Nurturing Your Marriage: The Art of Cultivation

"Everybody waits to come to marriage therapy until it's too late."

That's what a fellow marriage therapist--who is also a deacon at St. Michael's --recently told us.

There's a lot of truth to it. While Dawna believes that almost any marriage can be saved, couples often don't come to therapy until their marriages have ceased to be sources of love and mutual self-giving. By the time they recognize that they need help; selfish, complacent, and alienating behaviors have become so entrenched that one or both of the partners is just not willing to do the work that would be needed to save the relationship.

When Your Marriage Isn't Bearing Fruit

Most relationships begin with abundance. Their marriage bears the fruits they seek: companionship, physical intimacy, economic support, emotional connection. But over time, many couples experience seasons of dormancy. The once-fruitful connection may appear barren, leading to questions about whether the relationship is still viable.

In these moments, there's often a temptation to "cut down" what isn't producing. Our culture frequently reinforces this approach—if something isn't serving you, discard it. But what if we approached our marriages more like skilled gardeners than hasty harvesters?

The Wisdom of the Patient Gardener

Consider the gardener in Jesus' parable this week who discovers an under performing fig tree in their vineyard. After three years without fruit, his initial reaction was to remove it and use the space for something more productive. This response is understandable—why continue investing resources in something that yields no return?

But the caretaker suggests a different approach: "Let's give it special attention for one more season. I'll dig around it, loosening the soil to reach the roots. I'll add fertilizer to provide the nutrients it's missing."

This metaphor beautifully illustrates what can work in struggling marriages. Rather than falling into despair during periods of apparent barrenness, successful couples seek ways to nourish their relationship's roots and create conditions for renewed growth.

Cultivating Your Marriage: Practical Approaches

1. Loosen the Hardened Soil

Just as compacted soil prevents water and nutrients from reaching roots, rigidity in relationships blocks connection. This might look like:

Entrenched communication patterns. If you find yourselves having the same arguments with predictable scripts, where neither person truly listens or adapts you may try to agree on a physical signal (like touching your ear) that either partner can use when they notice the conversation falling into old ruts.
Inflexible expectations. One way to deal with your tendency to hold onto rigid ideas about how your partner "should" behave or what marriage "should" look like, is to try a "role reversal dialogue" exercise, where you each articulate the other's perspective for five minutes without interruption. You may be surprised how little you actually understand about one another.
Grudges held from past conflicts. Unresolved hurts become barriers that prevent new connections from forming. Try creating a weekly "clean slate" ritual where you each share one lingering resentment in a structured format: "When you did X, I felt Y, and what I need is Z."

Loosening this soil requires regular practices that challenge established patterns, not just occasional insights. Commit to a 30-day experiment where you deliberately choose one pattern to disrupt each week, documenting the effects on your connection.

2. Apply the Right Nutrients

Every gardener knows that different trees and plants need different types of care. The same is true of marriages. What might nourish your unique relationship? Perhaps it's:

Quality time in specific settings: Some couples connect deeply during active adventures while others find intimacy in quiet, unstructured time together. You might try creating a "connection journal" where you each record moments of genuine connection over two weeks, noting the setting, activity, duration, and mood, then analyze patterns to identify your relationship's unique bonding environments.
Particular forms of appreciation and acknowledgment: Generic praise often feels hollow while specific recognition resonates deeply and builds security. Practice spotlighting the specific things you appreciate in your spouse by taking turns each day highlighting one specific action your partner took and its positive impact on you. If you aren't sure what to say, try this formula: "When you did X, it made Y possible for me, and I felt Z."
Certain types of physical connection: Different forms of touch serve different emotional needs for different people, from security to playfulness to passion. Implement a weekly practice where you each identify one form of physical connection you need most that week (comfort, playful, passionate) and take turns being the initiator for that specific type of connection.

