More Margin

No doubt you are aware of all the things on your plate that need arranging and scheduling. Life insists on many of them!

In fact, if you’re like most, there’s a pile of “important and urgent” tasks waiting for your next spare moment. Perhaps you have lingering impulses stemming from your new years’ resolutions – intentions waiting to jump into your consciousness as soon as you sit down!

However, it’s impossible to be always on, always accomplishing. There’s a need in our hearts for spare time and empty places in our schedules. It’s a need that we all find a way to satisfy one way or another, consciously or subconsciously. It comes as the last-minute date, the beer with the guys or the walk around the block alone. Perhaps for you, on the intentional side, it’s the work outs or the late nights in blissful silence. Maybe it happens on a day when you can’t get moving and so you relax the pace and take your time. Aaahhhh, Starbucks. On the unintentional side, the body will eventually respond to an over-full schedule with fatigue or even sickness to allow for the mandatory rest.

These inevitable gaps in productivity, the spaces in between plans and around the edges of our agendas, are called margin, and it’s here where life really happens. It’s in the margins of life that you have most of your spontaneity and fun. It’s where you notice the richness of people and the life happening around you. It’s where you enjoy what you’ve completed so far and the adventure you’re living.

For couples it’s in the margins of life where you really enjoy each other. Remember that?! It’s easy to spend so much time working together or arranging together, we can forget what it’s like to look into each other’s eyes and remember why we do what we do, and who we’re privileged to do it with. No matter how full our lives are, no matter how much we enjoy our “work”, we have to remember the whole point of what we do is waiting for us after all that “doing” is done. It’s here that we get to “be,” not just “do.” In the margin is where life’s deeper meaning, and the cherishing of each other, is found.

So, the key here is to arrange and schedule more margin deliberately! Arranging for it means, quoting from Scripture here, take one day off out of every seven. Completely off. It can also mean to plan nothing for an evening (gasp!) and see what happens. It means that when you plan your next getaway, a holiday, next week, or your next evening together, to plan for significant spaces in between activities and events.

Look for moments when you don’t “have” to do something in the twists and turns of your week. Look for opportunities to go off the beaten path of your routines together. Often, the best things that happen were never planned at all. Ironically, those are the times you’ll enjoy and cherish the most.

No doubt you are aware of all the things on your plate that need arranging and scheduling. Insist margin be one of them.

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Anticipation

One of dating’s greatest aspects is the anticipation of something new.

The thrill of not quite knowing what’s in your immediate future and yet looking forward to it because it’s with that special someone is an amazing place to be. Anticipation creates moments of powerful connection, moments that are noticed and from which your heart drinks deeply.

Conversely, it’s the unnoticed ruts of a relationship that sap this potential. Not talking here about the comfortable routines that bring safety and familiarity (you might not want to change those ones), but rather when and where you spend time that is not consciously chosen anymore: the night squandered in front of the TV, the mundane goodnight routine, the Saturday spent in different corners of the house. The most unfortunate ruts, and easiest to change, are the ones neither of you really notices anymore.

Every couple has them, and yours are waiting for you. It’s time for some adrenaline. It’s time to harness the power of anticipation.

The first step is to find these unnoticed opportunities. Take a week and create a place on your phone, journal or on a notepad on the fridge and write down whenever you notice this kind of rut. It’ll take a few days before they start to stand out, but by the end of a week you’ll have a little list and you’ll be able to see patterns.

Step two will be to dream up ways of filling these “unnoticeable” time-slots with activities you can anticipate: a walk in the woods, a card or board game, some quality time dreaming about your future together, even a great love-making session – whatever strikes you as a great idea. Write them down.

Step three (pick the right timing for this) present your list to your spouse.  Explain that you want to begin to fill the unnoticeable time-slots with activities you can anticipate. He/she may want to modify or add to your list, but make a plan together to begin to create these changes. Perhaps make a private list you can both access for these boredom-busting opportunities. The only stipulation is that the activities inspire anticipation.

Learn to experience the power of anticipation. The components are all there: you, your spouse, moments of time, and endless possibilities. The choice is yours, and your future awaits. What future can you anticipate?

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When Things Aren’t Good in Bed

You might have read our last two posts on Vacation Sex (Making Love Happen and Your Turn) and found yourself wishing things were better between the two of you. Perhaps you’d like to employ the ideas of making specific time for your sexuality together, and taking turns focusing your sexual attention on each other, but things aren’t good and you don’t know how to “get there.”

Please remember this: while the quality of your sex-life is an indicator of the quality of your relationship, it can also be a driving force. That is, your sex-life can help LEAD and CHANGE the quality of your relationship, not just follow along helplessly. (For more on this here check out our post: Sex it Up to Live it Up).

