How to Make Your Marriage a Priority When Life Gets Too Busy

In this episode of the Grace Marriage Podcast, Brad sat down with our friends Matt and Angel Rigsby to talk about something almost every married couple wrestles with: how do you keep your marriage a priority when seemingly everything in life is competing for your attention? Matt and Angel shared some practical things they have learned about creating margin, saying no, protecting time together, and staying connected when life is busy. But underneath all of those ideas was an even bigger question: Do we really understand the value of the person we married?

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I don’t know many couples who intentionally decide to put their marriage at the bottom of the list. Usually, they’re doing the exact opposite. They’re trying to be responsible. They’re working hard, raising kids, serving at church, keeping up with sports, helping people, maintaining friendships, and saying yes to a lot of genuinely good things.

Then somewhere along the way they realize they haven’t had an uninterrupted conversation with each other in two weeks.

Nothing terrible happened. Nobody decided to stop loving anybody. Life just kept getting bigger while the space reserved for marriage kept getting smaller.

That’s why something Matt said during our conversation stuck with me.

He described life like a book. If you open a book, you’ll notice there is empty space around the words. We call it margin, and most of us never think about it. But imagine trying to read a book without it. The words would stretch from one edge of the page to the other and eventually begin running off the page.

Matt said some couples are living that way. Their lives have no margin, so everything is running off the page.

I think that’s a pretty accurate picture of a lot of marriages.

When Everything Is Important, Something Has to Give

We talk a lot at Grace Marriage about time being the container in which a marriage grows. If you give your marriage a tiny container of time, don’t be surprised when it struggles to grow.

Think about everything we want from marriage. We want great communication, emotional connection, a healthy sex life, spiritual intimacy, friendship, laughter, romance, and the ability to work through conflict well.

All of that requires time.

Yet time with our spouse is often the first thing we sacrifice when the calendar gets crowded because it doesn’t seem urgent. Your child’s practice has a starting time. The work meeting is on your calendar. The church event has people expecting you to show up. Date night is easier to move because nobody is standing there demanding that you keep it.

So we move it. Then we move it again. Eventually, “We’ll find some time” becomes the marriage plan.

Matt and Angel talked about how they’ve had to become comfortable saying no, including saying no to good things. That’s where this gets difficult because most of us aren’t choosing between our marriage and something obviously destructive. We’re choosing between our marriage and another good opportunity.

You can go to that event. You can accept that invitation. Your child can play another sport. You can take on another ministry responsibility. You can squeeze another commitment onto Thursday night.

But every yes spends something.

A mentor once told me that your time is like chips and you get to decide where you play them. I’ve always liked that picture because it removes one of our favorite excuses. We say, “I don’t have time for my marriage,” when the truth is that all of us are spending our time somewhere.

If you’re not playing enough chips on your marriage, you may need to move some chips around.

Your Kids Really Can Survive Hearing No

Matt and Angel made a decision with their kids that they could choose one sport. The goal wasn’t to deprive them of opportunities. They simply recognized that the entire family couldn’t revolve around an unlimited number of activities.

I laughed when they talked about it because we tried the one-sport approach too.

We had five kids. At one point, our brilliant strategy resulted in five kids playing on different teams, and I remember one day when we had four different cross-country meets in four different places. One was in college, another in high school, another in middle school, and suddenly our wonderfully simple plan wasn’t feeling very simple.

Somewhere during those years, I learned something that probably should have been obvious: I didn’t have to attend everything.

That was actually freeing for me. I could tell one of my kids, “When you get back from the meet, tell me how it went.” And amazingly, they survived.

There are two ditches parents can fall into. We can neglect our children, which is obviously unhealthy, or we can make our children the center of the family and organize the entire marriage around them. Neither is particularly good for the kids, and the second one certainly isn’t good for the marriage.

Our children need our love, presence, encouragement, and involvement. They don’t necessarily need us sitting in the stands for every minute of everything they ever do.

They also need to see that Mom and Dad love each other.

There is something healthy about children growing up knowing that their parents’ marriage is important enough to protect. Mom and Dad have a date tonight. Mom and Dad need some time together. There are things we aren’t going to do because our family needs margin.

Your kids really can hear no and be okay.

In fact, learning that the world doesn’t revolve around them might turn out to be one of the better gifts you give them.

Are You Together, or Are You Actually Connecting?

Another part of our conversation made me laugh because we started talking about what actually counts as a date.

Double dates came up, and I’m pretty convinced they don’t count.

I love spending time with other couples, but think about what usually happens on a double date. The husbands start talking to each other, the wives start talking to each other, and suddenly you’ve spent two hours at dinner with your spouse sitting three feet away while barely talking to them.

That’s community. It’s good. It just isn’t the same thing as one-on-one time with your spouse.

Movies came up too, and Matt and Angel pointed out that sitting shoulder to shoulder staring at a screen for two hours isn’t exactly deep communication. Fair point.

