A common characteristic that all disconnected couples have is that their relationship has become a low priority.

I want to share a couple quotes from my mentor, Terry Real. The first one is:

“Intimacy is not something you have, it's something you do.”

And the second one is,

“We must have an active relationship to our relationship.”

To have the relationship be a priority means that we're actively working on it. It’s not brain surgery, but it’s easier said that done.

Because, chances are you have many demands on your time such as: work, kids, trying to have a social life, and hobbies or interests?

However, when we actively work on our relationship, we save time by spending less of it in disharmony and disconnection.

There’s different ways and tools to go about this. And we also need to know how to repair; how to get back on track and into connection.

Because the thing is, all of us are inherently annoying.

For example, you’ve lived with a roommate and some of the things they did were super annoying right? Let’s not mention family members or people who have stayed at your house for more than a few days…

Our spouse can be annoying as well, especially if we're not feeling connected them. Then we may start to be aware of how they chew gum too loud, or leave socks on the floor.

We need to actively create intimacy, because after we get married, we don’t just have it.

So, what do we do?

The answer is totally simple, here's a quick list of four things:

1. Be nicer to each other.
2. Appreciate and cherish what you’re getting.
3. Go on date nights and schedule time to sit down and talk about what’s going on once a week.
4. Greet each other when either one of you gets home, say goodbye and hug when you leave for the day.

Or, you can continue to become easily frustrated and annoyed with each other...

John Gottman in his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work writes about couples who attended his marriage workshop that maintained success versus those that did not.

He had the question: "Did the successful group dramatically overhaul their lives?"

“Far from it…

He writes:

To our surprise, we discovered that they were devoting only an extra six hours a week to their marriage.

Although each couple had their own style of spending the six hours, some clear patterns emerged.

In general, these couples were giving their marriages, a concentrated refresher course, in the seven principles.

The approach works so phenomenally well, that I’ve come to call it six magic hours or the magic six hours.”

Here’s a PDF with a quality summary of the magic six hours.

Practicing the magic six hours means you’re having an active relationship to your relationship.

Love is a verb. Intimacy is something you do.