Readers, I have to tell you… I am especially grateful to my Spotlight Couple this month. Ann and John Skinkis jumped in and helped me out when I had a a last minute cancellation, so they had very little time to work on their interview questions. And all that without even knowing me in real life!

Ann is another friend from a Facebook Catholic mama due date group. She and I both welcomed new baby sons early this year. 🙂 Let’s dive in and learn about this sweet family.

1. Tell us your story.

I met my husband (John) in college, through the Newman Center. We knew each other for about two years before we started officially dating. If we are being honest I was WAY too cool for him!

One night we went out for dinner, just as friends, and John started talking about his family and everything he enjoyed doing with them. Seeing his love and dedication for his family made me fall in love with him. Just two years later we were married. We had a short engagement… If you are reading this and wondering, it is completely possible to plan a wedding in under six months 

After getting married I started graduate school and John started his first full time job. We lived a few hours from our family so we did not see them as often as we wanted to. Although that was difficult it allowed for us to really settle into our marriage. We learned to rely on each other and work through the difficult times together. 

We will celebrate five years together in October. We have now moved closer to family, have a house and wonderful jobs. Most importantly, we are parents to two beautiful little boys! James just turned two, and Will  is five months. We have certainly had our ups and downs, but coming home each night to our family is better than anything either of us could ever have imagined. 

2. What do you two like to do together?

We are a very active family. Prior to having kids, we enjoyed going for really long (three mile) walks every night. Now that we have kids, our activities have changed a bit but we still make sure to get outdoors and active together. We recently bought a pop-up trailer so we enjoy going on camping trips with our kids and extended family. Our two-year-old, James, loves to go swimming, so we often find ourselves at the local pool or beach.

We are blessed enough to live near a marina so after church on Sundays, I enjoy getting an iced latte while we walk around and look at all of the boats. That leads to a fun game: trying to prevent James from falling into the water!

3. What does your domestic church look like?

John and I are both list people. So in response to this we are going to bullet…

• Church on Sundays is a must. It does not matter if we are out of town, camping, or the kids are crabby… We go. 
•  During our marriage prep we listened to the Form Series. I highly recommend it and we both agree that was the most fruitful part of our marriage prep. 
• We try to pray the rosary once a week. Sometimes this means simply putting a YouTube version on while we clean up the house or while we drive. 
• We pray together as a family. We always pray before meals and bedtimes. I drop the kids off at daycare in the morning, so I always say morning prayers with them. Our two year old now folds his hands and prays before every meal. It has been so rewarding to see our influence on him! 

4. What was a trial you faced in your marriage? How did you handle it?

Like most couples, we have gone through some difficult times. These include learning to deal with the daily annoyances, raising a child who is differently abled, and even losing a sibling. To be totally honest, we are still working through a lot of these and learning how to not only overcome them but support each other through the process as well. 

When we first got married we were living paycheck to paycheck for a while. I was in graduate school, John was working full time. Additionally, John was working a side gig trying to market and sell a yard game he invented in college with some friends called Scerblunkal. Well, if you know anything about starting a business or trying to sell anything, it takes time and money. A lot of money. Which is something we did not have. This led to numerous arguments and disagreements about spending money on something that was not bringing in money. It was difficult because I wanted to support him in this new endeavor, but I was just not able to see the long term future of the project. Long story short, John ended up giving up the project, largely because of the tension it caused in our relationship. 

That difficult time led to two positive steps in our relationship. One, we started using Dave Ramsey. We had envelopes with a monthly allowance for everything: groceries, date night, car fund. You name it, there was an envelope! We each also had our own personal envelopes with our monthly allowance. That was our money, to do with as we wanted. We have rarely argued about our finances since then.

The other valuable lesson we learned from our financial trials was to set aside time for what we call “Meeting of the Minds.” Once a month, John and I sit down and discuss our individual and marriage goals, review the calendar, finances, our sex life, or whatever else we feel needs to be discussed. It gives us time to talk and communicate with one another. We also talk about our love languages and check in on how we can up our love tanks more if needed. 

5. What is one piece of advice you would give to a couple discerning marriage?

Think long term. Make sure you find someone you can start a family with and see yourself growing old with. A lot of young people get in trouble because they believe it is most important that their passions mesh and they enjoy doing things together on the weekends. They fail to really think long term, considering if they are truly going to enjoy spending their life with that person when they are 60. 

6. This month, we have been discussing Natural Family Planning (NFP). What would you say to a couple who is considering trying out NFP?

NFP is one of the most wonderful- but also most challenging- things a married couple can do. One of the beautiful things about NFP is that decisions about fertility are shared between the spouses. We use the sympto- thermal method, so tracking mucus and temperature are involved. I give John the data, and he charts it. This allows him to share in the process, especially when we were trying to conceive.

Several of my friends have just gone off their birth control, some without even telling their spouse. But with NFP all those decisions and conversations are shared. It isn’t just the woman’s responsibility- it becomes a couple’s decision and responsibility.

There is a lot of sacrifice involved in NFP. You need really good communication- I mean really good communication- but you need that in marriage anyway. Again, being list people, here are three takeaways for anyone considering trying out NFP: 

• Find yourselves another NFP couple and be friends with them. We have one or two friends who also practice NFP. This is so important! Having another couple who can share and relate to your struggles and joys makes it so much easier. 
• My non religious argument for NFP: You don’t eat fast food everyday because it is bad for you. It will physically change and harm your body. You will end up with clogged  arteries and extra fat. In the same way, why would I take a Pill that can harm my body and changes something that my body is biologically meant to do? 
• NFP teaches sacrifice and abstinence. Even if you don’t use NFP, there are so many times in marriage you cannot have sex: if your spouse is sick, you are traveling, during post-partum… NFP prepares you for those times. You learn self-discipline and self-control which is so important for every stage of marriage. It also encourages you to remember to show your spouse love in different non- physical ways. 

Thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much for filling in at the last minute and sharing your story, John and Ann! I really enjoyed hearing your perspective on how hobbies change but don’t disappear when you have kids, and the “Meeting of the Minds” idea is definitely going to be incorporated into the Bennett household soon. If I gleaned anything from this post, it’s that communication is one of the very most important parts of marriage, and it takes work to keep communication flowing effectively. You have to build in habits of communication like the Meeting of the Minds or quick daily NFP charting updates to keep communication going!

If YOU would like to be a future Spotlight Couple on the blog, hit me up!