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Love and Marriage Series: How To Build Up Your Marriage When You're Busy With Babies (and other Littlees)

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Faith's Firm Foundation: Love and Marriage Series: How To Build Up Your Marriage When You're Busy With Babies (and other Littlees)

Monday, April 12, 2010

Love and Marriage Series: How To Build Up Your Marriage When You're Busy With Babies (and other Littlees)

 
 These are the results of a very unscientific poll of couples (mostly moms) on the question,
"How do you build up and strengthen your relationship as a couple
when you're so busy with small children?"
I asked seven or eight moms to share. Here are their answers.

Lisa (mother of 11, aged 17 to 1):
Communication
  • Fun way to do this is to take a quick errand together; I don't HAVE to go, but sometimes choose to so we can talk without interruption.
  • Sometimes I set a different table for my husband and I -- apart from where the children are eating so we can talk *by ourselves*
Date Night
  • My husband makes it a priority for us to get out regularly. We hardly ever do anything fancy or expensive; it's just fun to get away / make use of a peaceful car ride / have fun together.
Shoulder to Shoulder time
  • My husband likes this!!!  Sometimes I get a bit fidgety; seems like I should be doing something productive instead of just watching him work on the car, etc.....but he seems to value this time!  (I don't do this enough....)
Additional note from Lisa:
One evening recently I had gotten a DVD from the library and we were planning to watch it together.  It turned out that he had a lot of emails that he needed to respond to that evening.  I made us some tea and I typed out the emails for him which was actually fun; it was a good way to catch up on how his work is going, etc.
Carolyn (mother of 7, three of whom are older, and two of those are married. She regularly babysits for her 3 grandchildren, aged 5 and under, as well as takes care of her 4 younger children: a boy who is 9, and three girls, adopted from Liberia,  who are 9, 6 and 3):
What is important? "Be unified in your beliefs and what your roles are as parents--how you're raising your children (including discipline).  "Couch Time" every day, after dinner.  Regular dates. And (giggling) a sense of humor!"
Whitney (aged 21, mom of 2 under the age of 2):
"Early bedtimes for the children, so you have time together as a couple. We try to get them to bed by 8:30 p.m., then we have an hour and a half together."
Kris (mom of 8, one in heaven, aged 21 down to 7):
"Keep short accounts.  By that I mean, spend time together each day--no matter what! Even if it's only a few minutes, to talk to each other. Drop everything when he comes home and meet him at the door. I've recently realized how important that is."
Emily (aged 25, mom of 3 little girls, aged 4, 2 and baby):
(with her cute little giggle) "We write (love) notes on the whiteboard to each other!  We wait until the other notices, then we wipe them off and write another one back."
April (mom of 10, aged 18 down to 1):
What's important? "Communication and prayer.  Time every morning." (Laughing she says, "that's when we're the freshest!") "And prayer together." (How often? Maybe every week?). "Date nights." (How often do you do that: Every week or every other week.) "Oh, and we take walks together."
Vijaya (mom of 3, 2 boys and a girl, under 5):
"We spend time talking a lot when they're playing quietly.  I prepare a meal for just the 2 of us to eat together, when they're interested in something and focused on it.  Or we sit on the sofa and talk (with their littlest with them, and the older off playing together) because she's still little and doesn't understand what we're saying, and we can talk about anything (laughing)." She prefers to just stay home and make something special, because, "When we go out, 'half of our minds stay home' anyway!"
"I like to make a separate meal and make it special and nice, (gesturing with her hands how she arranges things). Or eat at a separate time. And we sit and talk.  I will get a movie for the children, one that anyone could see, G, and then get one for us, and we're enjoying doing things more together, more as buddies."
So...
What do you do that builds up and strengthens your marriage?

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've gotten some ideas now to try -- thanks for this, Wendy :)

April 12, 2010 at 12:48 PM  
Blogger Jami Balmet said...

Hey Wendy,
While we don't have kids yet we are trying to establish good habits now so that when we have kids our time together will not be forsaken. And something that we try to do is just be together no matter what we are doing. We are both full time students with him working full time+ and me working almost full time...so time is scare haha. But something we try to do is sit together at the kitchen table and just do our homework together. I know that sounds funny but we are bonding when we are doing our homework together and let's us have some conversation if something comes up we want to talk about.

And someone said that she once made some tea and helped her husband with his work emails and it was actually kinda fun. We have done almost the same thing! My husband is actually taking 19 units which is OVER full time and sometimes he gets really stressed and burnt out from his papers so when that happens I make him get up and away from the computer. He makes tea for the both of us and then I type the paper for him while he's thinking it out. It actually works very well, we are together bonding, and homework is getting done!

For us just finding little time like that is so important to our relationship. We know that by just sitting silently next to eachother while working on homework helps us to feel just a little more connected with eachother.

Thanks for this post Wendy! It was great and realy gets me thinking about the ways we spend our time now and to be extra intentional to find that time when we have kids.

Thanks for the inspiration :D

April 12, 2010 at 3:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Wendy,

I discovered you from a comment you made on Anna's Domestic Felicity blog. We could always use more women who are willing to be Titus 2 women -- there seem to be so few!!!

--Joanna

April 12, 2010 at 4:33 PM  
Blogger Wendy said...

Lisa,
Thanks for the wonderful input--also the prayer:) The rest of our day went very well (especially after I asked forgiveness). Glad you got some more ideas, but I think you're doing great!
Blessings,
Wendy

April 12, 2010 at 6:16 PM  
Blogger Wendy said...

Jami,
Thank you so much! Your comment was a great tutorial on how to build up a marriage (especially for couples who are also students)! One difference between men and women is that guys just like us "there"--we don't have to be saying anything!:) So, that "shoulder-to-shoulder" time, as Lisa put it, like studying together, is a bonding time for our spouse. I need these constant reminders. Thanks so much!
Blessings,
Wendy

April 12, 2010 at 6:20 PM  
Blogger Wendy said...

Hi Joanna!
So glad you stopped by! It's very nice to meet you, and thank you very much for the kind comment:) I really appreciate people who appreciate my trying to be a Titus 2 woman!
So thanks for the encouragement. Please stop by often and I hope you're encouraged as well.
Blessings,
Wendy

April 12, 2010 at 6:24 PM  

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Hi and welcome to my blog! Come on in and make yourself at home! I love connecting. Comments are the way to do that! Tell me about yourself. Please connect back, ok?
Blessings,
Wendy
If you would rather, my email address is faithsfirmfoundation(at)embarqmail(dot)com

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