I did have to defend movies a little because Marilyn loves them. Sometimes she’s exhausted and a movie is exactly what gives her life because she doesn’t have to accomplish anything. One time I planned a double feature for us. We saw an early movie, went to dinner, and then came back for a nine o’clock movie. She loved it because I had thought about what she enjoyed and planned something around her.

So maybe the better question isn’t whether an activity officially qualifies as a “date.”

Ask this instead: Did my spouse feel loved, and did we connect?

You can have a three-hour date and barely notice each other. You can also have 30 minutes over coffee where you put your phones away, look each other in the eyes, laugh, talk honestly, and leave feeling closer.

The activity isn’t magic. Intentionality is what matters.

A 15-Minute Habit That Can Help You Stay Connected

One practical idea Matt and Angel shared is something they call GROW. They use it when life is busy and they need a simple way to reconnect at the end of the day.

GROW stands for Gratitude, Report, Own It, and Worship.

They start with gratitude by telling each other something they appreciate. That sounds simple, but I think we’ve underestimated how important it is. You can genuinely appreciate your spouse and never actually tell them. Meanwhile, the frustrations seem to find their way out of our mouths without much difficulty.

Gratitude makes us stop and pay attention to what is good.

Then they report. What’s going on? What happened today? What’s on the schedule? What does the other person need to know? It may be as ordinary as a car needing maintenance or something changing on the family calendar, but it keeps them from living two separate lives under the same roof.

Then comes own it, which might be my favorite part.

The question isn’t, “What does my spouse need to apologize for?” It’s, “Is there something I need to own?”

Maybe I was short with you. Maybe I wasn’t listening. Maybe I said something that hurt you. Maybe there’s tension between us that I’ve been hoping will magically disappear if we ignore it long enough.

Own it.

Finally, they worship by asking each other how they can pray and then actually praying together.

The whole thing might take 10 or 15 minutes. I’m not suggesting every couple has to adopt this exact system, but I love the intentionality behind it. Matt and Angel aren’t waiting until communication feels natural or until they magically have a free evening. They’ve created a rhythm that helps them stay current with each other’s lives and hearts.

That’s what healthy marriage habits do. They make connection more likely.

The Old Blanket on the Back of the Couch

Near the end of our conversation, Matt told a story that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind.

He likes Antiques Roadshow, and he remembered an episode where a man brought in an old blanket. It had basically been sitting around his house, and he didn’t think much of it. He suspected it might have some value, but nothing extraordinary.

Then the appraiser looked at it.

It turned out to be an extremely rare Navajo blanket from the 1800s. Matt recalled the appraiser telling the owner that even on a bad day it could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it later reportedly sold for far more than that. I can promise you the blanket didn’t go back on the sofa.

Here’s what strikes me about that story: the blanket never changed. It was just as valuable when somebody casually tossed it over the back of the couch as it was after the appraisal. The only thing that changed was the owner’s understanding of what he had. I wonder how many marriages need that kind of reappraisal.

You’ve lived with this person for years. Maybe decades. You know their annoying habits. You know what they forget. You know how they squeeze the toothpaste and where they leave their clothes. You’ve heard their stories enough times that you know the ending before they get halfway through.

Familiarity can make something incredibly valuable begin to feel ordinary. But you’re not the appraiser of your spouse. God is.

The person sitting across the table from you was made in the image of God. Your spouse is fearfully and wonderfully made and deeply loved by the Creator. Before you see a husband who frustrates you or a wife who doesn’t understand you, there is a person of tremendous God-given value standing in front of you.

When you really believe something is valuable, you treat it differently.

Maybe you listen a little longer. Maybe the phone goes down. Maybe date night becomes harder to cancel. Maybe you stop giving everyone else the best of you and bringing the leftovers home.

One of the saddest things I’ve seen through years of working with couples is a husband finally realizing how valuable his wife is when she’s halfway out the door. A man who hasn’t bought flowers in a decade will suddenly buy the floral company. He’ll change jobs, cancel commitments, go to counseling, rearrange his schedule, and do almost anything for one more chance.

He suddenly has plenty of time because he finally understands what he’s about to lose.

Why wait for that moment? You don’t need a marriage crisis to start treating your marriage like it matters.

Maybe your marriage is fine right now. You’re not fighting all the time. Nobody is talking about leaving. You’re paying the bills, raising the kids, getting to church, and making life work. But “fine” isn’t the same thing as alive.

If the words in your life are starting to run off the page, you don’t necessarily need to learn how to write faster. You may need some margin.

Say no to something you could say yes to. Put a date on the calendar and protect it. Sit down tonight for 15 minutes and ask your spouse what they’re grateful for, what’s happening in their world, whether there’s anything you need to own, and how you can pray for them.

Most importantly, take another look at the person you married. You may be surprised by the value of what has been sitting right in front of you all along.