Tag Archive for: Marriage

DIY Date Night: What’s In The Bowl?

In need of a date night but aren’t sure what to do? Skip the mediocre dinner and movie you’ll fall asleep watching and make some memories instead! What’s In The Bowl is a classic, hysterical game for people of all ages. It requires minimal preparation and supplies, and you and your spouse will have a blast doing it for a date night!

Supplies:

  • A bowl
  • A blindfold
  • Headphones or earplugs (optional)
  • Random household items

Instructions:

  1. Play a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who has to be blindfolded first. 
  2. Whoever loses, put on the blindfold! For an extra challenge, put on headphones and listen to loud music or put in earplugs. 
  3. Whoever won Rock, Paper, Scissors, you now get to choose something (or some things) to put in the bowl. Here are some examples to get the creativity goin’:
    • Shaving cream and dried beans
    • Mushed banana
    • Aluminum foil covered in petroleum jelly
    • Dried pasta in yogurt
    • A band-aid covered in baby powder
    • You get the idea…
  4. After the winner has their item(s) selected, place them in the bowl.
  5. The blindfolded person then has to guess what’s in the bowl!
  6. Once they guess correctly (or give up), switch roles.
  7. Go for a total of three rounds, so that each person guesses/chooses 3 times!

Here’s The Point:

Have you ever felt aluminum foil covered in petroleum jelly while you’re blindfolded? Yeah, this was probably a first for everyone. When we interact with something unfamiliar, our minds tend to try and find a spot for it. And sometimes, petroleum jelly might all of the sudden feel really, really gross and unfamiliar. But, when you take the blindfold off and see it for what it actually is, it all makes sense again!

The same thing happens in our relationships. If one person explains something or does something that doesn’t make sense to us, our minds will make assumptions and try and fit it into a familiarly shaped box. But if we don’t take off the blindfold of our own opinions and assumptions, we’ll never fully understand what they’re trying to communicate.

Take It To The Next Level:

Here are some questions you can ask each other to dig a little deeper and make your connection even stronger!

  1. In what ways have you seen me leave my “blindfold” on to the things you say/do?
  2. How can I help you remember to take your “blindfold” off?
  3. What’s one thing we can do regularly to make sure we’re on the same page?

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How to Stay Positive When Everything Seems to Be Falling Apart

What you say, think and do can make a huge difference.

We were about a month into our COVID-19 quarantine when it finally happened. There had been some ups and downs, of course, but I was feeling pretty good and able to stay positive as an individual, husband, and father. My family was handling it all surprisingly well. I was getting tons of work done. I felt like I was leading the family well. Then I finally snapped.

During the month or so of quarantine, I had been straining, working from home, fearful about my wife working in the medical field, stressed about a son doing middle school online, anxious about a son doing college online, sad for two adult children out of work, worried about one adult child still working in “essential services,” and totally uneasy about my at-risk mother-in-law. ALL of this under ONE roof. (You catch all the emotions in there? I didn’t.) But we were actually navigating it fairly well and trying to stay positive – movie nights, game nights, lots of good conversations. We got this! 

Then it all started to unravel. Then I unraveled. Big time.

In the span of a few days:

  • My wife was filing for unemployment. 
  • We had a brush with a tornado that left us with a yard full of fallen trees.
  • We had no power to our house for days. 
  • My car broke down while I was getting ice to keep food from spoiling. (It all spoiled anyway.)
  • We had friends who completely lost their homes and we were heartbroken. 
  • We had all-new financial pressures.

Things were starting to pile up. Stress and worry were at all new levels. 

I ignored it – too much to get done!

After about four days of trying to adjust to Generator Life and a bunch of new problems and expenses, I was soon trying to stay positive and hold my world together with threads and patches.

Then, in a single moment, life came undone. (Of course, it did.) The reality is, I came undone. Ironically, it was actually a relatively small thing that did it. Something so small that it would have been no big deal in any other context. Straw. Camel. Back. You know the saying.

I’ll admit it – I was lying in bed crying with the door locked, feeling fragile and helpless. 

How did it get to this? I’m stronger than this! What if anyone in my family sees me like this?

If we can allow ourselves to be honest, vulnerable, transparent humans for just a second, you might be feeling it, too. You might be close to snapping. Maybe you are on the edge of being overwhelmed. You may have already broken down. Your story and circumstances might have some major things going on in them that make my little pity party look pitiful. 

What do you do to stay positive when it all seems to fall apart?

