The important thing to remember is that your marriage is not about children, it is about the two of you! Marriage and family are two independent things that just happen to go together. Your family includes your children, and it needs a strong center. Mom and Dad are the center of the family, the strong core, the anchor. However, if you don’t have a strong marriage, or relationship between husband and wife, you cannot and will not have a strong family. Period. If your children don’t see a center to their family that is love and romance and understanding and shared mission, the way they view family will change. They will see two separate parents who fill two separate functions and are like employees in a business, each performing their own jobs, not a strong unit working towards a common goal.

Remember that you and your husband made these children out of the power of your love for each other! You have children because of your love, your connection, your marriage, and that marriage is the most important part of your family. Therefore, you must remember to have your own time and activities as a couple, apart from your children, to keep that love alive!

We’re always reading in magazines the advice to hire a babysitter once a week, to have a regular date night, to spend time together. Many parents know deep down that they should, but it falls to the bottom of the priority list. There are things to do which are more pressing, urgent, and time-sensitive. There are the times when you are finally alone and all you want to do is sleep. Some days the stress of the day means romance is far from your mind! Then there are those of us who counter that hiring a babysitter is just not in the budget for legitimate financial reasons. For couples who work opposite schedules to eliminate day care, finding time together can be difficult.

How Can You Find the Time for Quick Dates?

We all want strong marriages and deep connection with our spouses, but with all the possible obstacles, how can we make  it work? How do you find time for dates when the time, money, or privacy are not there?

My husband and I sneak in dates that no one else would consider a date. Sometimes when the kids are asleep at night, we’ll take a 2 minute walk down to the garage to get the laundry together. Of course, it only really takes one of us to do the chore! However, going for a little walk together, holding hands, without the kids, allows us to connect with each other at the end of the day. We walk out to the mailbox together (it is 63 steps there, and 63 steps back) and stand outside for a little chat while the kids are snoozing. After dropping off our daughter at Tae Kwon Do, we once took a drive to the gas station together (baby asleep in the back). Not a very glamorous date, I’ll admit, but we could talk about our day without having distractions or chores to do or other things coming up that were “urgent”.

So our dates have been downgraded to laundry, checking the mail, and getting fuel?! No! Occasionally we have a traditional “date” where the kids have a babysitter and we go do some activity. Nevertheless, the little dates- the quick 5 minute dates that we sneak into our daily lives – allow us to keep our connection strong on a regular basis. They allow us to be together without the kids, to hold hands or hug or sit on the stairs right outside our front door and just drink a cup of coffee. Quick dates don’t kill the budget, don’t take a lot of time, and don’t take lots of planning. Start looking for opportunities for quick dates in your day, and you’ll start to see them popping up all over!

Some ideas: Getting the laundry, getting the mail, taking out the trash, dropping/picking up kids, at the park, early bedtime for the grownups, hide in the pantry for a quick smooch after a long day, make a meal together, get up 15 minutes before the kids and have coffee together. The possibilities are endless!

Homemaker Barbi Says: Sneak in quick dates as often as possible to keep your relationship strong!

Couple photo courtesy of stock.xchng.

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Strengthening Your Marriage Through Acts of Service

If you look back at socio-economic stereotypes of women as wives throughout the 1900s, we see distinct shifts in the viewpoints of our society as a whole. The early 1900s show us women who were little more than property, disenfranchised, and valued little. Look forward to the 1950s and early 60s and see wives who are tethered to their home, their housework, their husbands and their children. The 1970s brought women’s’ liberation, the fight for equality, and the 80s ushered women out of their suburban homes and into the workplace. Fast forward to the millennium, and now in 2008, it is more common to see a woman going to work while her children stay in childcare. My, how the norms have changed in a mere 100 years!

So let’s focus on the stereotype of the housewife from the 1960s. She kept an immaculate house, raised the children, did the errands, and hosted stunning parties! But most memorably, she served and waited on her husband. In the 1970s, these very ideas of women and service became reviled. The thinking was that to serve someone meant you were less than them, beneath them. If you told your women’s’ group that you brought your husband his slippers when he got home from work, you’d be ridiculed and reminded that we women are equal to men!

So what is the deal with serving in a marriage? Is doing nice things for your spouse wrong? Does it mean that you are their servant or slave, that you are beneath them? Is it belittling for a woman to show her love through doing nice things? Of course not!

Yes, I bring my husband his slippers when he gets home from work! I have a warm cup of tea and a hot dinner ready for him when he walks in the door. Why? Because he just walked 2.6 miles home from work in the middle of winter! He’s cold! He’s tired! And he goes to work every day to support his family so that I can stay home and raise the children! He appreciates it; I know because he tells me so. Do people give me a hard time about it? You bet.

What prompts me to do these nice things? I think of his needs and wants. That’s not so unusual when you think about it. Does it mean I’m not a liberated woman who can take care of myself? No. Does it mean I’m a servant to my husband? No. I do nice things for my husband, for my children, for my relatives, and for my friends. Doing nice things for people is a way of letting them know you like them and appreciate them.

I remember my husband rubbing my feet and my back when I was pregnant, even after he worked a long, hard day too. My husband lets me sleep in late on the weekends and he gets up at 7am with the baby, even though he’s gotten up early every morning during the week. My husband makes me breakfast in bed for no reason. He sends me text messages during the day telling me he loves me. He offers to carry the laundry baskets up the stairs for me, and closes my car door for me. Does it mean he’s being subservient when he does these nice things for me? No way!

According to his book, “The Five Love Languages,” Gary Chapman, a Christian counselor, lists “Acts of Service” as one of the five fundamental ways people show love or feel loved. Everyone has different ways to show or feel love; most people have combinations of several of the love languages. It really is a great book, and it teaches new ways to connect with not only your spouse, but your children as well.

Giving to people through acts of service is one of the greatest gifts we can give. It’s not like buying them a thing, but it is us giving of ourselves: our time, our effort, and our thought.

The strength of a marriage can indeed be measured in how important the needs of each spouse are to the other. Becoming one with someone else means you think of their needs as if they are your own, you treat them the way you want to be treated, and you show them love just as you would love your own self.

So yes, I bring my husband his slippers, and I am proud! He brings me coffee and I love it! My husband and I have a fantastic and strong marriage because we both think of the other’s needs, and are not afraid to do nice things to show our appreciation constantly. Showing someone that you cherish them should never make you feel embarrassed or ashamed of what other people will think. If people were more willing to do nice things for each other, perhaps the values of our society would be different than they are, and the world would be a more pleasant place, to be sure!

Homemaker Barbi Says: Do something nice for your husband today that lets him know you cherish and appreciate him (and don’t be surprised if he does the same)!

Thanks to MorgueFile for the photo!

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