March 2022 - The Marriage Group

Three Types of Premarital Assessments: Which one should you take?

Read Time: 5 minutes

So, your priest or marriage mentor said you need to do a premarital assessment. You’re here reading this article, so you’re likely a high achiever who wants to get this right. There are three popular premarital assessments that help couples get their marriages off to a great start. Let’s take a look at the FOCCUS, RELATE, and PREPARE/ENRICH premarital assessments to help determine which is right for you.

FOCCUS Pre-Marriage Inventory

Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study

The FOCCUS Pre-Marriage Inventory is administered through a certified FOCCUS facilitator who has the couple take the assessment on paper or online and then scores the results. Originally developed by the Archdiocese of Omaha, this pre-marriage inventory has been around since 1985, and it has been taken by over 1 million couples.

A certified FOCCUS Facilitator could be a priest or another religious leader, but they must be a licensed professional who belongs to an approved organization to provide facilitator services. Facilitators are trained to help couples use the information provided in their inventory report to strengthen their relationship and talk about their differences.

For a cost of $20 per couple, the FOCCUS Pre-marriage Inventory evaluates nineteen areas of a couple’s life. It’s great for helping couples determine challenges they may face and providing trained facilitators to help couples understand their results and discuss their potential challenges.

RELATE Relationship Assessment

The RELATE Relationship Assessment is available online without the help of a facilitator. Couples can easily register, take the assessment, and have their results in about 30 minutes. The assessment was developed by the Relate Institute at Brigham Young University, and the cost is currently $40 per couple.

The report produced by the RELATE Relationship Assessment details ten areas and how couples view themselves and their partner in each area. They can see areas of personal strength and challenge along with identifying areas that need improvement. The report includes brief descriptions of behaviors that may be demonstrated in each area, and it also has discussion questions for personal and couple growth.

The strength of the RELATE Relationship Assessment is its user-friendly online format and easy to understand report. The RELATE website offers additional tools for couples after taking the assessment including online classes, an app, and the ability to connect with a registered therapist.

PREPARE/ENRICH

The PREPARE/ENRICH Assessment was developed in the 1980s by Dr. David Olson, a University of Minnesota researcher in the field of family science, and his wife, Karen Olson. There are two versions of the PREPARE/ENRICH Assessment available to engaged couples: the regular version, taken under the direction of a PREPARE/ENRICH facilitator), and the Catholic Couple Checkup which is a lighter version of the original assessment that couples can take on their own.

PREPARE/ENRICH explores twenty relationship areas and provides a report that can be talked through with a facilitator or discussed as a couple using the free, downloadable discussion guide. The cost for either version of PREPARE/ENRICH is $35 per couple.

The couple report from the PREPARE/ENRICH Assessment focuses on twenty areas of a couple’s life and each partner’s personality. It takes around 20 – 30 minutes to complete the online assessment, and the report is available as soon as each partner completes their part. Results are first summarized and then detailed in the report by category, and it includes a personality scale for each partner along with discussion questions throughout.

On a personal note:

While researching for this article, I took the RELATE assessment, and my husband and I took the Couple Checkup from PREPARE/ENRICH.

The main difference we noted was that RELATE structures the report by showing graphs that measure how you view yourself and how your partner views you. They also use percentages to note the level of strength in each category. The graphs and percentages correlate to three categories: strength, needs improvement, and challenge.

PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Checkup measures satisfaction in each area along with couple agreement. These graphs show satisfaction as either high, average, or low and couple agreement as strength, possible strength, and growth area. The report also includes a couple map that shows where the couple falls on a grid that measures flexibility and closeness. At the end of the report, a SCOPE personality scale shows where each of you fall from low to high in the five dimensions of personality: social, change, organized, pleasing, and emotionally steady.

When we compared our results, my husband said the report from RELATE made him feel like he was being graded in each category and that the percentages reminded him of school. Any “score” of less than 80% made him feel like he didn’t measure up in that particular category. The RELATE assessment’s use of the terms “needs improvement” and “challenge” reinforced those feelings.