Here’s what I learned after I snapped back from my snap: 

  1. Acknowledge your emotions and share them with people that you trust. For a while, I had been suppressing or burying emotions and needs deep down, trying to play it cool, but making myself a ticking time bomb. 
  2. Be real with your kids, your spouse, and your friends, because they have their “moments” too. Kids don’t need their parents to be perfect; they need them to be real. It’s good for them to see you work through imperfection and real-world problems. 
  3. Guard your mindset! Be careful what you look for in life, because you’ll find it. If you look for everything that is wrong, you’ll find it and focus on it. If you look for what is going right, that’s there, too. Find it and focus on it. You can acknowledge what’s wrong and still practice gratitude for what’s right. Remember what is really important – people. 
  4. Practice self-care. I was afraid to be honest with myself and the people around me – people that I know would help me, let me blow off steam, and help me process my emotions. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s more than okay to take care of yourself! Practice self-care. You may not be able to change your circumstances, but you can take care of yourself—physically and emotionally.
  5. Breathe. Think. Act. Take a moment to take some deep breaths, think about what you can and can’t control, and then respond appropriately – don’t react. Don’t make important decisions when you aren’t your best self or you’ve gone to pieces.
  6. Focus on helping others. This may sound counter-intuitive, but nothing feels better than helping someone with their problems. It actually makes our brain release happy chemicals and it may take your mind off your problems or even put them in perspective.

It’s okay to have a “moment”; it’s not okay to stay there. We’ve all been at a place where we felt like it was just one bad thing after the other and we’ve felt overcome by stress, anxiety, anger, or sadness. Give yourself permission to be real, but also develop a plan to stay positive the next time you feel overwhelmed and about to break down.

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Valuable Relationships Make You a Better Person

Good friends can help you be a better version of yourself.

Can valuable relationships make you a better person? We’ve all heard someone’s “value” calculated as their Net Worth, but what about cultivating the value of your Network? I’m talking about your true friends, accountability partners, and mentors. People that know your goals and will help you achieve them.

Those valuable relationships don’t happen by accident. We have to be open to them. We have to be intentional. We have to invest. Often, when I need those kinds of people in my life the most, my instinct is to go into hiding. I run the opposite way.

I find ways to build taller fences, not longer tables.

  • This isn’t where I point out that according to recent research, Americans report being more lonely than ever – but they do.
  • This isn’t where I point out that social media Friends, Followers, Shares, Likes, and Upvotes aren’t the true measure of your Social Capital – but they aren’t.
  • I’m not even going to say that old-fashioned, healthy, Rugged American Individualism has often changed us into unhealthy, Radical American Individualists – but it has.
  • I’m just going to quote something my father drilled into me: “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” He was onto something.

It’s easy to surround yourself with people that always agree with you or always take your side. I get it. I do it. That can feel good. It also feels good to have people in your life that you can have fun with and be yourself. But who in your life is helping you be the best version of yourself?

Who is truly helping you be the best spouse or partner, the best parent, the best person that you can be? Who in your life has permission and is willing to confront you and say the hard things? (You know, those things that sting a day or two, but you know they’re true.)

Community, true Social Capital, is more important than ever:

  • I never once got a job solely based on an application. It always involved someone I knew and built a connection with before I even knew a new job was even a possibility.
  • My wife taught me the value of finding married couples deeper into the season of life we were in or heading toward and risking getting real with them.
  • The best thing we did as parents was to connect with other parents for coffee or dessert just to talk about parenting stuff – especially parents with kids heading out of the stages that our kids were heading into.
  • I’ve never regretted cultivating relationships- real friendships- with a couple of guys that I could be honest and transparent with, knowing that in return they would ask me the tough questions about the kind of husband, father, and man I am.

These kinds of people and couples and parents that become valuable relationships can be difficult to find. Maybe the best way to find them is to first work at being that kind of person for other people.

I could not begin to tell you my Net Worth. It probably isn’t much. I’m positive it isn’t much. My Network though – priceless. Where are you investing?

Looking for more resources for healthy relationships? Click here!

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Do Happy Couples Argue?

It may not be the argument, but how you handle it, that matters.

Even after being married for 30 years, I vividly remember our first argument after we got married. It was intense and to be honest, it scared me. In my mind, I thought, “Wait, we are happy and we love each other, but happy couples don’t argue, do they?”

I wish I knew then what I know now: Happy couples do argue.

In fact, they actually argue about the very same things unhappy couples argue about – money, children, in-laws and intimacy.

