How do you nurture your marriage and your spouse?

[MooCowSteph]

How do you nurture your spouse spiritually? How do you help him or her grow in their relationship with the Lord? How do you grow together as a family?

I think this is the key to a lasting, happy marriage, so I thought you all might have some great tips and ideas.

 

[gardenswithkids]

What a great question!
One of the best things we ever did for our marriage is attend a small Bible study together. Together we read the Word of God, shared our thoughts and prayed together with other couples. We both grew alot in our faith.

We also go to church together as a family on Sundays. I know alot of people with young children split up to do this, (and sometimes I wish I was alone), but I think it’s a great thing to worship together.

 

[Fidelis]

We have always gone to Sunday Mass together – before and after kids. We have a morning devotional where we read the daily Mass readings, a short meditation, and prayers. We listen to a lot of tapes together on long drives by top notch Catholic speakers on a variety of subjects, mostly from St. Joseph’s Communications, and we consider it a treat if we can attend a Catholic family or apologetics conference. We’ve also gone on a Marrige Encounter Weekend and a Couple’s Retreat (we occasionally can find a decent movie to watch together and have dinner, but our finances are pretty limited in this regard). We both take an active role in formally teaching the kids the Faith. The only thing we don’t do well is get each other to Confession regularly and have some evening devotion like the Rosary to do as a family. By evening we are usually so brain-dead from the normal activities of the day, it’s easy to not commit ourselves.

 

[Deacon_Tony560]

In our deacon studies, we had courses on the special place that a wife and family have in the life of a permanent deacon. Bishop always got the wives attention and admiration, when he told them that there would not be many permanent deacons without outstanding wives. We had courses on communication, which is always number one in marriage difficulties. Finally, we were reminded that marriage was always our first ministry and came before the diaconate.

Have a Holy Lent,
Deacon Tony

 

[Momsix]

We pray for each other in all our needs and we say a family rosary nightly.
We shun most television that portrays marriage, family life or parenting in a negative light. (We don’t watch much tv!)
We attend Mass together every Sunday (barring illness) and we each try to attend Mass during the week as time permits. We study the documents of the church regarding marriage and family life such as Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio, etc.
Momsix