Missing What Matters Most

When your calendar is full, but your connection is gone - it’s time to rethink what you’re really building.

by Andy Milligan, with Rebecca by my side

I missed it.

I was blind-sided when I was asked to move out. Before I knew how to describe my emotions - color me confused, angry, frustrated, and scared. Scared more than anything that I had failed again. Made mistakes. Been blind in my behavior. Selfish. Failed to listen. I allowed resignation to settle in. Maybe this wasn’t going to work out. Maybe I was destined to go through life alone?

I can handle all the demands of my work - the multiple meetings, traveling, leading a large office while navigating difficult leaders, budget challenges and all the bureaucracy. I would deceive myself into thinking I could, when in reality, I really couldn’t handle it. I failed to enforce boundaries. I often worked after hours, on weekends, and even on vacations. My job is important, I’d tell myself. What I do matters. People depend on me. 

Yet, I missed how much my wife depended on me - to be more present, to stay and not flee. I let my most important relationship become roommates and business partners, slowly over time. And I didn’t know what or how to do anything about it.

Sound familiar? The demands of many jobs are without boundaries, making it harder and harder to protect our most important time. The isolation in a marriage due to work is a timeless tradition, one I learned from my parents. My dad taught me you have to work to pay the bills for the things you need and want, and then you have to work on the weekends to take care of everything else. He didn’t show me how to be in connection with my wife.

Through these unspoken lessons, I missed that my parents were missing each other. So, I followed suit with the same chopping wood and carrying water mindset and left our marriage starving, competing for the remaining scraps of every day after everything else. I missed it time and time again when my wife reached out for connection, for help, for her husband. I missed her so much and I eventually found us living in two different houses, struggling to even have basic communication, and certainly in no position to make repair. 

I’ll borrow a famous quote by Peter Drucker to show how I missed: “Show me your calendar and your bank statements and I’ll show you what you really value.” 

My schedule never showed I valued my marriage. I packed in every day of work. I scheduled time around work to eat, to exercise, to go to games, church, events, even meet friends. I couldn’t even prioritize a few minutes each day to do more than check in. My missing left us missing from each other. 

Even after we worked through moving back together, I kept missing her. I would sit in silence in front of the TV, numbing myself in an attempt to turn off my work brain, not wanting to share or take her in. I continued to fail to make the work our relationship needed as much of a priority as the show I wanted to watch. I’d still answer emails that could wait until tomorrow instead of sitting with her, getting into things far more important - our collective wants and needs. 

It took a lot of work from me to stop missing, to change my answer to yes for “us” and no to everything else - in the focused time we’ve learned to make together. When we do prioritize our time together, we make sure as much of it as we can is spent in true connection, in “attuned presence”, as I’ve heard Duey Freeman define connection multiple times.

Now when we are both at home after work, we start with a solid, grounded greeting, more than a kiss. A hug, heart-to-heart, deep, slow breaths together at her breathing pace, until we are both centered, present, ready to listen to each other. Whoever gets home first - me now much more than previously - either has dinner working or even ready. And we prioritize eating together, visiting the day, listening to each other without trying to solve problems. 

We’re still guilty of the numbness that is streaming, but not every night, and not until we’ve spent the best time we can with each other. It didn’t start this way. We worked at it, together - creating openings and small moments that grow into deeper affection. 

It’s not perfect. We are not perfect. As you’ve already read, we do still miss each other. But knowing  how to repair after the misses and knowing that I want to repair, keeps me in it. Present. Not detached or tuned out. The urge to keep us the priority is there every day. 

I hope you can find your priority -  your way back to each other, and not miss it.

Reflection Questions:

• Have you been missing your partner without even realizing it?
  
  

• What does your calendar say you value most?
  
  

• What small moment today could shift the direction of your connection?
  
  

You don’t have to get it all right. You just have to start noticing where you’ve been missing - and choose to turn toward each other again.

If that feels hard, we get it. That’s why we created something simple:

5-Minute Habits for a Closer Relationship - tiny actions you can take each day to rebuild trust, affection, and emotional safety.

Start small. Stay consistent. You might be surprised what opens up.

We’re rooting for you.
– Rebecca & Andy

5-Minut Habits (Mini-Course)

And a gentle but important note:

If you’re in a relationship where there is physical harm, emotional abuse, coercion, or persistent fear, please know that this kind of work is not about staying at all costs.

Love can’t grow where safety is absent.

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is to name what’s not working and seek wise, professional support.

There is no shame in protecting your heart, your story, or your future.

You deserve safety, always.