Amy Rauer, associate professor of child and family studies and director of the Relationships and Development Lab at the University of Tennessee, along with three colleagues—Allen Sabey at Northwestern University, Christine Proulx at University of Missouri and Brenda Volling at University of Michigan—looked at two sets of couples who described themselves as happily married. One group averaged 9 years of marriage and the other group 42 years of marriage on average.

Couples ranked the issues they tended to argue about from most to least serious. Intimacy, leisure, household chores, communication and money were among the most serious, as was health for older couples. Jealousy, religion and family fell on the least serious end of the spectrum.

Researchers saw that these couples focused on the issues with clearer solutions. These solutions included division of household chores or how to spend leisure time. The couples rarely chose to argue about harder-to-resolve issues, which Rauer suggests could be one of the keys to their marital success.

“Focusing on the perpetual, more difficult to solve problems may undermine partners’ confidence in the relationship,” says Rauer.

Longer-married couples reported fewer serious issues and argued less overall, which is consistent with previous research suggesting that older partners’ perceptions of spending less time together may lead them to prioritize their marriage and decide some issues are not worth fighting over.

When it comes to not discussing the more difficult issues such as health and intimacy, researchers said that part of the challenge is when spouses believed talking about it might make the partner believe they were challenging their competence or it would make the spouse feel vulnerable or embarrassed, which might result in more conflict.

“Since these issues tend to be more difficult to resolve, they are more likely to lead to less marital happiness or the dissolution of the relationship, especially if couples have not banked up any previous successes solving other marital issues,” Rauer says. “If couples feel that they can work together to resolve their issues, it may give them the confidence to move on to tackling the more difficult issues.”

There are several really useful takeaways from this study.

  • Learning to choose your battles matters. Early on, it might be a little more difficult to discern what is a mountain and what is a molehill. Some of this can happen through conversation and some will happen through experience. The most important thing? Focus on the issue and don’t point the proverbial finger at your spouse.
  • Differentiate between issues that truly need resolution versus those that you can set aside for the time being. Sometimes timing or taking time to process can make all the difference. Some challenging issues really do require an amount of simmering to figure out what you think before you can even talk about a helpful resolution. Plenty of long-married couples could tell you that sometimes there is no quick fix. It may help to talk and think, then repeat the process over time in order to solve certain problems well.
  • Seek solution-oriented. Clearly, couples who focused on working together to find a solution seem happier in their relationship. Also, working as a team to solve less-challenging issues builds confidence that is helpful when tackling more complicated issues.
  • No matter what stage of marriage you are in, there will always be something to argue about. Remember – your spouse is not the enemy. Choosing the issues you will focus on matters. And making some intentional decisions together about how you will engage around those issues will impact your marital happiness, for better or for worse.

Even after 30 years of marriage, obviously there are issues that still arise.

We have learned over time that many of the issues we spent a lot of time and energy on were molehills. Ultimately, we began asking, “Is this something that will matter a month from now or six months from now?” If the answer was yes, we began to problem-solve together. If the answer was no, we stopped letting it distract us from what really mattered – our marriage.

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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Help! My Spouse HATES to Talk About Boundaries!

Let’s be honest—boundaries can be hard to talk about for everyone. “Can we talk about boundaries with opposite-sex friends?” or “We need to talk about boundaries with social media.” Both of those topics can easily be construed as passive-aggressive suspicion or even a flat-out accusation. 

So, let’s change that. Let’s take a look at why we need boundaries in the first place.

For any relationship to be healthy and thrive (and I do mean any relationship– marriage, in-laws, friendships, co-workers, even your relationship with yourself) there need to be some boundaries that are in place and respected.

These boundaries not only help us avoid uncomfortable, hurtful, even relationally destructive things, but they also help us feel safe and secure and allow our relationship to grow and deepen. They define and celebrate our relationship.

Boundaries are both a sign of and a byproduct of emotional and relational health. Boundaries show that we understand and respect where we end and where the people we care about begin. Saying “I do” is by definition saying, “I won’t.” A spouse that thinks they should be able to do whatever they want doesn’t understand marriage. But we’ll get to that…

Now, here’s the good stuff…

Boundaries help us avoid things that could damage our relationship, but they also allow all the good relationship stuff to happen. They help provide an environment where intimacy can grow and thrive. They are what makes us uniquely us. So, if we need to talk about boundaries with our spouse, let’s lead with the positive.

Even if your spouse really does hate boundaries, hopefully, they are down to talk about how your relationship is special, can grow, and how you can achieve deeper levels of intimacy. Try framing the conversation that way and see what happens.

