How Basketball Is the Secret to a Happy Marriage

by Troy Pattee on February 12th, 2010 | 4 Comments »

My close friend, Mike, married the woman of his dreams at a very young age. In fact, he was the first one married from our high school class. At the time, I thought he was an idiot for getting hitched so young, but now, 25 years later, he's still happily married. The secret to his marital success dumbfounded me when I discovered it, because it was such a simple concept. Let me explain.

For the first few years after high school, our group of friends met weekly to play basketball, shoot the bull, and re-live the salad days of our youth. We would run, play, and talk well into the night. Our married friend Mike was there every week. And while I was glad he was there, I always wondered why Mike would choose to spend one night a week with a bunch of sweaty single guys if he was so in love with his beautiful wife.

Isn’t if funny how our perspectives change over the years? I've finally grown up and, as it turns out, Mike understood long before I did the importance of Me Time. Being the know-it-all teenager I thought I was at the time, I was completely overlooking the other six days and 20 hours of the week that Mike spent being a husband, employee, and later on, a father. Not only was the time he spent with us well deserved, it was actually healthy for his marriage (gasp!). At the time, it was something my young mind simply could not understand.

Yet even though I say that I now understand the concept of Me Time, it’s a lot harder to actually put it into practice. Can you relate? For some of us it’s a lot easier to “sacrifice” that time for the greater good of the family. The clothes must be washed. The mouths must be fed. The lawn must be mowed. The bacon must be brought home. We think we don't have time for Me Time. But the truth is, when Me Time happens, everything else we do gets done better.

To this end, I've started skiing again this year. Park City Mountain Resort is my new BFF. And it is all because of my wife. She says it's because I need to have more Me Time, but I've realized having me on the slopes a couple of times a week provides Me Time for both sides of our work-from-home marriage. Not only do I get the adrenaline rush from fresh powder and downhill adventures, but I am happier, healthier, and have more to give to my most important relationships.

What do you do for Me Time? And how does making Me Time positively impact your marriage?