Marital Fitness

One useful and fun way to view developing and maintaining a healthy marriage is to think about the analogy of physical health and fitness. Heath care professionals promote a nutritional diet and physical exercise as the most critical components for achieving and sustaining a healthy lifestyle. You can survive, at least for a time, without engaging in either. But you won’t reap the daily and long term benefits that these important disciplines provide. Similarly, if you neglect regular care and attention to your marital relationship you may not perceive any immediate negative effects. But, the long term implications of this neglect will become evident over time. You will also miss out on many wonderful benefits that can be experienced in your life together now.

Think about the following comparisions…

Eating three meals a day is the foundation of most people’s diets. This is required to supply your body with the amount of calories it needs to make it through the day. It’s your choice whether these calories will be junk food which contains harmful ingredients or healthy food that will provide the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients your body needs.

These daily meals are analogous to the everyday communication and interaction with your spouse. Since you live under the same roof there is going to be daily interaction of some sort. You and your mate communicate every day in many ways whether you realize it or not. It’s your choice whether these daily encounters will be positive and beneficial (like healthy food) or negative and deleterious to the relationship (like junk food).

Make the most of these daily interactions! Don’t waste them by being grouchy or grumpy. If your everyday communication is characterized by impatience, disrespect, nagging, inattentiveness, and so forth there is little chance to develop a healthy union. However, if these encounters are marked by respect, attentiveness, positive regard, politeness, and the like it will contribute to the overall wellness of the relationship.

In addition to good nutrition, health experts unanimously declare that physical activity is essential for optimal health and fitness. Good eating habits can prevent many bad things from happening to your body, but it will not greatly improve your level of fitness by itself. To accomplish this, you must exercise regularly.

In order for physical activity to make a meaningful difference in your level of fitness you must consistently engage in cardio activity three to four times a week for twenty to thirty minutes each time. People who only occasionally exercise and/or do so without much intensity really do not benefit much from it. Consistency is the key.

The same principle applies to your marriage. Avoiding conflict and maintaining positive everyday interactions is a great start towards a healthy union. But it will only take you so far. To achieve authentic, lasting marital fitness you and your mate must consistently invest time and effort in your relationship. You must create opportunities to be together in a meaningful way to nurture and maintain the closeness, bondedness, and intimacy that is characteristic of great marriages.

Similar to physical fitness, a commitment to three or four times a week for twenty or thirty minutes or more each time is a good guideline to follow. This may seem difficult to achieve but it’s really not. Sharing meals together, engaging in conversation, participating in joint activities, going for a walk or drive, enjoying a cup of coffee (or tea, or whatever) together, embracing or cuddling, making love, and just generally having fun in other ways are all experiences that you should endeavor to work into your weekly lifestyle as a couple.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...