Spending quality time together helps couples strengthen their marriage, find new, common interests and keeps their intimacy rekindled.
Seeking out new experiences and hobbies, being emotionally vulnerable, and even just making time for regular date nights are just a few examples of ways couples can grow closer, especially during those times when the stuff of everyday life seems to risk squeezing out any room for intimacy.
But there’s another, often-overlooked activity that will do wonders for your marriage: serving others together as a couple.
Why? Well, for one, it often combines all of the above. Activities like volunteering together in community service, programmes driven by faith-based organisations, charity work etc are great ways to meet new people while spending time together. You might even learn something new, not just about life in general, but also about yourselves along the way.
Serving other people together as a couple relieves stress, breaks the rut of ruminating about your own problems and helps you see life through the eyes of others. You’ll begin to see marriage in general as well as your own challenges within a broader context, which will eliminate a lot of opportunities for conflict between the two of you.
You may also find that your overall life satisfaction is increased as you do something more significant than anything that’s inwardly focused.
Furthermore, you’ll be able to look outside your own lives to help someone else who really needs it, if only in the smallest of ways, while gaining a greater sense of meaning and purpose as well as a general understanding of the world around you. You’ll be amazed at what even helping your domestic worker’s child's education can do in enriching your marriage.
A volunteer or community service project can reinforce the values you share as a couple while creating new and lasting memories together. Being a couple that’s driven by a common mission you’re both passionate about will encourage a life of interdependence between you two.
It can also remind you of some of the common interests that might have brought you together in the first place, whether it’s an appreciation of nature, a shared passion for helping children with special needs, a shared love of animals or maybe the satisfaction of working with your hands.
Get together and brainstorm some of the things you can do together. And if your one plan for a new volunteering project doesn’t seem to fit your overall shared goals, lifestyle or schedule, look for another one. There is no shortage of causes and projects in SA and in your city or community that need your help. And trying until you find the right match can be a bonding experience in and of itself.
If you have children, consider involving them too in projects that are open to such. Most volunteer organisations welcome the involvement of children, and it can be one of the best ways to teach your children the importance of helping others in need.
It’s an-act-is-worth-a-thousand-words kind of activity that has been shown to make lifelong volunteers out of people who start young, by making even the smallest contribution. Doing it with you will reinforce the desire to help others even more.
No-one wants to think about volunteering as a way to meet their own needs, but there’s nothing wrong with feeling better about yourself while helping others. And, when it comes back to marriage, feeling better about yourself and gaining a new sense of confidence in your ability to be of service is probably going to make you a more pleasant person for your partner to be around.
The popular catchphrase is “getting out of your own head”, and your newfound empathy for a homeless family, a child in need of mentoring or others could even spill over and become a habit in your marriage. Simply put, anything that improves your mood and perspective is bound to improve your marriage.
Marriages that last are ones where the couple creates shared meaning; where goals are set and met alongside each other. A healthy marriage involves building a life together where dreams are not only visualised but come to fruition with the mutual buy-in of the partners.
Our own personal belief on this is that a healthy, balanced and fulfilling marriage is about more than just raising kids, paying bills and getting chores done. It is also fundamentally about building meaning through a common purpose that is rooted in your faith and is rich in rituals of connection.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.