We both agreed that we like the PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Checkup report much better and felt more open while working through it. In the area where we had the lowest “Couple Agreement”, the report noted the areas where we both felt positive and listed several discussion items that helped us talk about the results. The SCOPE personality scale demonstrated how strong our traits were in each category without making us feel like we failed or were in competition with one another.

The entire Couple Checkup report felt more encouraging, and the discussion guide and included talking points facilitated deeper conversations about our results.

Which premarital assessment should you take?

All three of the premarital assessments discussed are research-based, have been used successfully by many couples, and provide feedback in a detailed report. When deciding which one is best for you, use of a facilitator seems to be the most important factor as FOCCUS is only available through a facilitator, and the full version of PREPARE/ENRICH is similar. If you are already working with a marriage mentor or clergy member for marriage prep, whatever assessment tool they recommend will be valuable if you are open, honest, and thoughtful with your answers.

If you are looking for a tool that you and your partner can use without a facilitator, RELATE and the Couple Checkup from PREPARE/ENRICH are similar in price and both offer a printable report. However, the reports approach the way you view your relationship and your personality styles very differently, and the Couple Checkup offers a few additional reports (the couple map and the SCOPE personality scale) that couples may find helpful.

Couples who take a premarital assessment can reduce the chance that their marriage will end in divorce because assessments help couples understand their strengths and identify growth areas. If you took a facilitator-led assessment other than PREPARE/ENRICH, taking advantage of the RELATE Assessment or the PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Checkup can offer a fresh perspective on your relationship and give your marriage a great start.

The Marriage Group’s online Pre-Cana course, Living Our Faith In Love, is 5-star rated by couples and used in parishes in every U.S. diocese and over 90 countries. Join thousands of other couples who are building a strong marriage with our faithful, flexible, and fun course today!

March 23, 2022/by Jessie Wiegand

Enriching Your Marriage for Lent

Couples

Read Time: 7 minutes

We are well into this season of Lent, remembering the love of God that was poured out through Jesus with his death and celebrating his resurrection. Through that, we truly learn how to love like Jesus — selfless and with humility.

Although the “season” of Lent is broadly considered just that — a brief time set aside for holy reverence and reflection — it should yield positive, long-term results. In fact, Fr. Mike Schmitz just put out this great video: “Lent is a Process—Not an Event.”

As many of us are avoiding carnal indulgences, allowing us to focus on improving our spirituality in a deeply profound way, additionally I encourage you and your beloved to focus on enriching your marriage for Lent.

Loving Your Spouse Through the Lens of Jesus

Being a son or a daughter of God means so much more than wearing our faith on our sleeve as some sort of badge of honor. Our faith empowers us to live more like Jesus, and this becomes more evident in every area of our lives — especially marriage.

How did Jesus live his life? Through humility and with a servant’s heart.

That is how we lead — loving our spouse through humility and with a servant’s heart. Marriage is referred to as a “mystery” in Ephesians, and also gives us a glimpse into what that means. “For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother
and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (5:31)

Marriage is the complete giving of one’s self to another and becoming one flesh.

To put this into simple terms, before marriage, I was Gordon and my wife was Regina. Over a decade ago, we became “the marriage of Gordon and Regina.” We are individual human beings, but unified as one, under the bond of our marriage.

But developing our marriage did not stop the second we said, “I do.” We weren’t magically made perfect as a married couple that day. We quickly learned that continued effort and hard, but rewarding work was to begin right away — if we truly believed in our vows for each other… and we certainly did.

So how do we work on this, practically speaking?

Dropping Negative Tendencies and Strengthening Positive Temperaments

Spoiler alert: this won’t be easy. But as I mentioned before, working hard on improving your marriage is so rewarding.

We all approach life and its nuances in different ways. How we interact with each other and the react to things that directly or indirectly affect us is what makes up our temperaments. In very simple terms, we can refer to this our prevailing “mood” or “mood patterns.”

