First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby.
In the ideal world that is how I would have liked for things to happen, but it did not. Even though parts of my life did not go as planned, I would never take back anything that has happened.
When Chris and I started dating we weren’t able to have that time were it was just us like most couples do. My children, Aly and Drew, pretty much accompanied us on most of our dates (with the exception of the first five), and really there no time with just us unless we grabbed lunch or something together while the kids were in school. Just because the children were around, that doesn’t mean that we didn’t form a bond, we did, a wonderful one. But let’s be honest, dating when you have kids, is completely different than dating when you do not have kids.
By the time we married and settled into newlywed life, we had a pretty solid relationship. Or so I thought. One evening, after a silly argument, my husband told me that throughout our entire relationship he felt as if I put the children first and neglected “us.” Of course I vehemently denied this, but after I thought about it I realized he was indeed correct.
I truly thought that being a mother meant I sacrificed everything, including myself, for my children. Sure there were days where I took time out for my relationship, but in my eyes what I viewed as being enough, wasn’t really so. For any relationship to remain healthy, physical and emotional needs must be met. Even though I was meeting the needs “well enough,” I still have to remember that as my husband and partner, my spouse requires me to go above and beyond with as much effort as I do for the children.
I am, and always will be, a big supporter of attachment parenting. I have many close friends who practice it, and while many thought that being an AP parent meant that you “must” bed share and be attached to your child 24/7. Consequently, they stopped having sex (some for months); other’s wouldn’t leave their kids for a date, and even more would sleep with the baby in between them, swearing up and down that their husband was okay with it (even saying they didn’t have to ask him); while discovering four to five years later he felt neglected all along.
Now this is not the case for everyone (but if your guilty pleasure is like mine and scoping out the Desperate Housewives of Facebook, then you this is the case for some families), and if you and your spouse are perfectly content with this being how your household is run, then I say go for it! But in some families and marriages it tends to do more harm than good. Neglecting your spouse can eventually lead to divorce, and if not, then at the very least it will leave the two of you sitting in the house not speaking to each long after the kids have left.
Without a shadow of a doubt, it is important for children to see and understand how a healthy relationship/marriage works. Realistically, if you have a happy marriage, are you more than likely to be happier over all? Taking time for one another, whether it is watching a movie together, cooking, or making sure you have a date night, helps you and your partner maintain that closeness. The last thing I want is for all of my children to go off to college leaving my husband and I on the brink of divorce, because we didn’t take time to foster our own relationship outside of the children.
Because of this we have managed to create a healthy balance for us and the children. Is it 100% perfect? Of course not, but nothing is. However, in the process we make sure to support each others needs, while keeping the romance alive between one another. When we are happy with one another it enables us to keep a united front with the children (especially since we are out numbered).
I do want to stress (since it is so often confused) that putting your marriage first does not mean that you are neglecting your children. For us, it helps us to be better parents. Putting your relationship with your spouse first, will strengthen that relationship, which, as a result, will strengthen your bond with your children.
