Simply Shari: Workin' It Wednesday - Keeping Your Marriage strong

Happy Wednesday! I'm linking the 2nd Wednesday of the month with Mix and Match Mamma and A Little Bit of Everything for a series where we share how we are working to keep it all together!

If you want to join the link up too, here are the topics we are covering this year :)

Being more mindful with my family, especially my husband, is actually one of my new year's goals for 2017, you can see those here. This year, Mike and I celebrate 5 years of marriage!

5 YEARS!?! Sometimes that doesn't sound like too long, especially as I meet others and hear their stories of their 35, 40, 50+ years of marriage, but we have done a lot in those five years! We've grown together as a couple, grown as a family (welcoming our daughter and son) and made our house a home in Tampa, FL.

My parents have been married for 40 years, will be 41 this July. They are an amazing example to my brother and I about commitment to your spouse and your marriage.

Let me start by saying that I certainly do not feel like Mike and I have the perfect example of marriage. Marriage is work, and it's something that we work at every day. As I considered what we do to make our marriage work for us, I thought of a few things that stood out to me as something we maybe don't do consciously, but help us keep focused on our marriage.

Some of the ways that I try to keep our marriage strong sound so simple, but they mean so much. I love spending time with Mike, we are working on getting more one-on-one time together with a regularly scheduled sitter, but any time we spend together I cherish. Lunch dates happen more regularly now (when the kids are at school) than they did at the beginning of our marriage. Even something so simple as just spending time with him at night watching tv after the kids have gone to bed, relaxing from our work days, and just being near each other. Another key component that we try to practice is communication. We communicate throughout the day, whether by text calls or check-ins. If we have a disagreement, we talk through it, and maybe we don't always agree, but we can agree to disagree. Sometimes I'm sure that my husband will tell you I communicate too much, because when I get home from work, I bombard him with questions and stories from my day. We recently have started to put effort into going to church regularly. I know that finding strength in our marriage through God will continue to build us up. Another thing that we love to do is travel. Traveling with the kids and with each other separately. Exploring new cities together is one of my favorite things. It's hard to leave the kids behind, but it is so important for our relationship to reconnect and spend that time away to be with each other, not be responsible for anyone, and refresh!