3. Provide Consistent Attention

Transformation rarely happens through one grand gesture. Rather, it's the accumulation of small, consistent acts of care. All marriages needs regular tending. Here are some tried-and-true techniques

Living parallel lives with minimum connection. Sometimes you function efficiently as roommates and co-parents but rarely engage as intimate partners. One technique to combat this is to identify three daily transition moments (such as morning routine, arriving home, bedtime) and create a 5-minute connection ritual for each that cannot be skipped—like a proper greeting with eye contact, a physical touch, and one genuine question about the other's inner experience.
Weekly check-ins: Recurring conversations create a rhythm of accountability and prevent small issues from becoming entrenched problems. Schedule a 20-minute "State of our Union" meeting each week using a structured format: share three appreciations, identify one challenge, discuss one upcoming opportunity, and make one specific request. Hold these meetings in a neutral space free from distractions, taking turns leading the conversation and keeping time.
Monthly reflections on progress: Regular review prevents relationship drift and celebrates incremental growth that might otherwise go unnoticed. Create a "relationship dashboard" with 3-5 indicators of marital health that matter to your specific partnership. At the end of each month, independently rate each area on a 1-10 scale, compare notes, and identify one area for focused attention in the coming month. Make sure you document even small wins to counter the cognitive bias toward noticing only problems.

The key to consistent attention is removing it from the realm of spontaneity or convenience. Calendar these moments of connection as non-negotiable appointments, treating them with the same importance as work commitments or children's activities. Remember that in cultivation, timing and consistency often matter more than duration or intensity.

4. Set a Reasonable Timeframe

The gardener in our metaphor didn't suggest endless patience without results. Instead, he proposed a specific period of intentional care, after which they would reassess. Similarly, when working to revitalize your marriage, consider:

What specific changes would indicate growth? Abstract goals like "better communication" are difficult to measure and easy to dispute. A better approach is for each of you to independently list five observable behaviors that would signal improvement in your relationship. Then compare your lists, find areas of overlap, and agree on 2-3 concrete indicators to watch for, such as "initiating physical affection at least three times weekly" or "discussing disagreements without raising voices."

What timeline feels reasonable for seeing preliminary results: Different aspects of relationship healing occur at different rates, and unrealistic expectations lead to premature discouragement. Once you have a clear set of indicators of change, create a timeline to map expectations: emotional safety might show improvements within weeks, communication patterns within 1-2 months, trust rebuilding within 3-6 months, and renewed intimacy within 4-8 months. This prevents the frustration of looking for the wrong changes at the wrong times.
How you will measure progress along the way? Feelings are important but unreliable metrics on their own. That's why it's important to keep simple records of agreed-upon metrics—perhaps the frequency of date nights, the number of days with meaningful conversation, or how often conflicts reach resolution. Review these metrics together monthly using a structured format: "What does this data tell us about our efforts? What adjustments should we make?"

Having specific benchmarks prevents the ambiguity that often leads couples to abandon their efforts prematurely. Remember that you're not looking for perfection—just clear evidence that your relationship is becoming more fertile and fruitful over time.

When Is It Time to Let Go?

This approach doesn't mean that every relationship should continue indefinitely. Sometimes, our best efforts at cultivation fail. Signs that the marriage may require more than you can manage together include:

Persistent emotional, physical, or psychological harm. Sacramental marriage is a permanent commitment but it does not mean that spouses must continue living together in unhealthy situations.
Complete unwillingness by one partner to participate in the growth process. When your spouse fails to live out their vocation, the challenge may be for you to begin focusing on your own growth, or on reframing what your marriage should look like.
Fundamental incompatibilities that cannot be bridged. Sometimes couples have such completely different views of their marriage and what it should be that they cannot work on their marriage alone. Consider seeking professional help when this occurs.

The Courage to Cultivate

It takes courage to invest time and energy in something that appears lifeless. It often appears easier to start over than to dig deep, disrupt comfortable patterns, and face the uncertainty of whether your efforts will bear fruit.

But marriage therapists can attest to the profound rewards that can come when couples choose cultivation over cutting down. Marriages that seemed beyond recovery have blossomed into relationships of depth, resilience, and renewed intimacy—often becoming stronger than they were before.

If you're in a season where your marriage seems fruitless, I encourage you to consider: are there ways you haven't yet tried to cultivate it? The patience and skill of a gardener might be exactly what your relationship needs.