It is vitally important to, at the very least, have a general idea of “what makes us tick.” In my opinion, it is also just as important to develop a deeper understanding of the innermost parts of our being by learning more about our temperaments. In marriage, it becomes even more important to learn about each other’s temperament.

Think about it this way: wondering why there is tension in your marriage when you haven’t learned how to speak your spouse’s language (empowering them within their temperament) is like getting frustrated that your microwave hasn’t filed your taxes. All of us have a unique set of wires that make up who we are, and if we use the wrong tools on each other, we lose our functionality. We end up destroying the beautiful creature that we fell in love with.

So how do we put this into practice within our marriage?

1 . Talk about everything.

And I mean everything.

The good, the bad, the ugly. Even the things we feel might be irrational fears, everything.

Lack of communication is the very withholding of one’s self to the other. When that happens, we lose the very Christlike nature within the foundation of our marriage. We can and should be excited to share everything with each other. Lack of communication leads to so many negative results, the chief among them is the compromising of trust and integrity within your marriage. None of us are mind-readers, so the guessing game cannot be a part of a healthy marriage.

If being an open book with your spouse isn’t your M.O., my friend, you are backpedaling on your vows. Really, at the end of the day, what are you trying to hide? If fear of looking weak in front of your spouse is holding you back from sharing, well then, start there. Tell your spouse that you are afraid to share with them. Have a conversation about it. Open communication will undoubtedly unlock deeper levels of intimacy with your spouse.

Communication is also equal parts talking and listening. We’ll talk more about being a steamroller later on, but make sure that when you communicate or have a conversation, it isn’t a one-sided event. Your spouse needs to be actively listened to just as much as you do — remember that.

Listening to your spouse is also not just a passive stance to take — merely “putting in your time” while your spouse drones on. We all have a desire to be heard, but not many of us develop the desire to hear. We can and should be excited to listen to each other.

Set aside time every single day to have uninterrupted conversation. If you need a milestone to get you started, set aside fifteen minutes every single day of intentional, uninterrupted conversation. Phones on silent, on the chargers in the other room.

2. Learn more about each other.

I always cringe a little when couples indicate that they “know everything about each other.” While this may seem like an excellent goal, I feel like life together as a married couple becomes quite boring if there isn’t anything new and exciting to learn about each other.

When someone passes away, we usually say “rest in peace” — insinuating that the afterlife is the ultimate peace to attain. Ergo, if we achieve this “ultimate peace” of knowing everything about each other, is it safe to say that part of our marriage is kind of… dead?

Setting that aside, I would go further to say that I don’t necessarily believe that husband and wife can ever truly “know everything about each other,” especially just after a few years of marriage. We all change as time goes on, even if they are slight changes. The beauty of marriage is growing in love, together. Going through changes, together. The only danger is not allowing the other person “in” on that growth. Again, see: “Talk about everything.”

In one of our other articles, we wrote about having a jar filled with conversation prompts, and I can’t begin to express enough how powerful that tool can be. Load it with questions like, what was it like for you the first time we met?, what is your ultimate dream for us as a couple?, what is your ultimate dream for yourself as an individual?, what does true happiness look like to you?, how do I make you feel like you are my priority?, what are things that could be better for us?

Get creative and specific for you and your marriage with these questions. This is a beautiful exercise and can yield very profound results — you may be surprised at each other’s answers, and that rules.

3. Do not be a steamroller.

Using your temperament as a weapon of self-indulgence completely invalidates your spouse’s needs, wants, and desires. This can destroy any and all possibility of thriving together as a couple if it is not brought to your attention, or if left unresolved. Did you catch that?

One part is the awareness that steamrolling may be happening, and the other part is to resolve it.

Our temperaments are unique, beautiful and individualistic, but also complimentary as husband and wife. Marriage is a dance. It is all about give and take. If you notice your spouse needs to express their temperament a little more on a given day, it might mean that you yourself need to take a step back and allow for them to feel loved and listened to in a meaningful way.

If you feel like your spouse may be steamrolling a bit, it can be easy to get frustrated. In fact, I’d say that you may be justified in your frustration if you feel like you hardly have a chance to express your temperament, your emotions, your thoughts, so… talk about it! If you haven’t noticed already, the common theme throughout this article is all about communication.

