Go to bed with your spouse!

Okay, I admit it. I'm having an affair with my computer. I cozy up to my Facebook, lovingly stare at my email and I'm even getting ready to start a relationship with Twitter. Not to mention an occasional fondling of the blogosphere.
I use the internet for many reasons. Primarily for research, networking and marketing. Now, I know Im not alone. According to a recent study from IDC an internet tracking company,

"People now spend twice as much time surfing the Web as they do watching TV, according to new research from IDC.
IDC surveyed nearly one thousand Internet users for the survey. They found that:

* The Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week). This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours).
* People spend twice as much time on the Internet as they spend watching television (16.4 hours).
* People spend eight times as much time on the Internet as they spent reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours)".

I have recently talked to a few couples where time spent on the internet or in front of the television is taking away from their relationship. Especially when it comes to the internet. Whether it's on-line gaming or chat rooms, use of the internet for non work purposes is quickly becoming the "other person" in the marriage. This is a huge danger that can quickly get out of hand.

For this entry I'm not even going to go into the issue of the ease of pornography or the supposed immunity in chat rooms that can lead to secret dating or romance, what I want to focus on is much simpler.
It's the danger of not going to bed together.
It can be blamed on television just as easily. Going to bed together, as often as possible is crucial to a good relationship. This time alone with no other distraction allows for conversation about the family and each other.
I am a night person, luckily so is Shannon. However, there are times where I just can't sleep or I want to write a little longer even though I am committed to going to bed at the same time as her. So in those times I will go with her to bed, have our conversation, say a prayer together and then as she falls asleep I will get up and finish what I started. Just wanting to be on-line or staying up without a true purpose is not an option.

Recently I was at a speaking engagement. After my presentation, one of the staff came to me and confessed to having spent an entire year of his life playing an online game called World of Warcraft. He was out of work and started playing around with this game one evening. Before he knew it, it was 3am. This started a habit where he would get up at 6am and get on line to play only to stop playing at 2am the next morning. His wife worked full time and supported their financial needs. When I asked him what his wife thought about him and this addiction, he proclaimed how amazing a wife he had and that even though he was sure she didn't like it, she "didn't really complain that much". I don't doubt his evaluation of her being an amazing wife. She would have to be amazingly patient in order to put up with that behavior. Unfortunately, I'm sure they never really got to discuss her true feelings of his addiction. I'm sure he never asked. When could he have? During the 4-6 hours of sleep he got. All the many night they both missed out on being and talking with each other because of a silly game. Nothing about his actions did anything to strengthen that marriage.
I was glad to see he finally got sick of doing nothing, finally logged off and got back to life. However, there is a year in their life that couple will never be able to get back. All those wasted nights spent on a game, they could have spent together. Strengthening their relationship. Growing together and actually knowing how the other felt about...what ever! Instead he has absolutely nothing to show for it other than regret and, on her part I would guess, disappointment.

If you find yourself staying up while your spouse is in bed because of a video game you want to finish or a television show you want to watch or you're chatting in a room, whit people you neither really know nor care about, you need to ask yourself, "What am I avoiding with this behavior?" Just as important, ask yourself, "What am I missing out on by not going to bed with my spouse?"

By the way it's not just men who have this issue. The fasting growing demographic of on line gambling is women.

A recent answer on a yahoo message board explained it well when asked this question.
"We had both been married before when we married each other several years ago. Before we married, we sat down and discussed the things that had gone wrong in our first marriages and talked about how not to repeat them. One of the issues that arose is that we had both had spouses who did not go to bed at the same time as us. My husband's first wife had used it as an avoidance tactic; he was always asleep by the time she came to bed.
We vowed to go to bed at the same time, and we always do. Sometimes it means that one of us has to compromise. My husband is an Army officer and when he comes home from a deployment or exercise he can be whacked by 8.00p.m but we STILL go to bed together. It truly makes a difference. We read, make love... talk things over....It always signals an especially close time when one of us says 'time for bed?' time for just us, alone together."

Do yourself and your relationship a favor this new year. Make a commitment to getting to bed together as often as possible this year. I guarantee it will change your relationship for the better.

Renewing you!

The end of a year always seams like a great time for reflection as the approaching new year gives us the opportunity to renew. So take the time this week to sit down and take inventory of what it is you did this last year and what it is you want to accomplish this next year. Celebrate those things you did great at last year. Congratulate yourself for a job well done in specific areas and then write down how you would like to improve on them for next year. If you had a few things you fell short on last year, don't focus on them, just renew your commitment for the new year or realize you don't really want to focus on it this year and forget about it all together.

Goals or resolutions are not supposed to be something that depresses you if you don't make them, they are supposed to be a motivator for change. If every year you make the same resolution or goal only because you failed at accomplishing it last year and the year before that and the year before that, then maybe you should change the goal or even stop focusing on it all together. Why do you keep beating your self up for something you obviously don't really want to do in the first place.

If you really do want to make a change then make the reason for that change bigger. Make the WHY you want to do this bigger the your excuse not to. A lot of people set the goal to loose weight. It usually has to do with vanity more then health. However, if the WHY was truly because you see your health declining, blood pressure on the rise or you being a candidate for diabetes or heart failure, you probably would focus on that as your "why" as opposed to wanting to look good in a bathing suit.
Here's another idea about the weight thing. Don't set a goal to "loose" the weight. Most things that are "lost" tend to have a way of being found again. Release the weight from your life, therefore you won't go looking to find it again.

Sit down with yourself and your spouse and figure out what you want to renew about yourself this year. What personally do you want to gain or release from your life as well as as a couple. What financially do you want to gain or are their goals you set you want to renew.

Goal setting as a couple is vital to knowing where you want to go together. What you what to do or accomplish as a family.
Click here for some tips on setting goals for this new year from an interesting website I found.