This means, then, that you have more control than you think you do. It means that good things can happen when you reach past the resistance to prioritizing sex and do it anyway.

The best thing for a hurting or fighting family to do is to reach past all the angst and go on holidays anyway, purposing to leave the frustrations aside to reconnect around some fun and closeness. The best for a strained friendship is for the friends to go accomplish something together, face a challenge, go have some fun. They must reach past the struggle in the relationship to find the fuel and impetus to resolve the conflict.

It’s the nature of all relationships that what you focus on gets magnified. Most often, to focus on the fun, or camaraderie, or opportunity, is to magnify the connection to the point that the contention is seen for what it really is.

So reach past the angst. The unforgiveness. The issues. And determine to connect sexually with your spouse regardless of what he or she could’ve or should’ve done or even needs to do.

Purpose to put your frustrations aside for a time. Reach past the struggles in your relationship to find the fuel and impetus to help you resolve your issues. Make some agreed upon rules for your time together: no fighting, no bringing up x-y-z issue, no manipulation – just two lovers enjoying each other in order to bring perspective to everything else they face out there.

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Vacation Sex: Your Turn

The basis of great sex is the understanding that it is meant to be mutually enjoyed. So in a typical lovemaking evening, with the give and take of the marriage bed, both husband and wife are generously served by their partner and experience climax and a deep connection as a result of sharing this most intimate part of themselves. It’s incredible, isn’t it?

In the natural give and take of a sexual relationship, sometimes the “mutual enjoyment” aspect is more one-sided. He’s been working hard, and she wants to express her appreciation sexually, or she’s really tired and he decides to sexually pamper her. The “mutual” part of things evens out over time.

But in vacation sex mode (click here to see our last post), you can take advantage of one-sided lovemaking. Take turns focusing primarily or exclusively on one spouse.

When was the last time you actually spent time thinking about what would bring the most sexual pleasure to each other?! Planning your sexual times will build anticipation for both of you. When you plan for your spouse’s “turn,” the focus and preparation required by trying something other than the usual will set off a whole stream of ideas and possibilities. Not only that, imagining and anticipating what your turn will be like will build excitement all by itself.

So if you’ve got the date and place already set up for your vacation sex, take the time between now and then to study your mate sexually. How could you make this the most incredible event possible for each other? Do you know what actions, sequences, nuances, atmospheres, etc. work best for your partner? Remember to ask them about it to make sure you’re on the right track.

[One word of caution: Beware of making any plans too elaborate. Chances are, if your plans include anything experimental, the response from your mate may not be what you expect. Remember that the focus of a vacation sex getaway is to serve your mate sexually. If that means what you originally planned isn’t working as well as you thought it would, be willing to change in the moment without worrying about your “plans.”]

Take some time this fall for vacation sex; sex that makes you look forward to your turn.

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Vacation Sex: Making Love Happen

It’s the middle of a busy fall season. Are you finding the pace of your schedule interfering with your love life?

Your sexuality may need you to take some time away, just like your family does, your work and hobbies might, and your friends probably do. Taking time away means away from one thing and dedicated to another. A family holiday is based on taking time away from work, and spending it on family. A weekend trip with a friend is time taken away from daily routines, dedicated to the enjoyment of friendship. Likewise, a staff retreat is time taken away from the mundane to-do lists to see the bigger picture afresh.

Vacation sex is time taken away from all the other distractions to rediscover the thrill of the gift of intimacy. It’s setting time aside to make love happen.

Sexuality thrives on time and attention. So often it makes do with our left-over time and energy. It’s the after-thought after all the other thoughts! But just a little focused energy and attention can go a looooooong way with sexuality.

Imagine the heights of closeness and pleasure you could accomplish with some concerted energy and dedicated time. Just as other roles in your life (kids, spirituality, hobbies) can bring great joy and satisfaction when given the attention and focus they deserve, so it is with sex.

So here’s the challenge: Take a day, a weekend, a 2-hour spot, whatever you can arrange, in order to get away from everything else that clamours for your attention to dedicate to sexual enjoyment with the person you pledged the rest of your life to bring pleasure to.

Make a sex vacation a reality this fall, or maybe a special Christmas present for the holiday season. When’s the last time you made love like this happen? We’re almost sure you’ll want this to develop into a yearly tradition!

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Finding the Spark

When you’re dating someone new, there’s a very obvious “spark.” This is what makes early love-life so intoxicating and much of what drives the “spark” centers around the things you do together. Perhaps you meet doing a joint activity: church, or a sports team, or through work. Or maybe you take long walks together, listen to music, or go out on the town dancing.

