Calling all you Christian married women...

[Romans8v30]

I am new to Mumsnet and was looking for some advice.

I am married and have been for almost two years, we have a great relationship in almost every way. Where we let each other down is in terms of praying/worshiping(we go to church together but thats it)/reading our bible together. When we dated we used to do this, albeit for a short time, we slipped up and made a mess of our relationship re: God. But when we got married it changed we started going back to church etc, and we have sorted out our faiths individually but not as a couple we know this is a problem. So my question is how do you all do it.

Do you have a set time you pray? Is there always an open discussion about the bible? Is it just us who finds it hard?

Hi and welcome to Mumsnet.

This is something we have struggled with all our married life, and moreso since we had children, as time is at such a premium now! Our kids are 8, 6, and 4 (started school this week) and so we don't have a lot of free time. We have been married 13, nearly 14 years!!!

For a long time we have used the Northumbria Community Daily Prayer at bedtime (Compline) and have recently tried to pray using it morning, midday (seperately), evening as well. It has helped a great deal.

We have full and frank discussions about the Bible on a regular basis. We actually went to Bible College together for 2 years which certainly upped the Theological Discussion Stakes!

Church is important. Are you part of a house group or whatever the equivalent in your church. this has been very important for us.

At bedtime, we read the gospels together. We take one of the divisions in the NIV each night, and read it before we turn out the light. This is a habit we have had since even before we were married and dh introduced it to me - it's great. We read through Mt/Mk/Lk/Jn and then start again, we have recently introduced our 8yo dd to it and she is doin git with us at her bedtime now - brilliant!

It is certainly not just you who finds it hard!! I think every married couple does. Join in with the prayer thread as well, the ladies there are FAB!!

Your name is great btw!

I started reading Selwyn Hughes' Every Day with Jesus notes a very long time ago. On my own.
Then the Through the Bible in a Year notes came out and dh and did those, just after we'd put the children to bed. They must have been 8 and 4 or thereabouts. We didn't do it quite in a year, it took us maybe 18 months. It started with Genesis and the next book you did was Job. We used to take a part each and from that time onwards it was called "doing an argument", because of the great arguments Job had with all and sundry, including God. When it finished we started doing the EDWJ notes together, but after Selwyn died we went over to Jeff Lucas for Life.
It's still called "doing the argument" though which led dd to say that we were "forever at each other's throat and couldn't even get out of bed without arguing"

We go to church together, and if issues come up then we discuss them, but we don't have any routine of praying or reading the bible together. I guess for us, we have a relationship with each other, and each of us has a relationship with God, but we don't have a "joint" relationship with God as a couple IYSWIM? We did read the Bible and do Compline together for a while when we were first married, but it faded out when we had a baby and all our routines got disrupted, and we haven't really felt any need to restart it.

Weegiemum- Thanks, its one of my fav verses, gives me great strenght and assurance of my faith. Yeah we are involved (I am washing the church football gear as I type) in church, hubby more so because we just had our first child 5months ago and we havent been going long. We chat about what was said at church, and about what friends views on the bible are, however because we feel the same on most subjects we never really talk about what we think. I suppose we chatted so much about our faith and our view points when we first meet over 9years ago (not dated all this time, we were great friends before we started going out)

Im glad to hear its not just me who finds it hard!