Real Life Marriage: Sweet Spot

We were saving for a big trip this year, which limited our spending on date nights. That was a point of contention, as I tried to find free or low cost things to do, while my husband said we should just spend the money and worry about it later. Somehow, though, by God's great grace, we hit our sweet spot.

I think it all started with our Mogollon day trip adventure. My husband planned that, and the whole time we walked out in nature, we talked about our dreams. Many of those dreams involved adventuring. Next thing I knew, my husband told me he had a list of adventures he wanted to take. I said, "Let's talk about it," and we did. We sat down and mapped out dates for all of those adventures. And slowly, but surely, we started easing into that sweet spot. I became willing to break routine a little more often. My husband started taking more initiative, and suddenly there we were, in the car, driving to new places and spaces, out in nature, having fun. This is what I had wanted, for so, so long!

I don't know what it was exactly that broke us out of our contentious, "We can't spend money," but we want to spend time together cycle, but we did it, and it benefit our relationship greatly. I found myself having more patience when my husband shared more of his dreams with me (which of course, cost money!). He offered to help me more around the house. It's like somehow, we just got back in sync with each other.

This past month was the month of our big trip. Honestly, I was low-key dreading it all year. It was big leap, a lot out of my comfort zone, and my husband's dream, not mine. After getting into this swing of adventuring together, though, I felt my heart starting to change. Maybe I could enjoy this trip. Maybe it would be fun. Maybe it, too, would be an adventure.

While we enjoyed the trip, we also again hit some bits of contention. They were painful and hard, and just might have pushed us out of our sweet spot. But by God's grace, we got there once, and I pray that we might again find ourselves in that sweet spot of enjoying and prioritizing each other.