How to Strengthen Your Marriage During Hard Times: A Real Conversation

I am going to set the scene for you.

It is evening. I am sitting on the couch writing this post. Josh is beside me, fully absorbed in a violent war movie, wearing his long johns, one hand on the remote control and the other hand holding onto his business like it might detach itself and make a run for freedom.

Guys. I have a genuine question. Why? Just why?

I ask this every single time and I never receive a satisfactory answer.

Anyway. I tell you this not to embarrass my husband, though he has earned it, but because today’s post is about real life. Not the filtered version. Not the highlight reel. The actual, unglamorous, beautiful, frustrating, sacred reality of a long marriage.

And if you came here looking for perfectly curated relationship advice from a couple who has it all figured out, I am going to lovingly disappoint you. However, if you came here for honest, faith-rooted truth about what it actually takes to keep a marriage strong, especially when life gets hard, pull up a couch cushion.

What 22+ Years Actually Looks Like

Josh is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I mean that without a single qualification. He makes me better. He looks at me with a kind of adoration that still catches me off guard after all these years. He loves me well and he is genuinely the more selfless one between the two of us, which is both admirable and occasionally infuriating.

He is also not perfect. There are days he annoys me, upsets me, and gets it completely wrong. And in the spirit of full transparency, an honest accounting of my own shortcomings would require its own separate post and possibly a small book. That is not the point today.

The point is this. If you are learning how to strengthen your marriage during hard times, the first thing you need to release is the idea that a strong marriage is one without conflict, without friction, without days where you go to bed not quite sure how you got there. A strong marriage is one where two imperfect people choose each other again every single morning.

We have been doing this for over two decades. Some days we absolutely crush it. Other days are a lesson in grace, patience, and the quiet practice of not saying the thing you are thinking.

The One Thing I Have Learned About Marriage

After all these years the clearest thing I can tell you about marriage is this: it is the ultimate act of servanthood.

Not romance. Not compatibility. Not chemistry, though none of those things are bad. Servanthood.

It requires daily, intentional, sometimes inconvenient selflessness. It means regularly setting aside what you want or need in a given moment and asking instead what your spouse needs from you right now. It means recognizing that love is far less a feeling than it is a decision you remake every single day.

Josh and I have very different primary needs in our marriage. For him it is physical intimacy and quality time. For me it is quality time and feeling genuinely pursued. When one of us is running on empty or disconnected, all it usually takes to pull us back together is for the other to recognize what the other person needs and choose to meet it, even when it is not the most natural or convenient thing to do.

That is it. That simple and that hard.

Let’s Talk About Sex

I am going to say something that might surprise you.

God wants sex back.

He created it. He designed it. He wrote an entire book of the Bible, Song of Solomon, that is essentially a beautifully written love scene. The very first instruction He gave to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That is a lot of sex. God was not embarrassed about it and neither should we be.

The church has largely gone quiet on this topic while culture has become extraordinarily loud about it, and the result is that most married couples are navigating their sexual relationship with almost no framework rooted in what God actually intended. Statistics suggest that for every 100 hours of sexual content exposure through media, today’s generation spends approximately one second learning about sex the way God designed it.

That is a problem worth addressing openly.

God created sex as a sacred, beautiful, deeply intimate gift specifically for marriage. He placed it inside the covenant of marriage because He cares about protecting us from the damage that comes from giving something so vulnerable and precious to someone who has not committed their life to you. It was never meant to be a source of shame, obligation, or performance. It was meant to be a source of profound connection, pleasure, and joy between two people who have chosen each other completely.

For me, one of the most tangible and meaningful ways I can show up for Josh and serve our marriage is through physical intimacy. Not as an obligation. As a choice. As an act of love and intentionality toward the person I have committed my life to.

What It Means to Go to War for Your Marriage

Here is a reframe that changed how I think about this entirely.

What if you approached intimacy with your spouse as going to war for your marriage?

We go to war to protect something we believe in so deeply that we are willing to sacrifice for it. We go to war because we understand that if we do not fight, we will lose something precious.

Is your marriage worth fighting for? Is your spouse someone you would lay down your life to protect?

I know the church talks a great deal about the destructive sides of sexuality. Pornography, infidelity, addiction, sex outside of marriage. These are real and important conversations. However, I believe that if more married couples understood sexual intimacy as active warfare for their covenant, as a daily choice to turn toward each other rather than away, many of those threats would find far less of a foothold.

The enemy does not need to destroy your marriage dramatically if he can simply create enough distance, enough busyness, enough exhaustion, enough unmet needs, to gradually pull you apart. Choosing each other intentionally and consistently is one of the most powerful defenses available to a married couple.

A Word for Cancer Families Specifically

I have written before about what Kicker’s cancer diagnosis did to our marriage. The fear, the exhaustion, the grief, the way Josh and I processed everything so differently that we sometimes felt like strangers in our own home.

If you are navigating your child’s cancer treatment as a couple right now, your marriage is under a level of stress that most people will never fully understand. The emotional weight is extraordinary. The sleep deprivation is real. The financial pressure, the grief, the constant uncertainty, all of it lands on a marriage and asks more of it than it was built to handle without intentional care.

Do not let the crisis consume everything. Fight for your marriage the same way you are fighting for your child. They need both of you. They need to see the two of you choosing each other even when it is hard. They need the security of a home where their parents are still a team.

It does not have to be elaborate. It can be a hand held in a waiting room. A Krispy Kreme run at 7am when everything feels impossible. A five-minute check-in before bed. Small, consistent, intentional choices to turn toward each other rather than away.

That is how you strengthen your marriage during hard times. One moment at a time.

So What Is Your One Thing?

Every marriage is different. Every couple has their own language of love and connection. What fills Josh’s cup is different from what fills mine, and what fills yours may be different from both of us.

The question worth sitting with today is this: what does your spouse need most from you right now? Not what is easiest for you to give. What do they actually need?

And then, as an act of love and war and radical commitment to the person you chose, give them that thing today.

I would love to hear from you in the comments below. Beyond physical intimacy, what is one way you actively go to war for your marriage each day? Your answer might be exactly what another couple needs to read.

You are not alone. I am so proud of you for showing up, not just for your child but for your marriage and your family. That matters more than you know.