How to Maintain Your Marriage after Kids

I can’t believe that I have been a mother for 10 months.  Time has seriously flown!!!  I have been seriously trying to soak in every moment with my family of four and I am loving every moment of it.

Prior to becoming a mother, a lot of couples would constantly tell me that kids can completely change your relationship, and not for the better.  When I would ask for more specific details, the man would often complain about the ways that the woman no longer gave him attention and all she cared about were the kids and the woman would complain about how the man never did anything.

Of course, I wanted to make it my mission for this to not happen to my marriage.  My husband and I had been married for 6 years prior to having our twins and we had been together for a total of 12 years to the date (our twins were born on our dating anniversary).  I felt as though we had things figured out pretty well, we communicated very well, we had been through good times and difficult times, so this parenthood thing would be a piece of cake…right? 

Well…fast forward to when the twins were born, we were on cloud 9.  About 24 hours after the twins were born my husband even said “I am going to remember how happy I am in this moment, even when they are waking us up in the middle of the night and not sleeping”.  My twins spent 13 days in the NICU at the hospital and then they were ready to come home to FINALLY be with us.  We were so overjoyed to finally have our twin’s home with us.

Slowly after the sleepless nights, crying, stress of nursing twins all began to set in, I began to find myself being the woman that I said I would never be.  I was actually beginning to count time.  For example, if I changed x amount of diapers, did laundry and cleaned the house all day (while on maternity leave) and my husband came home from working ALL day and changed a diaper and took a nap I was LIVID.  I knew this feeling was not going to do anything good for my marriage and this could not continue.

I believe that in a marriage, or any relationship it is important to lead by example.  I began to sit and think about the things that I wanted during this time of being a new mother, and instead of going to my husband to tell him “How to treat me” I decided to give him all of the things that I wanted.

1.  I began to make time for my spouse. 

For the first four weeks of being a new mom I was completely wrapped up into my twins.  I did not leave any space for my husband.  My focus was only on the twins and the things that I felt my husband was not doing right. 

So, I began to focus some of that energy onto my husband and making him feel special.  When he came home from work, I stopped complaining about how tired I was and I started to ask him about how his day went and the things that he did.  I gave him the opportunity to talk about himself and his day and not just the twins.

2. Date Night

I cannot stress enough how important date night is.  I understand that there are many couples that do not have the help to go on a date night because they do not have a sitter. 

Date Night does not have to mean going out.  For us, there are times when we stay home but we watch a movie together, we actually sit down together and eat dinner or we just take 20-30 minutes out of our day to focus on one another as a couple instead of being Mommy and Daddy.

3. I had to make sure my husband did not feel secondary

This is so difficult in the beginning, because honestly until I was able to get on a routine my husband was secondary.  However, I wanted to stop this habit because I know that this would not lead to a successful marriage.

I made a point to put my husband’s needs first.  For example, he wanted to stay overnight away from the twins.  I honestly, did not want to go because as much as I thought I was ready, I was not ready to leave my babies overnight.  However, because my husband took the time to ask me out on a date and to request I stay the night away to get some needed rest, I did.

My marriage is very important not only to my husband, and myself but it is also important to my children.  Our love is the reason that they are here, so we have to fight to make sure we are doing the best we can.

4.  Treat him like my boyfriend

What I mean by this is that I typically do things that I don’t always feel like doing. 

I sometimes reflect back to when we were dating and I would surprise him with things that he mentioned he wanted, I would go out of my way to do things for him.  As my boyfriend, I would never tell him “no” just because I was tired and did not feel like doing something with him.

I have decided to go back to those days and it helps so much.  He feels valued and not secondary to our twins.

5.  Give him a break

Every parent needs a break.  My husband loves to golf, and I encourage him to do this regularly.

This break helps him recharge and he is a better husband and father because of it.

6.  Pick your battles

This is a great practice in marriage and in parenting.  I refuse to constantly complain because my husband does something different than me.  I have learned that just because it is not the way that I would do it, this does not mean it is the wrong way.

As I began to do the things that I wanted for my husband, those things had a great impact.  He began to start doing the same things for me and sometimes even more.

So, do children change the marriage?  ABSOLUTELY!  However, the change does not have to be negative.  If two people really want to make it a positive experience it can totally be done.

I often, joke with my husband and I tell him that I am so happy that we were married for six years prior to having kids, because at least we know that our marriage does work, it just needed a little restructure.

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Xoxo,

Katrina

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Stripping away the EXCUSES

My family on Easter Sunday

I started a weight loss challenge at work a few months ago.  One of the things that we had to do for the entire challenge was to give up a bad habit.  The bad habit could be anything we wanted it to be and did not have to be food related.  I decided to give up my bad habit of making excuses.

The reason I decided to give up the habit of making excuses is because I felt that excuses had begun to get in the way of accomplishing the things that I wanted out of life.  In addition to that, I had been making excuses to people to explain why I did not want to do things, instead of just saying no.

Now, I want to give a little history on the topic so you can understand why no longer making excuses has been so important for me and it has changed my life for the better.  My husband and I sit around and discuss our goals and aspirations about once a month (minimum), so we discuss the things that we want to do and how we plan on getting it done.  What I had began to notice is that I would tell him the goals and things that I wanted to do and then a few weeks after it…the GOAL hadn’t changed, but my hunger for the goal would begin to change because things would begin to get difficult. 

Now the tricky thing about marriage is that you have a person that wants to see you succeed as much as you do (if not more) and he would call me out and tell me that I was a professional at making excuses.  He would tell me that the excuses would sometimes have validity to them, but at the end of the day they were just excuses and they would not help me to get to my goals.  He suggested that instead of making an excuse I should begin saying…I did not do “x” because it was not a priority for me.

This began to sound HORRIBLE!!!

A few examples:

I did not workout today because it was not a priority for me

I did not write my blog today to hopefully help other people, because that was not a priority for me

I did not eat a healthy meal today because that was not a priority for me

I did not start the process of reaching my career goals because that was not a priority for me

I did not accomplish my goals today because I was not a priority

As you can see saying things this way made me begin to realize that I needed to make some changes.

1.  I  started making a daily schedule.

The rule with my daily schedule is that if it is written down I HAVE to follow it.  It is unacceptable for me to not do something just because the mood I was in when I wrote it down has changed.  I had to learn to be committed to making my goals a priority. 

2.  Goal Board

I have a goal board posted near my vanity, so I see it every morning and every night before I go to bed.  The goal board is broken down from daily, 3 month and 6 month goals.  The goals are all related.  Basically what I do daily will lead me to the 6 month goals.

3.  I have learned to be comfortable being uncomfortable

Getting outside of my comfort zone has been a huge thing for me.  I tend to do things in the “safe’ zone.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but for the things I plan on doing, I have to get a little uncomfortable.

The goals that I have in life will not be completed if I stay in my comfort zone.  I have learned to seek help from friends and LEAP a little bit to accomplish the goals that I want.  In addition, I have been communicating my goals to not only my husband, but also my friends.  I WANT and NEED to be held accountable.

It’s amazing what putting your goals out there can do.  For example, I had a friend ask me the other day how my weight loss and working out had been going.  This was perfect timing because at the time I did not feel like working out that day, but I wanted to be able to tell my friend that things were going great, so I got in the gym.

Setting goals and making them happen has been a lot easier because I have finally stopped the excuses. 

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me –Ayn Rand

I will no longer be stopping myself from accomplishing my life goals.

Xoxo,

Katrina

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