Don’t forget the flip-side. Even if your spouse “hears” negative things when they hear the word “boundaries” rest assured they have their own list of things that help them feel safe and secure in your relationship. That’s just Being Human 101.

This can be a great place to start the conversation!

  • When do you feel the safest and most secure in our relationship?
  • What do I do that makes you feel guarded or uncomfortable?
  • When do you feel the closest to me? What do I do that hinders that?
  • What situations feel like a threat to our relationship being the best it can be?
  • What are your expectations when it comes to _____?
  • What are some healthy goals for us when it comes to _____?

When you start a conversation like this, you are showing how much you value your spouse and your relationship.

The word “boundary” is nowhere in sight. BONUS: you are leading the way with trust, respect, and vulnerability. You are starting with their needs. Also, notice the phrasing here. These aren’t “yes” or “no” questions like, “Do I ever do anything that makes you feel insecure?” You don’t want to stop the conversation before it has a chance to start.

Knowing your relationship goals, expectations, comfort-zones, and well… boundaries show that you are self-aware, emotionally mature, and value your spouse and your relationship with them. Even if your spouse hates talking about boundaries, don’t be afraid of these conversations; navigate them like the positive conversations they should be.

Looking for more marriage resources? Click here!

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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What People Are Thinking About Marriage

What people are thinking about about marriage may surprise you.

At the 2019 NARME Summit in Nashville, Dr. Scott Stanley shared what people are thinking about marriage using the latest marriage and cohabitation research.

If you’ve heard that married couples have a 50% chance of eventually divorcing, did you know that this statistic pertains specifically to Baby Boomers—the most divorcing generation ever in U.S. history? The news is better for those marrying today—their lifetime risk for divorce is only around 38%.

Before you get too excited about the divorce rate decrease though, it would be important to know that the marriage rate has also decreased. 

WHAT MARRIAGE LOOKS LIKE TODAY

According to Stanley, demographers and sociologists wonder whether people are marrying later or if a historic number of younger people just won’t marry. Some people are thinking marriage will bounce back, while others think the younger generations are afraid of or disinterested in marriage. 

This is quite perplexing when research, including the U.S. General Social Survey, indicates that around 95% of people say they are “pretty happy” or “very happy” in their marriage. Stanley says it’s possible that people are happy, but that when things go south, they may do so very quickly.

The average age of first marriage is currently 30 for men and 28 for women, but this delay in marriage puzzles many who have young adult children or grandchildren. Boomers and Gen Xers reflect on their own young adulthood and realize that not only did they marry in their early to mid-20s, but they also had children and jobs.

So what’s up with the delay? Stanley likens it to people milling around the airport who aren’t all there for the same reason. 

THREE TYPES OF SINGLES

  1. Seekers: Some are there seeking the one perfect person who will be perfectly attuned to them. Stanley cautions these seekers to examine if they are unrealistically seeking perfection from someone when they aren’t perfect themselves.
  2. Determined Delayers: The “determined delayers” at the airport might eventually be seeking “the one,” but are uninterested in finding them, at least for now. They say they want to get married—but maybe in five years or so. These delayers are either having fun trying out several relationships or are enjoying being uninvolved romantically.
  3. Wanderers: Then there are the wanderers, who aren’t looking for a relationship or preventing one either. If they get into a relationship and it works, they could easily end up married.

It’s when a seeker starts dating a determined delayer and doesn’t know it that things can get complicated. Stanley says ambiguity can lead one person in the dating relationship to believe that the other is more interested in marriage than they really are.

THE COMPETITION TO COMMITMENT

According to Stanley, the number one competitor to commitment in a relationship is how good your alternatives are and your awareness of them. People who carry a lot of relationship experience into marriage tend to think, “I hope this works, but if it doesn’t, there are other fish in the sea.”

“Marriage for many people has moved from being a cornerstone to your life to a capstone,” Stanley shares. “Instead of being foundational, it is a major achievement as a status symbol.”

Yet, the 2018 American Family Survey (AFS) indicates that 64 percent of us believe that marriage makes families and children better off financially. A large majority believes that marriage is necessary to create strong families and that society is better off when more people are married. The percentage of people who believe marriage is old-fashioned and outdated hovers in the mid-teens.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • If there is a benefit in delaying marriage, Stanley believes that perhaps people are self-insuring to protect themselves from potential loss. However, the downside of that means they are doubling down on individualism versus interdependence.
  • Friends used to connect their friends to their future mate, but the data shows that more people are meeting online instead. If people wisely use these online systems to look for someone who is a better fit instead of limiting themselves to only the people in their community, this is good news for relationships. Stanley says people need to think about what they are looking for and intentionally surround themselves with people who share their values.
  • People are wrestling with the idea of marriage for various reasons. When the AFS asked what was essential to living a fulfilled life, marriage was the lowest thing on the list. A good living, education and a rewarding job were at the top. It could be that people are thinking if they have those three things, their chances of making marriage work are greater, but no one knows for sure.

