Brides Who've Been There: 7 Ways to Pray With Your Husband

I'm taking a blogging break to soak up our sweet Lily Grace (and, let's be honest, to keep my head above water through this beautiful newborn chaos), so I asked some of my married friends to contribute in my absence.  Over the next few weeks, they'll be taking over to chat about wedding planning, bridal beauty and style, and sharing stories about their newlywed days.  

Today, they're shedding some light on their married prayer lives:

We are not experts in this area, but the things we do consistently are praying with our children before they go to bed, praying for our own intentions before we go to bed, and on the weekends we do the Scripture readings for the day and have prayer time in the morning after breakfast. Before we had kids we shared a holy hour at our parish Adoration chapel. It was at 2:00 a.m, and it was a very cool and unifying experience to get up in the middle of the night and go pray together. We're not able to do that now that we have little kids, but sometimes we go to the Adoration chapel together as a family...for about 2 minutes! - Anna

Anna, her husband Alex, and their two sweet babies, Johnny and Trixie

We started St. Bridget's 12-Year (yes, you read that right) Novena not long before we got engaged. We still pray it together nightly, as well as sharing any special intentions we have. We also try to incorporate various Scripture readings and discussion into our prayer time. - Amanda

This has been a struggle for me, as I find it hard to pray out loud or with someone else. Before we start praying, we often discuss things we need to pray about, like what's going on at my husband's job, things that are coming up in our lives, or friends and relatives who need prayer support. Sometimes, we've used short devotionals together, like Gary Chapman's Life Promises for Couples (I wrote about it here) or Emerson Eggerich's The Love & Respect Experience (and about that one here). We've often also prayed set prayers together, like the Rosary, novenas, or other prayers written by saints. - Bonnie

We pray together before meals and at bedtime.  For the sake of entertainment, I'll tell you about our routine...We rotate who leads prayers throughout the day.  So, if I lead at breakfast, my husband will lead at lunch.  At bedtime, we each prefer to sleep facing one side or the other, so we rotate that too. Whoever prays at night gets to face their preferred direction for that particular night!  It rotates every day, and we poke fun at each other when one person gets gypped out of "their night" due to travel schedules and such.  Yeah, we're weird.  It's okay. - Lauren

 I wish we actually did more of this. We pray with our children and do our personal devotions separately. This is why I love date nights, because we can actually pray together--just the two of us. - Sarah

Sarah, Derek, and their kids!

We go to Mass together. We sing hymns together. We read and discuss scripture and theology and papal homilies--often one of us reads aloud while the other does dishes. We pray evening prayer sometimes on big feast days. We pray with our babies when we tuck them in at night. We made our wedding vows holding a crucifix in our hands, and we have that crucifix on our bedside table and kiss it before going to sleep. - Rachel


Learning to pray together as a married couple is something that takes time to develop a strong routine. My husband and I have many different ways we like to pray together: read spiritual books, go to Eucharistic Adoration, or pray the Rosary. But one particular way we pray together has been most beneficial and life-giving to us as a couple is our nighttime ritual of "the dailies." I have wrote about here, but I'll give you a quick run-down right now: every night we give each other two affirmations, we share 2-3 feelings we felt over the past day, and then we pray over each other. We always start and end our "dailies" in prayer; so if I start my husband Jim will usually close, and vice-versa.  It's been a unique and life-giving way or us to incorporate the spiritual and emotional parts of ourselves into drawing closer together and to God. Try out the dailies!  It's been life changing for our spiritual relationship together! - Patty

Your turn!  Nearly five years into married life, consistently praying together, rather than on our own and never speaking of it, is still something Andrew and I are always trying to be better at.  Share your devotions and the ways you pray together in the comments!