It's a busy world world we live in. Sometimes it gets so busy we forget to take any time for our spouse. Marriages fall apart for a lot of different reasons. I'd be willing to bet somewhere in most of those reasons there was failure of communication. At some point, the couple just stopped talking to each other. They stopped listening to each other. They stopped spending real time together.
One of the most valuable nuggets of wisdom I can offer is to spend time with your husband. Not just a few minutes here and there or one date night a week, but all the free time you have. If you have none, make some. Do just about everything together. If your marriage is falling apart, do the dishes together, have coffee on the porch together, put the kids to bed together, grocery shop and run errands together. Some people say they need space from their spouse. If their marriage is in trouble, perhaps they need to spend more time with their spouse.
I'm a bit of a people watcher. One of the first things I notice about people is their priorities. It's like a flashing light over their heads to me. It seems spouses are becoming less and less of a priority. Your spouse needs to be important to you. We find time for everyone and everything else, we need to find time for our husbands. At the very least, schedule just 30 minutes a day to unplug and talk to each other. Make that half hour a priority. Schedule it for after the children are in bed. Make some ice tea and sit down in the peace and quiet and just talk. This way, even if you have a busy night, at least you have a half hour of uninterrupted quiet time together. This is not a time for pointing out flaws or for raising up old arguments from the dead. This is not a time of Bible study. This is a time of just spending some time together so you don't lose touch with each other. Relax together in your clean house and just talk.
Daniel and I spend all our time together and I'm always amazed when I hear him on the phone with his dad telling him something that happened to him during the week that I didn't know about. That's when I know we've spent too much time doing things (even together) other than just talking.
The more you talk to each other, the more things you'll find to talk about, not less. There are couples who have been together for 50 years and even they could fill a half hour a day with things to talk about. If you're having trouble in the beginning just talking, start with specifics of things that have happened during the day. This goes for him, also. Ask probing questions without giving the third degree. Ask how a coworker is doing or if he accomplished that big task his boss gave him. Pretty soon you might hear about some particularly bad road rage he witnessed on his commute or maybe you'll find you had more happen during your day than you had previously thought.
When you spend time just talking, you'll grow closer together. Also, when a crisis rears it's ugly head, you'll be more prone to speaking about it. When something is troubling one or the other of you, if you're used to talking to each other, you'll want to speak to each other about it and you'll make the time to do so.
Your husband is your best friend. Best friends spend as much time together as possible. They have each other's back through thick and thin. They talk, long and often.
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