When landscaping a yard and garden, we rarely plant randomly. Often, we hire an expert to draw up a design, or we spend considerable time planning and choosing flowers and bushes perfect for the soil, moisture, and light in the area. Having a blueprint helps us create a beautiful, low-maintenance garden and yard. Then we take plenty of time to prepare the soil with compost, manure, peat moss, and sand to get just the right consistency.
But do we take this same care for our relationships?
Estimated reading time: 4.5 minutes
Don't Forget to Prune and Nurture Your Relationship
Sometimes, we forget to take time to identify what a loving and healthy relationship looks like for us as a couple.
We don’t create a beautiful design for our relationship like we do for our gardens.
We postpone getting better tools that would help us be successful.
We forget to till and enrich the soil of the relationship.
We take little time to prune and pull the weeds that seek to overrun our love, such as arguments or ineffective communication.
So is it any surprise that many couples don’t create a fulfilling, loving, and lasting relationship?
Last year my husband and I purchased a new yard trimmer and a high-powered lopper to prune branches. Cleaning out the suckers on the Japanese Crabapple trees in our backyard turned out to be surprisingly easy and fun.
I was reminded once again just how important it is to have the right tools and materials, not only for yard work but also for pruning and nurturing our marriage and relationship. At each season, the right tools make the work easier. Otherwise, creating a healthy and thriving relationship can be so much more difficult.
This past weekend while lopping off dead branches and trimming overgrown bushes, I was thinking about what creates a balanced and healthy relationship.
- What nutrients does the relationship need to thrive?
- Where do we find time in our busy schedules to connect?
- What are the right tools to ensure that our relationship continues to grow?
- Do we have a support network for difficult patches?
- What are the high-value actions that help a relationship stay strong?
Reflecting on the many years (actually a few decades 😍) of my marriage, I wondered what keeps my husband and me growing and getting closer when other couples are separating or divorcing.
How have we navigated the ups and downs of building businesses and raising a family? Are there specific tools and materials that deepened our commitment and strengthened our roots? Keep reading if you want to know.
Related reading: "Do You Want a Happy Marriage? Do These 5 Actions!"
Key Actions to Nurture a Relationship and Create a Healthier Marriage
Here are a few key ingredients to nurture a relationship for a happier you! These are key actions we have found that have helped us grow a rock-solid marriage.
The compost: using our imperfections as leverage to be better and support each other to grow. When we make mistakes, we learn from them and commit to new actions in the future.
The sunlight: random acts of kindness, respectful words, and patient and empathetic responses when one of us is frustrated or upset.
The fertilizers: date night, a surprise gift, appreciation for our differences.
The pruning: agreeing to handle disagreements before going to bed and not postponing difficult conversations. Making honesty, transparency, and forthrightness a priority in our relationship.
Related reading: "Relationship Rescue—Turn Complaint to Closeness"
What I realized is that landscaping a relationship rarely requires major overhauls—but it DOES require small and consistent nourishment, time for regeneration, and occasional pruning of harmful habits that corrode our relationship.
When we pay attention and nurture our relationship like we care for a prize vegetable or rose garden, we harvest a happy relationship.
A healthy marriage requires pruning, but it also requires choosing your partner anew every day.
After all, love is a choice that we need to make daily!
Tell me what you do to grow healthy and strong roots. What tools, materials, and techniques work for you? We'd love to hear from you!
Reach out for couples mentoring or more tips to build a healthy relationship that thrives, contact us at Heartmanity!
