Increasing marital satisfaction is kind of our thing. As marriage mentors, we equip couples with skills and perspective to work together as a team in Christ. Many resources help couples find satisfaction, but we recently learned that one simple marital change is guaranteed to improve happiness, agreement, respect, delight, and lovemaking. Now that’s a goal worth pursuing!
Why Set New Year’s Goals for your Marriage?
Before I share what this one simple marital change is, let’s think about why we set goals at all, and especially at New Year’s. I normally set my goals in the spring; it just works better for me to start new things when new life is popping out and the days are longer and warmer. However, this January I’m making an exception for three reasons.
- It’s a super simple goal with a high probability of success.
- There’s accountability involved.
- There is a prize at the end.
For me, these three things equal success.
Goals in your marriage are so important, no matter what time of year it is. Working together as a team and achieving success can improve marital satisfaction. Bruce and I are on board with this one simple marital change. Let’s do this together!
So What is this One Simple Marital Change?
Are you wondering why I’m hesitating to tell you the one simple marital change that will improve your satisfaction? It’s because I know I will make some (or all) of you groan when you know what that change is. This simple change takes just 5 minutes a day and yet is very rare among couples, even Christian couples. It’s a surprising fact that most pastors and their wives don’t do this one simple thing. In fact, we didn’t for most of our marriage, and only began to do it after we had been marriage mentors for a few years.
This one simple marital change has been proven to:
- Elevate happiness by 18%
- Improve agreement about child raising by 11%
- Increase agreement on finances by 11%
- Boost compromise by 22%
- Revamp communication by 11%
- Upgrade respect by 19%
- Increase lovemaking by 20%
- Decreased fear of divorce to 0%
The one simple marital change is deceptively simple: pray together for 5 minutes a day for 40 days. The results shown above were found by a Gallup study called Couples Who Pray The surprising levels of improvement from that study (from 2011) prompted Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion to begin a new, more in-depth study to measure the outcome of two people praying together.
How to Join the 40 Day Challenge
All the information about the 40 day challenge, as well as links to join the study (and us) for the next 40 days can be found on praystay.org. Setting the goal to pray together for 40 days includes taking a survey before you start and again after you finish. The prize at the end is a report about the changes you saw in your relationship after praying together for 40 days, with graphs and everything!
Bruce and I already do pray together daily, but we decided to join the study to see what we could learn. After taking the initial survey, I feel we will be more intentional about what we pray about and how we pray. Sometimes prayer can get too rote, if you know what I mean. Whether or not you already pray together, we encourage you to join the 40 day prayer challenge. If you do join, please comment below and let us know.
Why do Spouses find it so Challenging to Commit to Pray Together?
This is a big topic, but one of the reasons we think it is so hard for us to pray together is because of our different personality styles. Does one of you talk more than the other? It could be as simple as that. If the talkative one goes first, the quieter one has nothing left to contribute. Or, maybe one of you is more knowledgeable about Scripture or more comfortable praying out loud. The more experienced one can make the other spouse feel less than. This was the case with our main characters, Chris and Amy, in Love on Life Support (affiliate link). In this scene, Chris is about to undergo surgery and they decide to pray together for the first time ever.
Amy paused, smiled, and said, “Speaking of the prayer team, do you think we should pray before your surgery? They may be coming in at any time to take you.”
Love on Life Support
“I guess we could. I’m not comfortable praying out loud. But … I’d like to.”
“Me either, but this is important.” She came over and clasped his hands. “It’s just us. It doesn’t have to be fancy.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll start.” If she went first, she would say everything there was to say and then he’d have nothing left to say but “Yeah, what she said.”
If you are similar to Chris and Amy, let the hesitant spouse go first. Alternatively you can make a list of what you will pray about and decide ahead of time who will pray for which concern. Let the confident spouse refrain from taking the floor for too long. Give grace to each other, whether you are just starting out or have been at this for some time. Praying together requires us to be humble and vulnerable. Even though we are physically intimate from the honeymoon on, becoming spiritually intimate takes time. But it’s worth it!
Looking Back at Last Year
Looking back at last year and forward to next year gets us excited. One of the ways we know we are impacting couples through the blog is seeing the number of posts that have been read the most. Here are the top three blog posts for this year, we trust that you found them helpful in navigating your relationship. We pray that the New Year will bring you hope, second-chances, and celebration in your marriage. Happy New Year!
- No Matter What, There is Hope
- Why I Believe in Second-Chance Romance
- Celebrate your Marriage with an Anniversary Timeline
Preview of Next Month’s Blog Post
Next month we’ll be sharing “How to Tell your Real-Life Marriage Story.” We recently did a workshop for a local church on this topic. We told about the “kairos” or holy moments we’ve encountered and how we chose to respond in them to grow closer to God and each other. We’re looking forward to sharing this with you.
Notes:
If your church is looking for speakers for a couples night out, find more information at our speaker’s website.
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