Wherever it was you met initially and whatever you used to do together you have remembered because of the spark that accompanied it. Then came marriage and bills and kids and careers and family issues and bigger bills, and the activities that held that “spark” have been buried with the past, or lost in the busyness and distractions of life.

Do you miss that “spark”? Can you find the activities and things to do that will capture it again? We need to find them. Sure, there are mind-numbing activities, distraction-type “dates” to do together, but then there are those joint-activities that nurture the soul of your relationship, times in which you find yourself closer and more intimate, not just entertained.

Use this summer to look for (together!) and find activities that afterwards you’d say “nurtured us.” Look for times when you “notice” each other afresh, discovering something new about where each other is talented, or what your spouse simply enjoys. When you catch yourself admiring her, or awakening again to how irresistible he is to you, take note – there’s an activity that carries the “spark.”

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Vacation Like This

I find it funny how people run with crazy schedules for 49+ weeks of the year and then take ten days (or so) off hoping to catch up and relax. Yet, I find myself doing the same thing.

Here’s the logic that precedes this phenomena: If I get all my tasks done, then I can relax and enjoy what I’ve worked for and the people in my life.

The problem is, the task list is never “done,” and so we try to cram enjoyment (read: more stress) into mini segments of time – the occasional weekend getaway, the summer vacation, taking a “sick” day, etc. But cramming is like eating dessert too fast – it’s gone  before you can really appreciate it.

I’ve decided to turn this unfruitful logic on its head with a different idea: If I can find a way to get back in touch with what’s already enjoyable in my life and the people around me, I will find more fulfillment and purpose behind the day-to-day tasks all year long.

Now I have a better reason for vacation and time away: It is an opportunity to reconnect deeply again with those things and relationships that make life worth living.

Vacation experiences aren’t for remembering wistfully until you get another holiday at Christmas or next summer. Stay in touch today. Perhaps call home at lunch with sweet nothings and minutia from your day, or kiss appreciatively upon seeing each other, or turn off the tv at dinner and reflect on some good times together.

It’s funny how even with crazy schedules, frequently stealing moments for getting away and being together are more than enough to colour the busyness with the motivation and inspiration that make it all worthwhile. I’ve decided I want to find myself doing that.

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Together Questions

At some point it pays to stop and ask, what brings you and your spouse together, most often, and most delightfully? (Well, yes, hopefully the bedroom, but I’m aiming elsewhere with this question…)

Each person has a specific array of interests and activities they enjoy – a set of preferences – for using their free time. This preference-set is a combination of personality, background, moods, friends, skills, etc., unique to each individual.

Not only is there a variety of interests and activities each person enjoys, but there’s also a way that they are most likely to enjoy those interests and activities. Most people who would say, “I love sports”, as an example, may love only a few sports, and perhaps only enjoy playing them in the right weather, at the right time of day, with certain people, etc. Or, perhaps they only like watching them being played by someone else.

One of the trademarks of a great relationship is an understanding of which activities make for great times together and, conversely, which ones don’t. What is the specific preference-set of your spouse for his or her free time? Further to this, understand your own preference-set when it comes to free time. Once you understand yours and his/hers better, you can ask the best question of all: Where do your preference-sets overlap?

Focus there.

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Making Time

Have you ever looked back on a prior season of your life and thought, “Wow, we sure had lots of time back then!”?

Perhaps it was before you both started working, or before you started your current job or volunteer position that demands so much. For us, looking back to our B.C. (before children) days – it’s puzzling to imagine what we did with all that TIME!

And what do you think when hear about an incredibly productive person, or couple? Like the “soccer mom” who runs kids around and holds down a job and looks perfect all the time. Or the businessman who runs not one but 2 or 3 businesses. Or, for instance, right now at our church there’s a couple speaking at a conference who each lead their own very large ministries, travel incessantly around the world, write numerous books, AND have five kids!

What goes without saying is that these people each have the same time frames to work with (24hrs/day) and the difference is what is placed within those frames. That is, each of us receives the same amount of time but we each decide differently how to use it.

Now, how we use time is a function of skill, motivation, and a few other things, but consider this: what’s going on in your life expands to fill the available time, likely leaving the feeling that you have no more time for anything else. The question then is not what do I have time for, but rather, what do I want to make time for?

For those of us with spouses and families this question needs to be wrestled with often. Instead of giving them the leftovers of our time, instead of waiting for the elusive “someday” when we’ll have more time to spend with those we love most, our spouses and children deserve to be placed directly in the path of the way that we spend our time. When it comes to things we want the most, we must make the concious choices to do them within the time we have, not see if we have time leftover at the end of the day or week.

Remember, chances are that someday you’ll look back on this season of your life you’re living right now and say, “Wow – we sure had lots of time back then!”

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