The 30-Day Marriage Challenge

My brother-in-law recently did a one-month health challenge based on a book he was reading. I don’t know all the details, because as soon as I learned I’d have to give up donuts and ice cream for a month, I decided to pass on joining him. He apparently has more physical discipline than I do! For thirty days, he followed a simple plan and saw remarkable changes in his weight, his energy levels and his overall health. Maybe I should’ve given up those donuts after all! I got to thinking, if so much change could be made physically in a month, how much change could happen in the health of a marriage in a month?

We’ve put out different challenges before, but we’ve never done a 30-Day Challenge. I’m excited about this one, because thirty days is long enough to make a significant impact in your marriage, but it’s also a short enough period of time to make the new habits doable. To help you out, we’ll send you daily emails for the next month to keep you on track and provide some other fun stuff to make the month more memorable! You can put in your email address here and we’ll add you to the 30-day challenge. (If you don’t like the emails, you can stop them at any point. No spam. We promise).

Below are the basics of the challenge. Are you up for this? If you are, it could make a HUGE impact in your marriage. Give this a shot and it might be the most meaningful month in the history of your marriage up until this point! Seriously. We hope this habits will extend far beyond the month’s ending to create some healthy lifelong habits in your relationship!

FOR THE NEXT THIRTY DAYS, COMMIT TO THE FOLLOWING:

1.Have at least thirty minutes of uninterrupted conversation with your spouse daily.

This one is actually harder than it sounds, because life is FULL of interruptions. To make this work, you’re going to have to plan a lunch date at home together, or wait until the kids are asleep at night. You’re also going to have to turn off your phones so you’re looking at each other’s faces instead of screens.

2. Make love a dozen times over the course of the next thirty days (which averages out to around three times per week).

Maybe your sex life has gotten a little boring or the frequency is far from what it used to be, but here’s a great opportunity to reconnect in the bedroom. This isn’t about having a “time card” you’re punching to hit a magic number with your sex life, but having a targeted goal can actually help create some new playfulness, spontaneity and FUN in the bedroom. When you enhance your sex life, other aspects of your relationship tend to start improving as a result. We’ll give you some spicy tips for reconnecting in the bedroom in our 30-day challenge emails.

3. No nagging and no criticizing.

When there’s negativity in the tone of your words to each other, there’s negativity in the tone of the marriage as a whole. For the next month, commit to staying positive. Be encouragers; not critics. When one of you starts nagging, name-calling, nit-picking or spouting any other form of negativity (which includes non-verbal jabs like rolling your eyes), you give each other permission to call each other out and say, “That’s out of bounds for the next 30 days (and hopefully longer)!”

4. Do something you’ve never done together.

I don’t mean you can roll through a drive through at a fast food place you’ve never visited and check this one off the list. Give this one some creativity and some planning. It doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate, but create a memorable shared experience that’s outside you’re normal routine. Break out of the rut of your current schedule and plan a night out or even an overnight adventure that’s to someplace you’ve never been together. These new experiences can do wonders to bring you closer together and replace boredom with anticipation and excitement.

So, what are you waiting for? All you’ve got to do is run this by your spouse, commit to the four simple actions listed above and follow the short daily readings from our 30-day challenge emails (you can register here) and your marriage could be stronger by this time next month!

Thanks for being part of this. Ashley and I will be cheering you on and doing taking this challenge in our own marriage too!

PLEASE SHARE THE 30-DAY MARRIAGE CHALLENGE USING THE LINKS BELOW SO WE CAN HELP STRENGTHEN OTHER COUPLES TOO!