There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a marriage. Yet many of those marriage problems can be avoided by simple marriage maintenance. We maintain our houses, our cars, our children (new clothes and doctor visits) and our health, but we often neglect the most important earthly relationship we have … our marriage.

Great marriages never happen by accident. You create a great marriage by being intentional.

Sadly, most married couples don’t put anything into their marriage until there are problems. After problems arise, they frantically start trying to invest time and money into their relationship with hopes to make it good again. What we want you to see is this: If you’ll work on your marriage in the good times and not just the bad, there will be less bad times.

We do marriage workshops all over the country. Once we had a lady contact us and ask if we would be coming to her town to do one of our workshops. “Our marriage needs help,” she said. When she stated where she was from, we were a bit confused because we had just been to her town 6 weeks prior. We replied to her message that we had just been there and apologized that she hadn’t known. She responded, “Oh I knew you were in town a few weeks back, but we didn’t need to go then. Everything was good at that point, but now we’ve begun to have problems, and we need to know when you’re coming back.” 

We really wanted to say, “Don’t wait until you’re having problems to start working on your marriage. Constantly invest in it and maintain it all the time!”

Proverbs 19:18 says, “A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things.” (NLT) We admit that sometimes it’s easy to be lazy when it comes to marriage. Things like jobs, bills, kids, Little League, and other things often get priority over our marriage … and that’s not good. One of the things we teach in our book, “10 Ways to a Stronger Marriage,” is laziness often kills more marriages than anything else.

Don’t wait until things are bad to start focusing on your marriage. Make investments now, like …

• Going on weekly dates.
• Going to a marriage retreat, conference, or seminar together.
• Going for walks together.
• Taking a trip together.
• Holding hands often.
• Flirting with each other.
• Reading a marriage book together.
• Spending 20 minutes in conversation every day.
• Listening to a marriage podcast.

God didn’t create marriage so we could have a roommate; He created marriage so we could have a soulmate. Marriage is so much more than paying bills and raising kids together. Choose to invest in your marriage when things are good so that there will be less bad.

A lack of regularly investing in marriage is one of the biggest mistakes made in marriages today. Don’t wait until there are problems to start giving your marriage the attention it deserves.

Make investments in your marriage every day. It’s worth it.