Finding Fun in Your Marriage

Finding fun in your marriage, when life is busy, can be difficult. However, the kids will grow up and the only two people left will be the two of you. Finding ways to enjoy spending time with each other is the best way to stay connected and have a strong marriage that outlasts the empty nest.

I’ve seen marriages struggle because each person has their own separate passions and they do NOTHING together. They come home from work and are in separate areas of the house and on weekends they go their separate ways with other people doing activities they personally enjoy.

Marriage for these couples was easier during the years with young kids, because their lives revolved around the kids. They would do activities with the kids or for the kids. When the kids moved out or became young adults, life became difficult because they no longer knew their spouse (other than them being their kids’ other parent).

I personally love the Danish concept for bringing more comfort and connection into your life: Hygge (pronounced hue-guh). Even before learning about this term, I’ve tried to keep connected to my husband throughout our marriage.

We’ve been married now for over 27 years and our kids have started leaving the home. As we start to transfer into our empty nest life, I’m grateful we started finding the fun in our marriage years ago. These are just some of the ways we have reconnected with each other within our daily lives when we can’t get away on a mini-vacation for two.

Join the Hygge Challenge

One of the best ways to keep connected with your spouse is to find activities that you enjoy doing together. They don’t have to cost much, and they can be done together as a family. However don’t stop doing them once the kids start to move out, continue and adjust to doing them as a couple.

It might not be easy to find activities you both enjoy, especially if your world has revolved around the kids for so long. You might feel extremely disconnected and discouraged. When this happens it takes at least one person in the relationship willing to try new things and willing to keep an open mind about the experience.

Start with trying things that your spouse enjoys doing and have them teach you or learn something about it and surprise your spouse with it. If you aren’t perfect that’s okay, laugh about it and enjoy the moment you are having with your special someone.

If you are still stuck with ideas here are a few that have worked for us and some of our friends in our lives.

Fun Activity Ideas:

Join a co-ed sports recreational team – my husband and I curled on a coed curling team for years. It was our one date night a week and we had a rule of “what’s said on the ice, stays on the ice”.
Like rival teams for a sport, get the rival jerseys and make it fun to watch those teams go head to head during that season.
Learn something new together – paint night, running club, bowling, ax throwing, gun range, snowshoeing, new board game or card game.
Get outdoors and enjoy nature – we love to camp with the kids but started going without the kids when the opportunity arose. It is very different camping without the kids, but this is also the perfect opportunity to reconnect without technology to distract us.
Spouse a gamer? Practice and then challenge them to a game night.

Finding ways to enjoy spending time with each other is the best way to stay connected and have a strong marriage that outlasts the empty nest. It takes effort and an open mind to find activities that you both enjoy, but it is worth it.

Keep trying and enjoy the journey as you learn about one another throughout the years. If you are competitive I recommend setting up fun ground rules to maintain the ‘Vegas rule’, “what’s said in those moments, stays in those moments”.