Value Your Marriage Enough to Spend Time Working at It.

July 18, 1985. We spend time on the things we value. So by measuring or observing where we spend our time we can obtain a fairly accurate assessment of what we value in life.

How many times have we heard, and perhaps used, the phrase, “I don’t have time”? Sound familiar? We all have heard it, and perhaps use it often in life. The truth is, we all have the same amount of time. We have 86,400 seconds, 1,440 minutes or 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week. And the interesting human tendency is to find time to do the things we want to do, the things we value.

Now for The Time Test: Where do we spend our time? Get out a blank sheet of paper and jot down some numbers.

 

How did you do? What did you learn from The Time Test? Let me make a few observations.

Most people spend approximately 80 percent of their time in Category I. They spend approximately 15 percent in Category II, and 3-5 percent in Category III. But what about Category IV, marriage maintenance?

I believe, and it has been verified from many observations, that most married couples today spend less than three hours a week, if that many, on marriage maintenance. Percentage wise, that comes out to 2 percent of our time. And frankly, I don’t think that is enough

Oh yes, we will go on our weekly “dates” that are often less than spontaneous. And on occasion, when things appear to be very tense, we may get away for a night or two. And in a moment of marital crisis, we may take a vacation, sort of a second honeymoon, to see if we can repair a badly damaged relationship. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn’t.

The irony is how much lip service we pay to marriage. It is supposed to be central to our lives and our families. And it becomes so unimportant that we allow less than 2 percent of our time to what is supposed to be the most important human relationship in our life.

Do you have enough time to build or improve your marriage? You have as much time as anyone else. It is just how you choose to use it. Like other living things, a marriage must have time to develop and grow.

It was Austin Dobson who wrote, “Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go.”