It Starts With Attraction
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It Starts With Attraction
How Ignoring Time Together Can Destroy Your Marriage
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Could the secret to a thriving marriage lie in the simple act of intentionally spending time together? Join me and my husband, Rob, as we recount our own experiences of navigating the demanding world of military life while keeping our relationship a top priority. We share candid stories and insights, emphasizing the importance of consciously setting aside time for each other amidst the chaos of family and work commitments. Discover how neglecting these moments can lead to a loss of intimacy and even jeopardize family dynamics, offering a cautionary tale to those who may be caught up in the whirlwind of everyday life.
In this episode, we uncover simple yet powerful techniques for rekindling intimacy and passion through spending time with your partner. From morning coffee chats to 15-minute daily check-ins, these seemingly small gestures can make all the difference. We also discuss the balance between nurturing your relationship and spending time as a family, highlighting the need to keep these interactions separate and distinct. The message is clear: be proactive, take ownership, and prioritize these moments to ensure your marriage not only survives but thrives in the face of life's pressures. Whether you're juggling hectic schedules or just looking to strengthen your bond, tune in for practical advice and inspiration to enrich your relationship.
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
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One of the things that listeners have been asking about a lot lately is how do you intentionally spend more time with your husband or with your wife? What are some ways that we can do that? How can we actually do that? And so for this episode today, I've asked my husband, rob, to join me as we have this conversation, because in some ways, you could look at our life and say that we've spent a lot of time together. We were married eight years before we ever had kids. It was just the two of us. We traveled a lot, but we were also separated a lot during those first eight years of our marriage, with you being in the military and being gone for trainings and things like that. So we actually have probably a bit of a different perspective about spending time together than maybe some people do.
Speaker 2:I agree, yeah, so you know, intentionally creating time to spend together is the topic of the podcast today how and why and the most important thing about accomplishing intentionally creating time to spend together is go, do it, just just do it. That's it, that's, that's my whole speech.
Speaker 1:People have so many reasons as to why they can't.
Speaker 2:Thank you for attending my Ted talk, but no, you raise a very good point and and that is kind of what I need to address here Um, let's say you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking to myself yeah, okay, I get it. I need to intentionally create time to spend with my spouse, uh, but you know, the kids and I have work and this and I I have that and I've got book club and I have. So what I want you to do if you're a listener is I want you to go make that, that list, and we're going to talk about it. Go make a list on paper. As long as you need, use multiple pieces, everything, keeping you yes.
Speaker 2:And pause this podcast and go make that list. Okay, unpause, I hope you made the list. Now we're going to talk about it, take it, crumple it up into a ball and throw it in the trash. I'm being for real, and the reason I say that is because I there are so many people I will try to talk to about something like this, and the fact is, I can come up with a hundred ideas. What you can do to intentionally create time to spend with your spouse Okay. Well, that doesn't work. Okay, we'll go try this, but at the end of the day, I'm not your personal problem solver, I. That doesn't work. Okay, we'll go try this, but at the end of the day, I'm not your personal problem solver. I certainly couldn't do it here on this podcast.
Speaker 2:We all have to take ownership of the fact that we can solve our own problems. We can work through what the barriers are. We're adults. If you're smart enough to go get a job and stay hired at that job for any length of time, you're smart enough to go get a job and stay hired at that job for any length of time. You're smart enough to get with your spouse and both of you put your heads together and figure out what it's going to take to intentionally spend time together, and you have to take your excuses and throw them in the trash.
Speaker 2:I could sit here and spit out a hundred different ideas on what to do for child care, or what to do if you have different schedules. You know he works a night shift, you work the day shift, or all these different things. You know, at the end of the day, you have to solve your own problems and you have to make it work and you have to make it happen. What I would rather talk about and I know this is a bit doom and gloom are the consequences of not doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah you will grow apart. It's not an if, it's a when, and the when will be sooner rather than later. You will grow apart. Your intimacy with one another will fade. When intimacy fades, passion fades. And when we're talking about the triangulation of love if you know what that's, that's a reference to the only thing that'll then be keeping you two hanging on is just a commitment which is empty love which is empty.