During those times of uninterrupted conversation mentioned above, bring up the fact that you feel a bit steamrolled at times if that is the case. Or, if you are on the other side — doing the steamrolling — if your spouse makes you aware of this, respond with humility and with a soft demeanor. When your spouse is justifiably upset, it isn’t time to double down and make excuses for hurting him/her.

In short…

I’ll leave you with three very practical ways to help with enriching your marriage for Lent. Bonus points and ten gold stars if you do all three:

You may already have a general idea of what your temperament is, but if you would like to go deeper into the inner-workings of who you are, there are plenty of assessments you can take online to find out. This assessment from the study “I Said This, You Heard That” is really well done. This isn’t an official endorsement by any means, but my wife and I took this course with the assessment and it really improved our way of communicating and interacting with each other.
Regardless of if you take the assessment or not, as I mentioned above, set aside that time every day to have your uninterrupted conversation with your spouse. It’s easy, and we all have time, so don’t make excuses — put it into practice! I believe in you.
Use the conversation prompts to learn more about each other.

At the very least, the takeaway here is the awareness of how we are built and wired as human beings. Through this knowledge of ourselves, we then continually work toward becoming better versions of ourselves for our spouse.

Marriage Every Day™ is the place for couples who want to have fun growing strong marriages. Community chats, free mini-courses, and engaging activities will help you build a marriage you love alongside thousands of couples just like you!

Learn more HERE.

March 22, 2022/by Gordon - Director of Product Development & Creative

Developing Personal Spirituality: A Stay-At-Home Mom’s Guide to Spiritual Growth

Couples

Read Time: 6 minutes

When I was a young mom, I had several mentors in my life that were around 15 years or more older than me and in the later stages of parenting. To me, they radiated spirituality after years of practicing their faith, and they seemed so composed when I compared myself to them and the craziness I felt both internally and externally while parenting small children. I actually thought they were saint-like at times, and I wanted to be just like them.

Looking back, I realize that most of what I admired about those ladies was just that they were in a different stage of life than I was, and they were reaping the benefits of having been faithful to their husbands, families, and God for a lot longer than I had. What I coveted was something you could only have after years of being on that journey and experiencing life. I was never going to have the steadiness of a 38-50 year old woman at the age of 22.

When we talk about developing our personal spirituality, it’s imperative that we recognize it is, in fact, personal. The journey a woman takes to understand God, herself, and her place in the world may have similar components, but it will be as unique as the whole person God created her to be.

Therefore, while having mentors and spiritual leaders is an important element of your own spiritual growth, the focus of the journey needs to be on where God is taking you, not where he has taken others. However, there is value in hearing how others have experienced God so that we can know it’s possible and learn the many ways He communicates to His people.

I share below the story of my journey to connect with God while raising my kids. It is an example, not an instruction manual.

The Most Important Time of the Day for Spiritual Growth

I am not a morning person. When my kids were babies and toddlers, I stayed up late to get control of my household chores and finally have time to myself while they were sleeping. This made mornings even worse for me, and I stayed in bed till the absolute last second, sometimes allowing my groggy kids into bed with me for snuggles so I could enjoy a few more minutes of downtime before my feet hit the floor. As a mom of five, once the day got started, it was off to the races.

Those ladies I admired had older kids, different temperaments than mine, and different routines. I felt like they all got up at 5 AM ready to read their Bibles, pray for the world’s ills, and write in their devotional journals. I tried a million times to make that a reality for myself, but 5 AM and me never really meshed.

I learned an important lesson from an unlikely source in those days: a 17th century monk named Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence worked in the kitchen of a monastery and is most well known for his ability (and the small book by a similar name) to practice the presence of God at all times. Since his primary responsibility was washing dishes, he learned to discipline his mind to focus on God and pray for others while he worked, turning a chore of drudgery into an opportunity to worship.

