How to Maintain a Strong Marriage After Children
After having children something happens, the dynamic of your married relationship changes. Sometimes, your relationship with your husband can get pushed to the back burner. But it doesn’t have to! Here are some tips on what you can do to help build a strong marriage after having children.
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Why is Building a Solid Marriage Foundation Important After Having Children?
Building a solid relationship in your marriage is important for many reasons, especially after having children.
You and your spouse are partners. You are also modeling what a healthy relationship looks like for your children. Do you want to show your children how they should be loved and how they should love their spouse when they are adults? You can do this by creating a strong foundation while they are young or before they are born.
Life Isn’t Easy
Another reason having a strong foundation with your husband is important after children is because life is not easy.
It is no secret that life will throw you curveballs. Having someone there to be your rock is helpful and important. Sure, having somebody outside of your marriage that you can talk to is also important. However, having someone you spend your life with who knows you and walks alongside you day after day as your rock is priceless.
Also, have you ever heard the term there is strength in numbers? I love my children, but it is no secret that having children can sometimes turn you and your spouse against each other.
It’s Important to be a United Front
Having a strong foundation in your marriage shows your children that you cannot be put you against one another. It helps you and your spouse form a united front.
My husband and I have been married for going on 15 years. We met young while we were in college. We started our married life out sort of naïvely, in my opinion. I always assumed that at the very beginning of our marriage, we would have easy years. I know you are always here for better or for worse, but I was under the impression that for worse would come much, much later in our married life.
A year and a half later, I realized how wrong I was when I was sitting in the nick of you holding my dying son. A tragedy that could have torn us apart if we had allowed it only made us that much stronger. Having a strong foundation before we had children helped my husband and I face tragedy and grow stronger. And now, 15 years later, we are stronger in our marriage than we have ever been. We face hardships head-on in the same way we embrace joyous moments.
We have a strong foundation because we work on our marriage. Marriage is a lot of work, but it is 100% worth it. Here are several tips for maintaining a strong marriage after having kids.
Tips for Maintaining a Strong Marriage After Kids
Start Building Your Strong Foundation Before Having Kids
My husband and I welcome our second child, the first living child, into our lives 2 1/2 years after marriage. It is short, yes, but we had spent the first 2 1/2 years of our marriage facing immense grief and hardship.
We started building a strong foundation with each other and for our marriage. That can last a lifetime if we continue to work on it.
Start early building your foundation with your spouse. Make it a commitment to work on your relationship with your husband daily. Even on the hard days, if you feel like giving up.
Talk about your expectations with your spouse before you get married. And then continue to talk about them.
We all have goals and ideas about what we want our lives to look like. It is important to talk to your husband about what you desire out of life.
Write down your yearly goals, five-year goals, ten year goals, whatever they may be. Then, talk about what you expect out of one another and what you expect out of life. And then continue to talk with one another. Keep the lines of communication open and honest.
Agree on How You Want to Raise Your Children
Talk about how you were raised as a child, if there’s anything you want to carry over, and anything you feel passionately about.
Chances are you and your spouse were raised very differently. It is important to consider your upbringing and be honest with your spouse. Are there certain things about your childhood that you want to carry over with you as a new parent? Are there certain ways you were raised that you do not want to carry over with your spouse and children?
You can keep the lines of communication open with your spouse. What are some ways that you are passionate about raising children? Write them down if you need to. While are you raising children be honest about how you want them to be raised, what is important to you? Also, consider what is important to your spouse.
Look at God’s Model for Marriage.
His model is the church and himself.
Continue to study God’s word about how he would like your marriage foundation to be. The Bible provides a clear model for married life.
Make Date Night a Priority
Make date night a priority, especially after having children. Maybe you can’t make it a weekly date night. Regardless, continue to make it a priority, whether it’s once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month. You and your spouse need your alone time together without children so you can become refreshed and Keep your passion for life.