In The Atlantic piece, What You Lose When You Gain a Spouse, Mandy Len Catron contends that marriage is socially isolating, marriage is no longer what many want, there is too much emphasis on marriage and commitment is really the main thing, not marriage.  

Research does indicate singles have more social connections than marrieds, and they tend to have a broader community. When people marry, they do tend to invest their time and energy into their marriage. However, couples who know that marriage could become socially isolating can be intentional about building social connectedness and community.

THREE QUESTIONS TO CLARIFY COMMITMENT IN A RELATIONSHIP OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE

For those who align with Mandy Len Catron, Stanley offers three questions that are important to ask.

Have you…

  1. Both agreed to a lifetime of commitment to each other?
  2. Publicly declared the depth of your commitment to those who matter most in your lives?
  3. Agreed to be faithful to each other for the rest of your lives?

The answers to these questions can help determine the trajectory of the relationship, for better or for worse.

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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Why Do Couples Fight?

Why do couples fight? And what do they usually fight about?

Most people say they fight about money, sex, kids, and in-laws straight out of the gates.

In romantic relationships, all kinds of major and minor disagreements can impact the quality of a couple’s relationship. If you’re wondering what couples are most likely to fight about, check out this 2019 study by psychologists Guilherme Lopes, Todd Shakelford, David Buss, and Mohaned Abed.

They conducted the study in three stages with newly-married heterosexual couples. They looked at all of their areas of discord, and what they found was pretty interesting. Out of 83 reasons for couple conflict, they found 30 core areas which they placed into six component groups.

Component Groups:

  1. Inadequate Attention or Affection. This would include things like not showing enough love and affection, lack of communication, one not paying enough attention to the other, not being appreciated, and feelings.
  2. Jealousy and Infidelity. This was affected by real or perceived risk to the relationship from things like talking to an ex, possessiveness, past relationships, and differing opinions on whose friends couples hang around more.
  3. Chores and Responsibilities: Think about everyday tasks that couples may share. The housekeeping, chores, who does more work, not showing up when expected, and sharing responsibilities would fit here.
  4. Sex. One may want sex and the other doesn’t. Frequency of sex, sexual acts, and telling private information about the relationship to others—the list goes on.
  5. Control and Dominance. This would refer to events in which one partner tries to manipulate or control the other in some way.
  6. Future Plans and Money. Things like goals for the future, children, and the ability to invest in the relationship fall into this category.

Utilizing these areas of discord, the psychologists created the Reasons for Disagreements in Romantic Relationships Scale (RDRRS).

Key Findings

  • Jealousy and infidelity seemed to decrease after several years of marriage
  • A husband’s higher income contributed to control and dominance issues.
  • Men who were more religious mentioned less disagreement over jealousy and infidelity elements.
  • Relationship satisfaction improved over time, although the frequency of differences did not change significantly during the three years of marriage.
  • Females were less satisfied when there was more disagreement about control and dominance. As women grew older, there was more disagreement about infidelity and jealousy.
  • Women reported that sexual satisfaction was lower when there was greater disagreement about chores and responsibilities.
  • Women were more likely to guess they would have an affair in five years when there was greater disagreement around inadequate attention and affection.

Whether considering marriage, engaged, or already married, this info can provide a great foundation for a conversation about potential disagreements. There’s some relief in knowing that lots of people struggle with the same types of issues. However, it might be a bit disconcerting to find that the one you love doesn’t see things the same way you do. It’s pretty much impossible for two people from two different upbringings to come together and not have any differences of opinion about certain things.

Either way, knowing you have these differences or areas of conflict can help you talk about how you’ll navigate them so your relationship can thrive in the process.

How Do You Talk About It?

Find a time when you both can talk for 30 minutes or so without distraction. Choose one of the topics you differ on and begin sharing. Keep in mind, always seek information and to remain curious. Don’t include any rules about the conversation ending when the timer goes off! This also isn’t the time to try and convince your partner they’re wrong and should for sure see things your way.

