Top 10 Ways to Hold a Swing Shift Marriage Together

With the start of the new year, you may have new goals for your marriage. Here are some tips to help!

1)      Close the door and hang out together for half an hour or more. Kids, this is grownup time. If no one’s bleeding, your request can wait.

2)      Know the tuned-out look of the woman behind the laptop, and just walk away. Work is happening. It’s okay, she is still listening for people who are bleeding.

3)      Let each other talk about work. Take an interest in who we each deal with in the course of things, know the other person’s struggles, learn each other’s specialized jargon.

4)      Go on long family vacations focused on educational touring. Maybe even leave the laptop behind.

5)      Trust each other’s best intentions, especially when they don’t work out.

6)      Take responsibility for our own spiritual lives, while taking joint responsibility for how we raise our kids. This is not a lifestyle where Mommy and Daddy sit down to pray together at a set time every night.

7)      Modify, modify, modify. Change the who, when and what of household responsibilities according to time, overtime and sick time.

8)      Sleep when tired. It sounds odd, but between the night shifts and the kids, it requires conscious planning.

9)      Be thankful. Not everyone has a job and a house and a family. This is the good life.

10)  Praise God. This cup is far more than half-full; it overflows.