Put Your Spouse’s Needs Before Your Children’s Wants
Sometimes, this is controversial, although I’m not sure why. As long as your child’s needs are met, your spouse’s needs should be prioritized. Your children must learn that there are people outside of them who are also important and that although your children are your world, they aren’t your whole world. Your children must see you take care of yourself and your marriage and relationships with other people. That way, they can get a clear picture of what a marriage or what other relationships are supposed to look like.
In most cases, your spouse was here before your child. And when your child grows up, they will leave you. You do not want to be left with an empty, neglected marriage.
Embrace Your Spouse’s Quirks
Chances are your spouse has a lot of quirks. You probably have quirks as well. Instead of criticizing them and putting them down for having quirks, embrace them for who he is.
My husband has very ill-timed humor. He has said things without realizing that the timing was terrible, which he thinks is funny. That is his personality because he’s trying to alleviate sadness and wants people to be happy and laugh. Instead of being upset with him, I embrace it because the people who know him the closest know who he is. I have my own quirks as well; I am extremely cranky in the morning before my coffee. My husband leaves me alone until I’ve had at least one cup of coffee every morning.
I don’t want him getting mad at me for my quirks, and what makes me me, so I have no business getting upset with him for his quirks. No one likes to be picked and criticized, not even your spouse.
Keep Private Issues Private
Nothing will make me hit the snooze button faster than when a friend shares private information about their spouse on their social media accounts. What happens behind closed doors needs to stay behind closed doors. If my spouse and I argue, I don’t blast him on my social media accounts.
I also keep any arguments that my husband and I may have to myself. I don’t share them with my friends or my mom or dad because chances are we are going to make up. And I do not want their opinions of my spouse to change based on one argument.
Unless there is abuse, your private life with your spouse continues to stay private.
Always Present a United Front in Front of Your Children
We have a clear-cut rule in our house. It goes something like this: if daddy says it, mommy supports it. If mommy says it, daddy supports it.
If I usher in a discipline that my husband does not necessarily agree with, he still supports me in front of our children. Then we talk about it in private, out of the children’s earshot.
If one of our children wants to do something and has already asked daddy, and daddy says no, mommy does not say yes. This is what I mean by presenting a united front. We support what we say to our children, and if either one of us has a problem with it, we go and discuss it privately and come to an agreement together.
Support Your Spouse and Discipline
This one goes along with the above one. When my husband gives a discipline, I do not step in, I do not tell him in front of my children if i think he was being too hard or soft, and I allowed him to continue doing the discipline. If I disagree with how the misbehavior was handled, I talk to my husband about it privately out of earshot of our children. And vice versa.
Be Intimate With Your Spouse Regularly
I saw something the other day that was good. It said a wife who stops having sex with her husband is like a husband who stops talking to his wife. I thought that this hit home. Before I got married, my mom told me something that I would continue to use. She said have sex with your husband because that is how they can tell that you love them. And most of the time, it’s only 10 minutes out of its day. If you’re not in the mood, there’s a chance you can get in the mood.
So, I just say I have known some women who use sex as a weapon against their husbands. They withhold until they get what they want, not realizing that when you have sex with your husband, your relationship will be 10 times better. Intimacy is a way to tell your spouse that you love them. It’s a beautiful act God creIt’s for a husband and wife after marriage and should be enjoyed.
Keeping a Strong Marriage
Building a strong foundation and marriage takes work. You need to wake up every day and decide, “I am going to work on my marriage, I am going to protect my marriage, and I am going to keep the lines of communication open so that I can have a strong foundation in our marriage with my husband.”
Having a strong marriage is 100% doable, and it is so important, ladies. Not only is it important, but having a strong marriage is enjoyable. It brings me joy every day to have someone who loves me, takes care of me, and who I can have fun and who protects me and vice versa.
It is so much a joy to have my rock living with me and to have spent a decade with him.
If you want your marriage to work, it can. What steps do you use daily to build a strong foundation with your spouse after marriage?
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