I can’t remember where I first heard of the idea. But this advice is gold! And the Lord has really blessed our family through this.

Once a week my husband Luke and I have a meeting with each other.

We meet once a week after the children are tucked into bed and have a full on ‘business’ type meeting with each other. The laptops and phones are put away (unless we need to research something together) and over a cup of tea we discuss everything we can fit in before bedtime.

I have a special A4 sized lined notebook that I use to keep a record of everything we discuss and highlight important things we need to remember.

As each of our five children have come along we have been able to talk to each other as a couple less and less. While the children are awake they have a way (as most children do) to interrupt every conversation we try and have. Every time Luke or I open our mouths to speak to one another someone seems to need us to fix something/comfort them/listen to them/help them/break up an argument over a toy/clean an urgent mess. So our meeting together is vital for keeping us talking to each other about things.

Because lack of communication is a silent killer of marriages.

Some topics are icky and don’t want to be discussed. But they need to be. We try and talk about the tricky and stressful things (like insurance and sick kids) as well as our dreamy and exciting things like holidays and future dreams.

Also, as someone who suffers from anxiety I really benefit from getting all that stuff out that is swirling around and around in my head. The 10000 things that I feel I have to organise/should be doing/haven’t got around to yet are spoken out in the open, made sense of and written down on paper. It calms my mind and eases the stress. Solutions are found and the world begins to look a little brighter.

Our meetings together have turned into something we both look forward too. When the mood is low in our house due to business and stress it really helps our moods to be lifted and gives us hope, clarity and direction as a couple.

Blessings, Peta