Even if you’ve been married for a while, having kids brings massive change into your marriage. Instead of spending weekends and holidays relaxing together, you’re up at 3am with your newborn, trying to get him/her back to sleep. You barely have time to scratch yourself, let alone spend time alone together. It’s easy for you both to drift apart when you’re parents, so that once your kids leave home, you barely know each other. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Here are 3 tips to keep your marriage strong during parenthood.1) Be deliberate about spending time together (even if it’s only in short bursts). It’s easy for the demands of parenthood take over, so that you no longer spend quality time together. This is especially true when you’re children are young, and need a lot of your attention. However, it is fundamentally important that you schedule in quality time alone with your spouse each day, even if it’s only 10 minutes to see how other are going. Oh, and try not to talk about which brand of nappies are the most leak resistant, but keep the conversation focused on each other.2) Don’t over-schedule your children’s livesYeah, I know: the next door neighbour’s child can play 3 musical instruments, has a black belt in Karate, and is a state champion soccer player. All at the age of 6. But you must resist the pressure to ‘keep up with the Jones’ (or whoever your neighbours are) when it comes to your children’s activities. Endlessly running from activity to activity can easily exhaust your child – as well as yourself. This takes both time – and energy – away from the most important relationship you have: your marriage. Your children would much rather have parents with a happy marriage, than to be able to play the flute, the guitar, and the piano.3) Roll with the punchesYou don’t realise how little you control your life, until you have kids. You best made plans, goals, and dreams can get put on hold (or even thrown out) because of the energy and attention your children require (rightly so, I might add!). You might have organised a nice date with your spouse, with babysitters to look after the kids, but then little Johnny gets sick, and the whole plan has to be shelved. Don’t get too frustrated, but realise that this is part and parcel of parenthood. Just be flexible, and look for new opportunities to spend time with each other. Oh, and don’t be afraid to take up offers for babysitting: make the most of any child-free time that you get (especially when your children are very young).Conclusion: A wise man once said that the best way to love your children, is to love your spouse. By keeping your marriage strong, you get to have a loving family, which is easily one of the greatest joys in life.
↧
