Seven Approaches to Getting out of a Rut in Your Marriage

Seven Approaches to Getting out of a Rut in Your Marriage

So what do you do when the freeway comes to a dead stop or your marriage feels like it is on a dead end street? A road map with some alternate routes or a GPS device help on the freeway. The way to get out of a rut is to reconnect with one another.

• A Weekend Away. Take a weekend away to a quiet place with no kids, no TV, no Internet, no chores, and no work from the office to distract you from one another. Make this a time just for the two of you. Use this time to talk with one another. Talk about good memories, of future dreams, of current concerns and fears.
• A Weekly Date. If finances are tight or you can't be away from your children for an entire weekend, find a way to spend time alone with each other each week. Saying you will have monthly dates isn't good enough when your marriage is in a rut. You need more time than that to reconnect with one another.
• A Peaceful Room. Look at your home environment. If you don't have any rooms in your house that are uncluttered and inviting, then create such a space. Decide together to make at least one room in your home free of clutter. If you can't get a room uncluttered in a weekend together, spend 15 minutes each day working on the room. You both need a space that enables you to feel relaxed and calm. Such an environment can actually make you feel good about yourselves and your marriage.
• Write a Letter. When talking about sensitive issues in your marriage, express yourself without showing hostility. Do not blame your spouse. Keep sarcasm out of the conversation. Examine your own attitudes about the issue to see if you are contributing to the problem in your marriage. If this is difficult for you to do, write down your thoughts and feelings about one issue, wait a day or so, then re-read what you wrote before giving the letter to your spouse.
• Make Plans for Your Future Together. Ask yourselves if you are living the way you want to live. If not, do some brainstorming about strategies to get yourselves to where you want to be -- emotionally, financially, physically, etc. Make specific plans for achieving a goal the two of you have set.
• Spend Ten Minutes Together Daily. Develop a routine of spending ten minutes alone together each day. Make this a time to reconnect. It is not the time to share frustrations or to want to solve problems. This ten minutes has to be a positive ten minutes together. You could spend ten minutes talking about your expectations of the day, or talk about good things that happened to you in the past 24 hours. You could take a ten-minute walk together or do breathing exercises together. What you do with that ten minutes shouldn't be the same every day. Some couples sitting together quietly and watching the sun set or looking at stars.
• Do Something New. Do something new each day. Take a different route home. Eat a vegetable cooked in a different way. Watch a television show or movie you haven't seen. Discover something new about your spouse. Move a piece of furniture. Plant a flower seeds you never planted before. Walk on a different street or path. Play a new card or board game. Learn how to together. It doesn't matter what you do that is new. What is important is sharing what you did that was new with your spouse.

From http://marriage.about.com/od/marriagetoolbox/a/marriageinarut.htm

Creativity Arise

Beside the creativity to manage our cash flow during this season, we are starting to venture into into new stuff.

Lets start with designing of invitation cards. Well, I just send a rough idea to our designer and tah dha! He transform it into a butterfly! Can't wait till the card is finalize!

We are so done with out photoshoot and I thought it was so the end of my diet. But nope! I stil have to keep in shape! Second one will be coming up next week! Owh Wow... looks like theen kin is getting into photography! Hopefully by then we are able to choose nice pictures to design our card!

So what about house? We get pretty distracted while doing both at the same time and also restricted due to the crazy cash flow. Thanks to my parents, they truely bless us with so many great quality kitchen wear and not to forget theen kins family's contributions and support throughout the house renovation! While we are saving to furnish our room to be and dining area, we get our hand dirty with something not so expensive... planting! We are now trying to beautify our garden with green plants. After much effort, we have 4 mini papaya tree (thanks to theen kin), we killed 3 pandan leaves and now trying to make our 4th pandan leave and our mosquitoe plant alive! Argh...gardening...

It is May now.. we have 5 more months left!

Selecting Photos!

It is really fun to dress up nicely and make up nicely for a day. It is even better when it is captured by camera. It is the best when you are in it together! Everything was awesome and I would truely admid that this have brought us closer to one another.

After almost a week of waiting after the photoshoot, we finally get a view of our pictures last night! After all the fun and flash, it is time to strengthen our heart! We took about 200 pictures in total and we can only choose 50 pictures out of the 200! We can easily discard 50 and keep 150 but it is extreamly hard to discard 150 and keep 50! TheenKin and I together with my friend when to see and choose. The photos are amazing. It snap shots were very natural and lifely. The angle and quality is simply amazing! The photographer is really creative. One word- unbelievable! If I own a bank, I will definitely buy all the pics! They are all just so beautiful! Guess what! I own a bank.... a bank account (less than rm1000)! After much heart ache, heart attack, head ache, asthma and flu with some tears, we manage to discard more and left around 69 pictures now. We like them but our wallet don't want to compromise! So now, we are discussing whether so spend a little more to keep all the remaining 69 or continue to cut down to 50... We have 18 pictures to keep/cut..(to keep 1 picture = RM30). I can't think!

Love shape

Tried to create some love shape out of my ring for experiment purposes... this is the best shot from my nikon camera (just a normal camera)... how i wish to get a DSLR

Pre-Wedding photo shoot

One word to describe our pre-wedding photo shoot.... 'FUN'! 

We reached Posh Bridal about 9am and started off with make-up. The make-up artists were very professional in carrying their task. 

Of course, during my wife-to-be make-up session, i can't resist to take some of her photo... to show the before and after effect.

This is some of the snapshot when we were on the way to Subang Airport... U may be wondering why are we going to airport. Dont worry, we are not taking any flight to any place for romantic dinner/lunch. we were actually taking some shot at the Subang Flying Club... (Yee Lin and I love aircrafts) Thank God for the good weather and we managed to settle in 1 hr time...

Then we proceed to the outdoor shoot... We played with bubbles and had fun posing.

Previously, I had alot of bad impression about wedding photo shoot due to experiences of my friends... after this photo shoot, i can say that we should just be relaxed and treat this as a fun moment of our lives. If we are relax, we tend to smile easily and this will definitely be a memorable life time moment.