Speaker 1:Love is commitment. It's empty.
Speaker 2:You both are like. Well, we're committed to each other. That's it.
Speaker 1:We don't like each other. We don't like each other. That's it. We don't like each other. We don't like each other, nope.
Speaker 2:And it's like well, we're together for the kids, right, I've seen that, and as soon as the kids go off to college, the parents divorce.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it affects them even when they're in college, by the way. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just so we're clear.
Speaker 2:My best friend too Multiple best friends and so, um, I actually saw it throw one of my best buddies career trajectory off. He had a a level of career ahead of him that he was very much on track to achieve and his parents divorced through him for an emotional and mental loop that threw that off really bad and it took him years to recover circle back around and be successful.
Speaker 2:So I saw a guy who Vanderbilt so smart you gotta be smart to get into Vanderbilt. He was like a. He was a very high GPA, high achieving individual and it was his senior year of college. His parents started their divorce at some point and then over the summer it escalated and then come fall, he had a 0.0 GPA.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:He was, I think, academically like expelled from school.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Do you think that may have affected his future career? 100% so.
Speaker 1:Probably got kicked out of Vanderbilt. Yeah, you just said he got expelled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for academics. So when we talk about intentionally creating time to spend together, you have to solve the problems together, and it can be an even bigger challenge if the other person doesn't want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that stinks.
Speaker 1:So for us, one of the things that you've said a lot is we've been to, we've been apart so much when we couldn't control it, so we should. How do you say it? You say it better than this.
Speaker 2:No, I think you're on the right track. We should not spend more time apart from one another than what we absolutely must. When we were in the. When I say we were in the military, when I was in the military, it was. If the army is not forcing us to be apart from one another, let us not voluntarily be apart from one another.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now it's if you don't absolutely have to go somewhere by yourself for work, let's not voluntarily do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And so even when we brought our kids home I mean before the kids, of course, you know every night could be date night.
Speaker 2:It was easier.
Speaker 1:It makes it a lot easier and it's cheaper because you don't have to find babysitters and logistically and all of those things. But even then there would still be times where I would say, oh, I'm just so tired, like I'm tired from work or I'm tired for whatever, and you would just never let me take away, like you would never let me get by with those excuses. You would always say, no, we're going to do this.
Speaker 2:It's very important that we do.
Speaker 1:And so you've really been more of the spearhead of making sure our date nights happen. I've probably been more of the spearhead of okay, well, if we're going to do them so often, then I want them to be fun and not the same thing every time, Because our standard is, you know, dinner and a movie.
Speaker 2:It's a different movie every time.
Speaker 1:You love the movie part, I love the dinner part. So we've made kind of the the compromise of I'll pick a new place each time we go and that's my favorite part of date night and you'll pick the movie. Or sometimes we'll go and do something completely different, like Valentine's day this year we went and did painting or we've done dance classes in the past and things like that. But it also doesn't just have to be date nights. I think people here intentionally create time together and they think, oh, like planning and yes logistic.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be fancy. Spending time together is in the evening. Go for a walk.
Speaker 2:The kids are old enough to just sit there and babysit themselves for a minute. Yeah, go for a walk around the neighborhood for an hour. I promise you you'll both talk. People naturally talk way more when they're walking. It will build intimacy. It will help keep the flame alive.
Speaker 2:Some people like almost all they do is go on walks together and those people have pretty good marriages. So when I say spend time together and throw away your excuses, I mean that. And it doesn't have to be a fancy date night, it doesn't have to be a fancy restaurant, it doesn't have to be fancy plans. You don't have to go skydiving, bungee jumping, ax throwing, whatever it is. You don't have to do some cool, unique activity every time, even if you're both very adventurous people. If you can manage that, great. I think everybody wishes they could manage stuff like that, and we've occasionally managed like an axe throwing thing or whatever. But a lot of times we're lucky if we can pull off dinner in a movie. But that doesn't absolve us or excuse us from even just sitting on the couch together for 30 minutes to an hour at the end of the day, just talking. Or sometimes it's even us, both of us just laying in bed and, as we're getting ready to fall asleep, talking.
