This past weekend, the Husband and I drove to Lake Geneva to attend a marriage retreat being held by our church. It was our first overnight marriage retreat, and we had a fantastic experience.
On Friday we drove to the Abbey Resort near Lake Geneva, checked in, and walked around (inside) the gorgeous property. Even thought it was only around 8 o’clock, we spent the rest of the night in bed and on our computers. I know, exciting stuff, right?! But with the move last week, we still had a lot of address changes to make (online) and things to talk about. It was so nice to just have ‘us’ time in a different location where we weren’t feeling obligated to unpack.
Saturday morning was jam-packed with sessions, planned couple alone time, lunch, etc. One of my favorite parts of the day was meeting so many new people who were so committed to bettering themselves and their marriages and their relationship with God. What a positive group to be around!
That night we went to the scrumptious Pier 290 restaurant for our ‘date night’. Honestly, I’m not even sure when our last real date night even was, so it was awesome to get away with the Husband to a new place, new scenery, in the snow, and really talk about things on our heart, especially related to our marriage. It sounds so simple but we find it really hard to carve out intentional time like that in our normal weeks, so this break was very needed and productive. By the end of dinner I felt that we had regrouped as a team and really decided on a direction for our marriage and how to deal with certain issues we had been struggling with. It was great.
On Sunday the retreat wrapped-up with a few more talks and a worship service. Then, off we went back home to Chicago!
Perfect weekend.
And then this conversation happened….
The Husband (talking to Baby B): Baby B, I can’t wait until you get here. I’m going to hold you all the time. It’s going to be so great. I’m going to give you the best hugs and cuddles. Your mom doesn’t like cuddling as much, so me and you can cuddle all the time. With Ozzie. Ozzie is our dog and you’re going to really like him. He’s my best friend. And you’re going to be my best friend. And then me and you and Ozzie will all be best friends and it’s going to be great!
Me: (glaring) What about me!?
The Husband: Oh….
Me: Go back and talk to Baby B and tell her I can be her/his best friend, too!
Sigh. Hours after an entire marriage retreat I’m already forgotten… Typical! Luckily, forgiveness was a theme of the weekend, so I was able to readily forgive him for forgetting about me completely. Or somehow mentally killing me off? I’m not sure where I went in his vision of the future, but it definitely wasn’t laying on the couch with our little family!
But seriously, if you’ve never spent time at a marriage retreat or conference, I highly recommend that you go. Over the past few years we’ve gone to marriage prep classes, a marriage conference, and this overnight marriage retreat. It’s definitely given us a ton to think about and really helped us focus on areas we need to improve, both as individuals and as a couple. I think more than anything, going to these seminars/retreats helps us to realize that our marriage is not perfect (OK, we really didn’t need a retreat to tell us that, we are painfully aware of that particular fact!) but that it’s something we can and should continually work on and not get complacent with.
We both consistently fuck mess up in our marriage but we can acknowledge this to each other and let the other person know that we care enough about God, our covenant, and our spouse to get through the rougher times and commit to our happiness and stability as a couple. And I think that’s so, so important. Because whether or not we have the ‘perfect’ marriage, we do have a marriage that will last. No matter how much effort it takes. Of that I’m sure of.
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Cheers to imperfection and being intentional!
