With the turn of the page to January, many people make a New Year’s resolution. This year, why not consider making a resolution that will enrich your marriage, strengthen your bond of intimacy with your spouse and help heal the differences between you more easily? All of this can be done through daily couple prayer.
Couple prayer is just that — a couple setting time aside each day to pray with one another. In doing so, the couple makes an intentional decision to bring God into their relationship and acknowledges God as a central part of their marriage.
Prayer is the way in which we build a relationship with Divine Love by communicating with God. There is no right or wrong way to pray. All it takes is opening your heart and sharing your feelings with God, telling God what is on your mind and what is going on in your life or asking for help or intercession for yourself and others. Couple prayer is the same thing, except instead of praying on your own, you are praying with your spouse.
By letting your spouse listen in on your conversations with God, you are deepening the intimacy between both of you. You are allowing yourself to become vulnerable by giving your spouse a glimpse into your heart that no one else but God sees. What an incredible impact that can have on your relationship as a couple!
With Lent nearing, instead of giving up something this season, why not add couple prayer to your daily Lenten practices?
Survey results show that less than 1 percent of married couples who pray together divorce. Maybe this is because couples who pray together are able to resolve conflicts more easily. As one spouse wrote, “It is difficult to stay mad at someone I am praying with.”
While it may be awkward for couples to get into the habit of praying together if they’ve never done so before, it need not be. Instead of talking silently to God by yourself, you are simply praying out loud in front of your spouse as if you were talking to a friend.
Your couple prayer can be as simple as making the sign of the cross on your spouse’s forehead each morning before you head off for work and asking the Lord to watch over him or her throughout the day. Or it can be holding hands in bed before you go to sleep and praying out loud one of the traditional prayers of the Church.
It can be a spontaneous prayer in which you ask God for something special for your spouse, such as: Lord, help my husband with his presentation at work today; or Lord, give my wife the courage she needs to have that talk with her sister today. Or perhaps there is a special need you have in your family or for your children. Hold hands with your spouse and speak your prayer out loud. One of you can begin the prayer and the other can finish it.
Another idea is to hold hands at the end of the day and ask your spouse how you have been a blessing to him or her that day and thank God for that. Or ask your spouse if you have hurt him or her during the day and ask God and your spouse to forgive you.
Couple prayer does not have to be this elaborate thing where you sit or kneel and pray for long periods of time. Keep it short and simple and you will sustain it. Start with one minute and build from there. Don’t let it become a burden that you dread. Remember: The words you say and the amount of time you spend in prayer don’t matter. What does matter is that the two of you are choosing to bring God into your relationship in a more vibrant way. Just open your hearts as a couple to God and Divine Love will do the rest.
By MaryJo McLaughlin