How to Ignite Intentional Relationships that will Spark Connection

Are you struggling to prioritize your spouse and have intentional conversations? Read on for tips on how to improve your communication, spend more time together, and ultimately build more intentional relationships.

Put down yo phone!

I cannot stress this enough, and it is something I am constantly fighting. Think about it. Eating dinner together at a restaurant? Probably scrolling Instagram. Riding in the car? Checking texts and snapchats. This immediately closes the door for spontaneous interaction with your spouse. It removes the opportunity for conversation because our phones take our focus away from the present moment.

When riding in the car together, or going out to dinner, make a rule to put your cell phone in your pocket or purse and put it on vibrate. Explain this intention to your spouse and ask them to do the same.

Intentional Relationships require common interest

Hopefully you didn’t marry someone with zero of the same interests as you, because that is a recipe for disaster. Even as our hobbies and interests change, it is important to explore new ones, or maybe go back to old ones you enjoyed when you were dating that you haven’t done for awhile.

Be willing to try something new. A few years ago my husband was really missing doing martial arts, which was something he did in his hometown, before we got married and he moved. He found a place where we could take classes together. I was very hesitant at first, but it ended up being a great hobby for that season of our life.

Instead of watching TV two evenings a week, we were duking it out on the Muay Thai mat, which gave us a huge hit of endorphins and opened the door for a lot of conversations we wouldn’t have had otherwise. We would watch videos of matches and talk about different approaches when we weren’t at class. We also learned to take constructive criticism from each other with more grace and tolerance than we could before.

Write an intention statement to spend more intentional time together

Intention statements can be powerful tools to help you be more intentional in your relationship. You should work together to develop a statement that you can both get on board with. Make it specific by outlining a place, time and method. This way, you have the how, when and where you are going to spend intentional time together. Here are a few examples of intention statements

“On Thursday nights, at 7:30pm we will play a game together at the kitchen table”

“Once a week on the day of our choice, at 8pm, in our bedroom, we will be intimate”

“On Monday morning, at 6:30am we will drink our coffee together at the kitchen table before work”

The definition of intentional is “to do something intended or planned”. If you are worried that planning time together will take away the spontaneity from your relationship, I would beg to differ with this concern. If anything, planning intentional time can lead to more spontaneity with your spouse. By putting the focus on your relationship, it can snowball into more purposeful time spent together.

Read more about Intention statements here

Intentional Relationships are worth the effort

This may seem like a lot of work, but you need to ask yourself some questions.

What length will I go to in order to get my spouses attention? Sometimes, when we don’t feel like we have our spouses love and attention, we will get it any way we can. And sometimes, that looks like negativity and neglect. Being intentional can flip the script

Is this relationship worth it to me? I hope this answer is always a yes, especially as a married couple. Even if you are not in an ideal relationship and your spouse is not intentional towards you, putting forth the effort on your end can make big difference. Building Intentional Relationships will change your life!

If you are trying to be intentional or build new, heathy routines check out my post here for some tips!