Couples often find that seeking to understand their partner helps them make sense of why they think the way they do. It doesn’t mean you have to agree. You can still disagree on some things and have a healthy marriage, but it’ll require some effort on each person’s part. If you’re dating or engaged, your differences may be significant enough for you to evaluate whether marrying each other is the best next step. It really boils down to respecting your partner and doing what’s in your relationship’s best interest.

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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3 Things I Wish I Had Done Differently After Having a Baby

It was 3 AM. Our two-week-old son, Strider, was crying for the third time that night. To say we were exhausted was an understatement. We were full-blown zombies ready to eat each other alive.

“Why is he CRYING LIKE THIS when I’m trying to change his diaper?” my husband yelled.

“Because he is a HELPLESS INFANT WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING,” I yell back.

“WELL WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?” he yells again.

“BECAUSE YOU’RE YELLING AND HE’S YELLING AND I JUST WISH NONE OF US WERE YELLING!”

On and on this went. We were literally yelling about yelling.

I didn’t expect the birth of our child to birth so much tension in our marriage. 

To give you a little context, my husband and I are both pretty laid-back. It takes a lot to fluster us and make us mad, especially with each other. But somehow, after having a baby, the nursery became our war zone.

I thought that once Strider grew a little and started sleeping better, the feelings of frustration between us would subside.

Nope. In fact, the tension grew with him.

“Why did you put the same onesie on him again?”

“Why are you holding him like that?”

“He’s clearly upset, why are you still trying to play?”

“Can you do bathtime any faster? It’s already past his bedtime!”

With every new milestone Strider reached, there was something new for us to pick each other apart over.

Finally, we had an epiphany: we hadn’t been on a date in over 4 months, and after having a baby, sex and intimacy were nearly nonexistent in our marriage.

Yep. Somehow in the hustle and bustle of having a baby and trying to care for him, we genuinely lost sight of each other and stopped taking care of us.

This was a huge problem. How could we build a loving relationship with our son if our own relationship was falling apart? And how could we give him the strong loving home he deserves?

Looking back, there are 3 things I wish I had done differently after Strider was born:

Praise my husband for being the awesome dad he is. 

Maybe it’s maternal instinct, but I genuinely felt like I was the only one capable of taking care of our baby well. I had some real Mama Bear feelings over my little cub, and everyone else was a threat to his well-being, even his dad. I wish I‘d taken the time to enjoy seeing my husband become a parent with me and praise him for all the ways he took care of our son because he really is an awesome dad. Just because he doesn’t do certain things the exact same way as I do them doesn’t mean he’s wrong or a bad parent.

Schedule a date night 4-6 weeks after birth. 

We came home from the hospital in total SURVIVAL MODE. My husband and I were literally just trying to keep this tiny little human alive. We had zero time to think about ourselves, each other, or our marriage. Before we knew it, our little boy was over 4 months old, and we had spent 4 months living in the same house but not really connecting with each other.  Scheduling a date night would have helped us to relax, reconnect and recharge. Plus, it would help us to mentally keep our marriage as the utmost priority, even before our relationship with our son. After all, if we’re not healthy and thriving, how can we set a positive example and love him well?

Stop the resentment. 

Breastfeeding makes it difficult to take night shifts. I felt like my husband couldn’t get up in the middle of the night to take care of our screaming child because our child didn’t need him as much as he needed me. I had the goods that he couldn’t provide. Naturally, I started to resent him for sleeping through the loud wails and getting more than 2.5 hours of sleep at a time. The resentment grew when I saw the dishwasher needed to be unloaded, the bed needed to be made and someone needed to get groceries! How could I do it all with little to no sleep? Plus work full-time, mind you. 

The answer, I’ve now realized, is that I’m not supposed to do it all. I’m supposed to ask my dear sweet husband, love of my life, the father of my child, to help me out. I’m supposed to be open with him and tell him how I’m feeling. Once I finally did that, we worked out a great schedule where he would change diapers in the middle of the night, and I would feed our baby. This helped me to not feel so alone. We also created a list of needs around the house on a daily and weekly basis, and we assign tasks for those. I’ve learned he’s very visual and having a list with exactly what he needs to do is a great motivator.

After we took these steps in our marriage (and Strider started sleeping longer stretches at night) we were able to work together as a team and support each other when we needed it most. 

Late nights full of crying, tension, and maybe a little yelling are bound to happen during the transitional phase of bringing a baby home. Just remember to fight for your marriage, not against each other. Babies are the best. They really are. They’re so sweet and cuddly and they need you to survive. Just remember the best gift you can give them is a healthy, thriving marriage.

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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