Is Your Basket Missing? Some Advice for Marriages!

By Michael Webb, July 26

A guy sees a cute girl and has a goal of meeting her. They become friends and after a while the girl has a goal of becoming more than friends. Then their goal might be for an exclusive relationship. Soon they have a goal to be engaged, then married. Sadly, that is when most couples stop making relationship goals and perhaps one of the chief reasons why so many marriages fail.

What are your relationship goals? What plans have you made to achieve those goals?

I’m not talking about physical accumulations like vacation homes, trips abroad or having x number of children. Those are material goals and don’t have any indication on the state of your relationship.

Even though I’ve been married for over 20 years I still have relationship goals. Here are some of them.
1. Have a blissful relationship
2. Never fight
3. Always forgive
4. Say a loving endearment to Athena at least once a day
5. Go on a retreat at least twice a year
6. Discuss our long-term goals at least every six months
7. Grow closer by serving our church and community together

There are others but I think those will give you some sort of idea of the type of goals I mean.

The importance of goal setting in your relationship is that if you don’t have a goal, you are unlikely to reach it. As you have probably heard, “if you fail to plan, then plan to fail.” If a couple never had a goal of getting married, it is unlikely they would ever plan a wedding and actually tie the knot. Likewise, it is unlikely that someone will have a blissful relationship unless they actually state it is a goal of theirs and take the steps necessary to make that happen.

For my goals like going on retreats or discussing our long-term goals semi-annually, Athena and I can mark them in the calendar to help us fulfill them. For our goal of a fight-free marriage we instituted certain guidelines for discussing our differences.

Once you set a goal you can create a plan for making it happen. It is important for you and your mate to sit down and discuss your mutual goals. Then ask each other “what steps do we need to take to reach each goal?”

For example, a couple might have a goal of excellent communication. They might then write down certain steps that each of them will take to make it a reality. Like:

1. Call each other from work at least once a day.

2. Spend 30 minutes uninterrupted time each day conversing at home.

3. Go on a date night at least every two weeks that encourages communication (movies don’t count for obvious reasons).

4. If one person wants to talk, the other will not go to sleep until the issue is resolved.

5. On January 1 of each year we will write letters to each other summarizing the past year and stating our hopes and dreams for the coming year.

You can both put your list in writing and refer back to it from time to time for a progress report or sometimes just discussing the list is all that is necessary for simple goals.

A marriage without goals is like a basketball court without a basket. It might be fun running around for a little bit but you’ll get a bit frustrated after a while without something to aim for, not to mention a purpose for being on the court in the first place.