Real Life Marriage: Talk Time

My now-husband and I spent a lot of time talking when we were dating. He would come over and sit on the couch of my parents' house with me and we'd talk about work, or life, or Scripture. I'd go to his house and we'd do silly personality tests, or talk about friendships, or current events, or who knows what. We did a lot of talking during our engagement, too. We had our premarital curriculum to discuss, plus we had lengthy conversations with our marriage mentors. Then we got married. We still talk a lot, but not about the same things.

In marriage, we talk a lot about business. We talk about our schedules. We talk about our commitments. We talk about chores. We talk about when to see friends. We talk about travel. We talk about bills, and school, and jobs. What we don't talk about a lot is our hearts. Sure, we check in from time to time. To be frank, I explode from time to time and then have to have heart-to-hearts with Jesus, myself, and my husband. But otherwise, we don't make time for connection like we used to.

At the end of the day, or the end of the week, or the end of the month, when we're tired and exhausted and just want rest, it's easy to retreat to our own corners. Or if we're together, it's easy to throw on our favorite show (currently The Great British Baking Show). It's good, and rest is good, but it's not connecting in the same way.

Life has forced us to make time for some hard conversations lately. Conversations with tears and frustration. Conversations that don't really seem to make a dent in our problems. Conversations that end without resolution. Conversations that I hope propel us forward, but the results of which I don't see just yet. Conversations we probably should have had before now, but just let lie until they became urgent.

I'm going to argue that people need to make more time to talk in marriage, not just at the service level, but at the heart level. We haven't quite figured out how to do that regularly yet, but we've figured out that marital health necessitates it. Maybe some of you readers have figured out talk time. If you have, let us know. If anyone else out there is like us, though, know that the need for time to talk is valid. We'll be working on finding it with you.