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Call me wacky, but I am convinced that any person with two reasonably healthy legs could run a marathon. Yes, I mean the 26.2-mile foot race. I didn't say everybody could win it—or even place in the top half of the field—but everybody could run one. Really. The difference between those who will and those who won't (like me), however, is simply two things: decision and discipline. One must decide that one wants to run a marathon and then ravenously commit to training. And a major component of that commitment is to give much of that all-precious commodity: time.

As a marital therapist and educator, one of the most frequent issues I deal with is couples who, at best, feel like roommates, and, at worst, no longer believe they are "in love." "The passion is gone" and "I don't know who you are anymore" are common laments. For many of you in this reading audience, you may feel you that you are neither headed for the therapist's office nor toward being "out of love" (especially since, if you are a frequent reader of MP, you know that love is a commitment and therefore a choice). But you may still sense that your marriage is less passionate than it once was and that there are times when you and your mate feel like the proverbial ships passing in the night.

If you desire to re-ignite the passion or stoke the marital fires so they burn brighter each day of your marriage, you can do that the same way the marathon runner does: with decision and discipline. You must decide that you want a passionate marriage and then you must commit to doing the things that will bring that type of marriage about. And one of the vital, life-giving disciplines needed to create that environment is the same one our runner needs to get ready for the race: making time to train. Without the time, it just won't happen.

Normally, after couples hear those last two lines about time, I receive a series of eye-rolls, head-shakes, and groans. In our multi-sport teams, multi-church activities, multi-tasking culture, time is as valuable as diamonds. Couples believe that finding "extra" time "just to be together" is about as likely as walking out in the backyard and finding a one-carat gemstone. Frankly, I would agree—if it were just about "finding" time. But successful athletes don't find it; they make it. And they don't let anything get in the way of keeping that commitment to spend time training.

So, before we can discuss "how" to find time together, you must first decide that you are going to spend time together. I know that sounds overly simplistic, but this is where so many couples falter. To keep from failing before you get out of the gate, you must commit to spending time together no matter what. Just as a house does not clean itself and a checkbook doesn't automatically balance, nor does a marriage remain passionate and a husband and a wife stay connected if they do not give and make the time to be together. Period.

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