Speaker 1:I mean that was last night. We put the kids to bed a bit early. Eliana was wanting us to do stuff that's our daughter and you and I said no, mommy and daddy need to just go talk and have time together.
Speaker 2:We did do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so and that's the other part that I think is key it can be really easy to be distracted by the kids. When you're trying to have the intentional time together with your spouse, you should also have intentional time as a family. But both of those are important, but you need. But having intentional time as a family is not the same as having intentional time with just your husband or wife.
Speaker 1:So making sure that the kids aren't just easily interrupting, taking your focus off of that intentional time with your spouse. So put them to bed 30 minutes early, an hour early. There's no reason that you can't do something like that, or you wake both. If you're both morning people, both of you wake up early together and do something in the morning, but you find the time because you have to make the time.
Speaker 2:I would even go so far as to say that double dates, as cool as they are, as fun as they are, as much as we'd like doing them on occasion not what we're talking about. Parties, where the both of you go to a party and socialize again not what we're talking. We're talking about time, correct Balls, where the both of you go to a party and socialize again. Not, we're talking. We're talking about work dinners, correct balls when we used to go to the military balls time, where it is just the two of you locked together. Your souls are interacting with one another. That doesn't have to be talking. It could be dancing. That's a great way that people do it. That's a lost art in the modern era. I suck at it.
Speaker 1:You going to book dance classes for us?
Speaker 2:No, Well, maybe, maybe.
Speaker 1:You have to. You said it on the podcast. I have to now you have to.
Speaker 2:It can be a lot of things, but it needs to be the two of you locked together, as if your souls are intertwining.
Speaker 1:And we're not just talking about sex either.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So everything we're talking about is separate from that. Like this is actually like Correct Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, time together and yeah, sexy time is great. Not actually what I'm referring to Time where the two of you engage Probably a good amount of eye contact, like what we're doing right here.
Speaker 1:I can feel the vibe. Is this our intentional time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this counts, no more date night this week.
Speaker 2:I'm actually going to cancel it cause we're getting it right now, uh, but it needs to be just the two of you and, honestly, a walk in the park, a walk in the neighborhood, dinner and a movie those are great avenues to approach it. Um so um. If I were to list takeaways, it would be take your excuses and throw them away. Everybody's got excuses. So tired of trying to talk to people about something as important as this and I'm just met with a huge wall of excuses. My message to folks is look, you're all adults, you've got to figure it out, and it's very important that you do so. Overcome the excuses, and your spouse may have excuses too. This is one of those things where I don't think it's controlling to say this is important that we do, let's plan it. I insist. The consequences are that inevitably, you'll be in a dead marriage. The only thing keeping you guys hanging on is a commitment, and that'll start fading.
Speaker 1:So we've taken a lot of those excuses off the table. You don't have to worry about finances, it can happen at home. You don't have to worry about child care it can happen at home. You can do both of those things where you're going out. But this is really just about how can you spend time together, just the two of you, without distractions.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be date night.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be date night. So figure out a way to start doing that together. Even if it starts with 15 minutes a night of just asking each other about your day, that counts. This doesn't have to be some grand, expensive, elegant. It can be. You're in your pajamas, I would say, drinking a glass of wine, but that's terrible for your sleep. Don't do that. Maybe it's in the morning, drinking a cup of coffee and you're just connecting.
Speaker 2:You're just talking.
Speaker 1:It's literally that simple.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that will build intimacy, which I would argue would likely build passion and keep your marriage from being a dead shell of a marriage.
Speaker 1:So the biggest key takeaway from this week is just do it. Go and spend intentional quality time with your husband, with your wife, and bonus to go and spending quality time, intentional quality time, with your family as well. But remember those aren't the same things. You need to do them differently and separately. But I believe that you can. You just have to prioritize it and make time to do it Until next week. Stay strong.
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