage. Ask Him what barrier is holding you guys back from growing and how to move forward together. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17 “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,” Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
- Invite the Lord in your marriage. Our marriage cannot thrive without the Lord. Our marriage needs to be God centered, not “me” centered. Ecclesiastes 4:12 “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
- Read the Word of God, do bible studies and read books on marriages, the ones the Lord leads you too. I always recommend to my friends and those who ask me how we overcame our marriage hurdles (more to come on the blog) and I share the book I mentioned above, What’s it Like to be Married to Me. It has changed my life in countless of ways. I also read The 5 Love Languages, The Naked Marriage and listen to their podcast. I read so much I can recommend more if needed. But this is the start.
- Date. Date your spouse. Dating does not stop just because you have kids. Or work. Or a house full of chores. Plan ahead of time. We use to do once every two months. It brought excitement each time we counted the days down.
- Have a meaningful conversation. Ask one another what their dreams, desires, goals are. Listen well. Hear them as if they are important. Because they are. Your kids will one day grow up and move out of the house and then it will be you and your spouse. Work on your marriage now so when that day comes when you are empty nesters, you already know how to connect because each day you worked on it in the Lord.
- Fill Your Cup. Allow the Lord to fill your cup up with His presence, people who have walked these roads before, and even listening to podcasts. These help speak truth to our souls canceling out the voice of the enemy. Focus on the Family is great along with XO Marriage.
- Do an Assessment. If the Lord leads, He knows one another’s hearts, it isn’t to be jealous of or rude or to take advantage of one another, but to see what could help strengthen your marriage. Both my husband and I did this and we switched our papers to see our answers. Though it stung a bit, I knew what I needed work on and He knew too. We both felt this sense of submission for one another. Here is one from Focus on the Family. Ours was the Emotional Needs Questionnaire.
- Talk it out. Pray and ask the Lord to lead your conversation and to fill it with grace and truth. Share your heart with your husband. Speak to one another of how your marriage feels and start to navigate ways on how to improve your marraige.
Friend, I know it can be hard for some. But pray and ask the Lord for guidance, James 1:5. He never leaves us in our places of stagness in our marriage. He wants to restore, redeem and fill our marriage up with Him. He wants our marriage to thrive not just survive. He wants our marriage to reflect His Son, and the beautiful love He has for us. It can be done. It can be restored and redeemed. It can thrive friend. It takes intentional time with one another and inviting the Lord in your marriage. It takes you and the Lord daily, pursuing the Lord daily.
All things can be done with the Lord and work being put into it.
Placing God first, then our marriage, changes the whole family dynamic in such a positive way! Yes we love our children. Yes our children are amazing and we love and adore them immensely, but our marriage… it needs us more!
It’s time we prioritize better and invite the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and Abba father in our marriage everyday that we awake.
My Prayer for you
“Father, forgive us for placing our marriage on the back burner and allowing the enemy’s voices slither in through. Where my hope seems lost, restore it and have it overflow with Jesus. I pray that you be the center of our marriage, leading, guiding, and equipping us to be more like you Jesus, but most importantly, may our hearts for one another carry a love, the love that we have for you to our husband. Lord show us how to prioritize our spouse and help us find ways to connect with one another. I ask that in this time as we feel as though we are roommates, I rebuke that feeling and ask that you restore our marriage to how you created marriage to be since the beginning of time. Change my eyes to view my spouse as you do and change his eyes to view me the way you do. Change our minds of what we think marriage should be and instead, may our minds be filled with you and how you ordained marriage to be. Bring laughter, bring joy, bring excitement and memories in our marriage. If anyone is against our marriage, I pray you deal with them bountifully and remove them from our lives. I pray you bring people who encourage our marriage to reflect Christ and encourage us to be better, not bitter, in our lives. Help us in this roommate phase and let it be no more Lord. Bring a divine connection with you, myself and my spouse. Reignite our marriage Lord in Jesus name, amen.”
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