Devotionals by Brian Goins

I Think I’m in Love With Someone Else
By Marilette Sanchez

“I think I’m in love with someone else,” I told Moses, my then-boyfriend, over the phone.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” he said with a trembling voice. He hung up.

It was one week before our first anniversary.

We had always prided ourselves in not being one of those “clingy” couples. That year, I was a full-time college student in Manhattan working 30-plus hours per week. Moses was a first-year teacher in Queens, his schedule eaten up by never-ending lesson planning.

Months of “doing our own thing” allowed a distance to creep into our relationship. Hungry for companionship, I found myself confiding in another man.

Moses and I got a wake-up call that day: A relationship is never stagnant. It is either moving toward unity, or drifting toward isolation.

Moses and I eventually moved past this emotional affair. But these days—as a married couple of eight years and parents of five young kids—distractions come at us in different forms.

We can’t get 30 seconds into dinner-table conversation without being interrupted. We are tempted to veg out on our phones or Netflix. Sometimes our schedules are so out of sync we feel like two ships passing in the night.

To counteract this, we’ve added several things into our weekly routine.

Several nights a week, we put our electronic devices away, so we can give each other undivided attention to pray or catch up. We take a Sabbath once a week, forgoing email or even calls from friends so we can prioritize time with God and each other.

It’s the little, yet consistent, things we’ve chosen to do that help us keep our togetherness front and center.

Couples who have celebrated 50-plus years of marriage offer their advice in “10 Ideas to Protect Your Marriage.”

The Good Stuff: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

Action Points: Take inventory: what are one or two little (or big) distractions in your life right now that may be hindering your oneness with your spouse? What is one change you can make in your schedule that will counteract these hindrances?

Visit the FamilyLife® Website