A line in the book that struck me was,

“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”

Since my days as a stay-at-home-mom were filled with tasks related to caring for others and keeping our household running smoothly, those words resonated with me. If Brother Lawrence could pray without ceasing in the 1600s while doing mountains of dishes by hand, a monotonous and dirty job, I could pray while vacuuming, folding laundry, and changing diapers in a modern home with modern technology.

That message created a small habit for me that continued for years, one I even find myself doing today as an empty nester when I fold my husband’s clothes or make a pot of soup for my visiting children and their partners. I pray while I work. I ask God to give me empathy for the people I’m serving. I reflect on the many ways He has served me, and I’m grateful. I repent for being selfish, impatient, or resentful in my relationship with that family member.

“I will do all things for the love of God.” – Brother Lawrence

The subtle shift that happened when I turned ordinary and sometimes mundane tasks into opportunities to focus on God and others was incredible. I didn’t realize then that I was practicing a form of mindfulness, learning to be fully in the moment with all of my senses, and it taught me to appreciate even the smallest moments of my life. Focusing on God and others while I worked turned my obligations into opportunities, and it became hard to resent the opportunity to pray for and bless others when I recognized that’s what I was doing.

The Little Changes Are Catalysts for Big Changes

I always want the big rewards in life, and I sometimes forget that there are thousands of small, everyday choices to be made for every big reward. Learning to bring God into those little everyday moments, choosing to focus on him rather than indulging in feeling sorry for myself over the mountains of laundry and neverending kitchen chores, made it easier to bring him into other areas of my life.

Because I was praying for my kids more often, it was natural to need more answers from God, and I began seeking them out in the Bible. Because the Bible is kind of hard to understand sometimes, I made more time for study and went regularly to classes at my church. Because classes are usually more lecture than discussion, I joined small groups where I could talk about what I was learning and ask questions. I even traded out some of my entertainment down-time to read books recommended by my spiritual mentors and journal about what I was learning.

Those actions varied depending on the season of life we were in as a family. When my ability to commit to things outside my home was limited because of a new baby or lack of transportation, I invited women to gather in my home once a week. Bible studies with babies playing in the center of a circle of women were a common feature of my life for years. When the kids were sick or I was simply exhausted, I stayed home more often and made sure to connect with friends and mentors on the phone.

As my children grew older, I joined studies outside the home and made time for weekend retreats at least once a year. Whatever the season, I found it was possible to create space for spiritual growth both privately and corporately, but it looked so different depending on the time of year, my energy levels, our family finances, and the availability of my husband. I found that if I just gave myself the freedom to discover what made me feel connected with God, and allowed space in my life to grow closer to Him, it was a source of joy in my life, not guilt or shame.

God Can Teach You to Be a Mother

It seems a little scandalous, but the more I learned about God, the more I saw Him acting with both traditionally fatherly and motherly characteristics. I noticed how many times He related to the human race as children, and since I was neck-deep in full-time parenting, I began to understand His love for the world in a very practical way.

Parenting offers a unique opportunity to glimpse the heart of God for His people. My children, humans that they are, sinned. They sinned against others, against me, and against themselves. They caused me grief, and I feared for their emotional, intellectual, and spiritual well-being. I was compelled, neurotically at times, to defend their safety and attempt to protect them from the evil in the world and the evil in their own hearts. I tried, and I failed. At times, I gave them what they needed, yet they wanted something else. I loved them, and they still felt unloved. I accepted them, but they experienced rejection.

Those things happened in a million ways throughout their journey from infants to teenagers, and they continue to happen even though my kids are all adults now. I am an imperfect parent to imperfect children, and when I consider the responsibility given to me by God alongside the reality that I cannot perform it perfectly, I feel crushed.

But…God.

The crushing reality of parenting has driven me to seek God in a way that nothing else in my life has. Whether it’s praying for the right words to communicate during a sibling squabble or the patience to encourage a brand new reader, God showed up for me a million times in the day-to-day routine of mothering. He helped me soothe broken hearts, celebrate wonderful accomplishments, and cherish the unique people he entrusted me with. His Word, His community of believers, and His Spirit have also comforted me, urged me forward, and brought me peace.

