Hello Friends,
Culture. This may or may not be a word that you are familiar with, especially in your marriage. Honestly, this was not a word used a lot in our household until June of 2021. Alex started a new job and part of his job description was to help create and maintain a healthy culture for the company.
As a result, Alex has learned so much about how to create a healthy culture and how to maintain it. He has shared this information with me, and we have come to see that creating a healthy culture is not only important at a company, but at home as well.
What is Culture?
If you go to google this is what you will find.
culture: the attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group
I like to think of it as a blueprint. It displays the layout of how things are supposed to look. When the blueprint is laid out for everyone to see, everyone knows the plan and what to do to execute that plan.
That is why having a culture in place is so important in your marriage.
A team cannot work together if no one knows the plan. One cannot have the correct attitudes and behaviors if they do not know what the correct ones are. A marriage cannot be a safe and healthy environment unless both people involved work together to make it that way.
By sitting down and co-creating the culture you want as a family, you are setting the standard. Everyone knows the end goal and how they can help achieve it.
Creating a healthy culture will take some work. It will take setting some standards and then making sure they are honored. This may seem like a lot of work, and truth be told it is, but if you don’t do the work a culture will still be created, it just won’t be a good one.
Alex puts it like this, without intentionality your culture becomes what you tolerate.
What you tolerate will become the culture your marriage is known for, let’s be sure we do not tolerate the wrong things.
What is Your Marriage Culture Now?
Like it or not your marriage has a culture. It may be one of unpredictability and chaos, but there is a culture. The question is not IF you have one but WHAT that culture is.
So based how those definitions let’s answer a few questions.
- What is my marriage culture at this moment?
- If you are not sure follow up with the next question.
- What am I tolerating in my marriage?
- What is the atmosphere in your marriage? (peaceful, respectful or chaotic, harsh)
- What is the primary attitude and behaviors in your relationship?
- Are there certain standards in place?
- Are those standards being honored?
- Am I happy with my marriage culture?
- Do little things need to be adjusted or do things need to change entirely?
These are questions that both you and your spouse will have to answer. If the culture of your marriage is going to be healthy and thrive you will have to work together as a team to achieve that.
Four Ways to Co-Create the Marriage Culture You Want?
A healthy culture does not happen organically. Effort and intentionality are the key ingredients when creating your culture. Alex made it clear that if we don’t create our culture it will become what we tolerate. It’s what we allow to happen in our marriage. We can be passive and allow anything and everything into our marriages, or we can be intentional and co-create a culture conducive to health, growth, and happiness. Let’s look at some ways you can start co-creating your marriage culture today.
Start with a Family Meeting
One person can not create the culture in your marriage. When one person comes in and starts throwing all kinds of rules at people they will rebel against them. Make this a family activity. By doing this together, you will find out what is important to everyone. If everyone is on board it will make things a lot easier.
Co-Create Rituals
As a family talk through some things that will be expected on a regular basis.
Maybe it will be family dinners with no distractions, a game night once a week, a bi-weekly date night, or daily prayer time together, whatever it is make it a non-negotiable. Regardless of the day, be sure to uphold the rituals you and your family have decided upon.
Co-create values, mission, and purpose for your marriage
How do we create values, mission, and purpose? You have to start by finding out what is important to you and your family.
What do you want people to say about your marriage and family?
- Do you want your marriage to be known for its kindness?
- Would you like your children to be known for how respectful they are to others?
- Do you want your family to be mission-minded and active in the community?
There are so many more questions that could be asked here, but use these as a starting point. After you have used these questions to get some values and purpose in place. Ask yourself one more question.
What steps can we make every day to establish these values in our family?
For example, if honesty is one of your values, your action step could be, “In every situation, tell the truth.”
Co-create a Culture Board
Then the Lord answered me and said, “Write the vision and engrave it plainly on [clay] tablets so that the one who reads it will run. Habakkuk 2:2
Once you have established what you want your culture to be, find a way to make it visible to everyone. Humans forget things, and if we are going to create a great culture it needs to be in front of us all the time.
Find a way to keep it visible to everyone. Write it out and put it on the refrigerator. Get creative as a family and create a culture board. Whatever it takes to make it plain so everyone can help create it, and walk it out.
The goal is to get everyone on the same page so your culture can thrive and so can your marriage and family.
Never Stop Creating
You and your family have the ability to create the marriage culture you want. Now, one word of warning, everyone will not understand this, and may even make fun of it. When you have to say no to certain things to uphold your culture, or when you have to correct your child and remind them that we as a family do not act that way. You may get some funny looks and off-handed comments… let it go.
You are creating something great! Your culture will become what you create or what you tolerate. Do not tolerate anything less than greatness.
You can do this.
We are praying for you.
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