When I felt I had nothing left to give, He was there. As I live now in the new adventure of parenting adult children, staring down grandparenthood, He is there. Cultivating that relationship, learning and growing and allowing Him to change me through motherhood, has been a source of life for me. It can be the same for you. It will look a little different from my journey, but I fully trust that He will support, challenge, and sustain you as well.

This is part three of our three-part series: Maintaining Sanity and Developing Personal Spirituality as a Stay at Home Mom

March 17, 2022/by Jessie Wiegand

What is a Relationship Inventory or Premarital Assessment?

Couples Marriage Prep

Read Time: 4 minutes

Taking a relationship assessment or doing a premarital relationship inventory during premarital preparation or premarital counseling can feel intimidating.

How much time will this take?

How much do I have to tell the priest about my personal life and my past?

What if we fail?

Some people love personality tests and assessments, but when it comes to taking one as a couple, and sharing it with a priest or marriage mentor, it may bring up feelings of vulnerability, anxiety, or fear. Although those emotions may be warranted (you are doing something new and unfamiliar), approaching the premarital assessment with an open mind and a little courage can yield wonderful benefits for your future relationship.

What is a Premarital Assessment?

The kind of assessment you take (and there are many!) isn’t as important at the core purpose of a premarital assessment. The core purpose of the assessment is to reveal talking points that your priest or mentors can use to guide helpful discussions about your relationship.

A premarital assessment is not a tool used to grade your relationship; you cannot fail a premarital assessment.

Learning the areas you and your future spouse are more and less compatible can facilitate helpful dialog between you and your partner as a couple and with your priest or marriage mentors. Premarital assessments are filled with research-based questions that provide helpful data about who you and your partner are as individuals and as a couple.

The results of your premarital assessment will reveal your personal and relationship strengths and help you identify areas of growth.

If you want to pursue deeper connections and have a healthy relationship, the premarital assessment is integral to your life as a married couple.

How honest do I have to be in my premarital assessment?

We all have a tendency to protect our vulnerable parts, and the thought of doing a premarital assessment and then talking it over with your partner and priest or marriage mentor may tempt you to hide some parts of yourself.

Being honest about yourself and your relationship will provide the best results on your premarital assessment.

If you want your premarital assessment to yield helpful results, you shouldn’t hold back when answering questions. Even though a good premarital assessment will detect inconsistencies, your honesty will honor you, your future spouse, and the entire marriage preparation process.

Taking the time needed to complete the assessment honestly, discuss it with your marriage preparation partners, and reflect on the results yourself will strengthen the foundation of your future marriage. Although the premarital assessment will not magically fix any serious issues it may reveal, it will provide a starting point for a healthy dialog moving forward.

What are the benefits of doing a premarital assessment?

It is no secret that marriage is difficult, and throwing yourself wholeheartedly into the marriage preparation process won’t make you immune to its challenges. However, research has proven that couples who engage in premarital counseling are happier and more realistic about their relationships, and those who take certain premarital assessments have a reduced rate of divorce.

Premarital counseling and premarital assessments can improve your relationship and reduce the chance that your marriage will end in divorce.

Think of all the ways you make your partner a priority and work hard to have a good relationship. The premarital assessment is just one more tool that will help you better understand yourself and your partner, and taking it seriously will point your future marriage in the right direction.

On a personal note:

My husband and I went through premarital counseling in the Catholic Church over 25 years ago. We thought it was fun to spend time together learning about our differences and figuring out how to talk about things that we hadn’t yet discussed – like divorce, life insurance, and the spiritual principles we would teach our future children. We both had previous relationships – some good and some bad – and it was embarrassing to talk them over with our priest. However, we pushed through the awkwardness and got honest with our mentors and each other. We’ve looked back at the conversations that resulted from our premarital assessment and counseling several times over the years, and we are always grateful for the foundation of honesty and openness that it laid for our future.

Any time we’re faced with a “test” it can bring up a slew of emotions, but the premarital assessment is simply a tool used to get your marriage off to a great start. Understanding its purpose, committing to honesty, and recognizing the value of the premarital assessment will position you and your partner for a successful beginning to a lifetime as a couple.

March 7, 2022/by Jessie Wiegand

Scheduling Sabbath Rest: How Mothers Can Recover from Busyness

Couples

Read Time: 3 minutes

Whenever mothers think about rest it can lead to guilt. The demands of motherhood are constant. Babies, toddlers, even teenagers can’t set their needs aside to give their moms a break. Mothers know they need rest, but how in the world are they supposed to get it and not feel bad about it when they do?

Setting Realistic Expectations for Rest

If the only understanding of rest is an entire day spent on a quiet beach or a three-hour nap uninterrupted by a baby’s cries or a sibling squabble, it will stay elusive and impossible to attain. The demands of modern life leave little room for down time no matter what your profession, and some of us end up packing more busyness into our time off than we experience during a typical work week.

Since time away from responsibility is hard to come by, and it’s easy to fill available time with errands and other work-like duties, realistic forms of rest need to be prioritized as necessary parts of our daily rhythms. The fact that humans have divided time into hours, hours into days, days into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years provides a natural structure to incorporate rest into our lives. It’s reasonable for a mother to find space in each day, month, and year to recover from her busy life and take some time for herself, but she has to initiate, implement, and fight for those moments.

Making Rest a Priority

Daily moments of rest may be as simple as five minutes of prayer before getting out of bed in the morning, a bath after dinner while dad watches the kids, or an hour reading when the kids are in bed for the night. Even when daily moments of rest become part of a family’s routine, it is still important to schedule time out once a week, once per month, and once per year for longer increments of rest. Moms will benefit tremendously from an evening out with friends, an overnight stay at a family member’s house, or a weekend retreat once a year.

Mothers can initiate those moments by communicating their importance to their husbands and then making them part of the family’s normal routine. Fathers who care about the wellbeing of their wives and children should recognize the value in giving mom a few moments of rest on a daily basis along with longer breaks throughout the year. When parents model healthy attitudes about rest and work, kids benefit from more refreshed caregivers, and they learn to respect the spiritual value of Sabbath rest.

On a personal note:

As a homeschooling mother of five, I had a hard time finding people I could leave my kids with and not be stressed out the entire time I was gone. I really only left my kids with my husband, mother, and in-laws until they were old enough to stay with a couple of very trusted teenage babysitters. My ticket to time away was a very supportive husband, and our date nights were based on grandma availability more than anything else.

I cannot overestimate the value of the encouragement my husband gave me to take time for myself.

Whether it was overseeing after dinner chores so I could escape to the bathroom for a bubble bath or hanging out with the kids in the evening so I could go to a homeschool support group meeting and stay out late with my friends, he made sure I had time to do things independently.

That support allowed me to be a very busy homeschooling mother for almost 20 years while still cultivating my own hobbies and friendships. It also kept our relationship strong and enabled me to return the favor and encourage him to take time for himself as well.

Our time away from each other gave us the space we needed to enjoy other relationships and experiences that enriched our lives and gave us fun things to talk about when we were together.

Don’t Feel Guilty Having Fun

Once you recognize your need for rest and create space for it in your life, take a deep breath and enjoy it. Parenting is a consuming job, and it’s a large part of your identity, but it’s not all you are.

Mothers are still people with their own desires, hobbies, talents, and dreams. When you have time to yourself, explore things you’re passionate about. Learn new things, practice your gifts, and develop yourself. Mothers who are active in their personal growth provide a wellspring of information, creativity, and inspiration to their children.

It’s tempting to want to bring your children and family along with you to experience the things you love, but having those moments to yourself and then sharing the story with your family has its benefits as well. Your ability to set time aside for yourself demonstrates valuable lessons to your kids.

This is part two of our three-part series: Maintaining Sanity and Developing Personal Spirituality as a Stay at Home Mom

March 7, 2022/by Jessie Wiegand