Keeping a relationship together
AdventureDad | March 17
I had the privilege of meeting my wife many years ago. We knew we wanted kids but at an early age we never felt ready. As we got older we thought more about it but we still waited. Seeing other people having kids was actually a huge turnoff 90% of the time. The children were usually fantastic but the parents simply stopped living and their relationship turned boring and uneventful as soon as the kids were born. We saw a complete lack of traveling, dinners at restaurants, workouts (or simply a semi-healthy lifestyle), simple fun, and anything that would keep a spark in the relationship with the spouse. Going our for dinner twice a year, gaining 50 pounds, stop all our hobbies, have sex twice a month, and never leave the country didn’t look very appealing. We talked at length about this and decided that when the time came our focus should be on the kids but also on our own relationship. We wanted to still have fun after we had kids. After all, we were supposed to be together the rest of our lives and doing that without having fun seemed pointless.
Having the nearest family 800 miles a way and the the rest on another continent meant quite a challenge. We were completely on our own with our son and knew few people. No free and easy babysitting at the parents house with no advance notice. After the breastfeeding stage was over we got the great advice from a friend to schedule some time each week for ourselves. We already took turns going to the gym, meeting friends, or did trips to other countries but the point was that we were not doing many things together. We wanted some time without kids, just ourselves. We did feel kind of guilty at first but that was of course silly. Our child had our complete attention nearly 24 hours a day, surely we could sneak away five hours a week. We found a great babysitter that came to our house late afternoon each Friday and we headed out. She feed our son dinner, played a bit, watched a little TV, did some reading, and then he slept. This made us feel very confident about leaving the house for a relaxing evening.
Going out together without our son felt very odd at first but after being convinced he was in good hands we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. Usually we would go somewhere for a few drinks and then head to a nice restaurant for a long dinner. In warmer weather we went mountain biking for a few hours and then finished off with a few drinks. We also did some rock climbing. Or spent the night at some spa hotel. But most of the time we simply left the house with no firm plans except to relax and have a good time.
The greatest thing about being out for an evening together is coming home. Walk into our sons room, see him lying there sleeping, kiss him on the cheek, and smell that incredible baby smell. Being away for just a few hours makes us appreciate his presence even more and waking up the next morning with him is the greatest thing.
My obvious question to all you bright parents out there is, what do you do to maintain the relationship with the person you love? What do you do on a weekly or daily basis to keep your relationship fun and interesting? I would like to be married to my wife for the rest of my life, if she lets me, but I’m not very creative and could surely use some great advice for the coming years.
Have a great weekend
Shortly after TV was born, we moved hundreds of miles away from all our family and everybody else we knew. At first the fact that we didn’t have an available sitter, and that there was therefore no relief ever from the constant immersion in parenting seemed like a bit of a hardship; no more driving to the next city for dinner on a whim, or spontaneous trips to wherever because now everything has to be planned at least a little in advance. But I think that our sense of the situation as a hardship was due to a social construct more than any actual personal needs that may have been unfulfilled.
People say that a second child has a synergistic effect on the love within a family; no love is detracted from the first child, there is simply another person there participating in the love dynamic. This is the same way I view having TV added to the relationship between Emily and myself. We still don’t have a babysitter, and we will not go anywhere that TV is not welcome.
we found this awesome outdoor spa, where we can soak together, paint mud one each other and leave feeling soft, relaxed, and more in love than before. it does help that the place is right by grandma’s house (glen ivy, for any socal people)
I’m not sure where you live, but considering that just about every place has wineries now, or at the very least, a wine bar, wine tasting is fun to do. We live in an area that has some decent ones and it’s fun to just get away for a bit on a Saturday afternoon while the kids are playing at some other parent’s house and act like an adult.
On nice days, Triple A baseball games are fun too. Easy crowd, a few beers, and just chat.
We have trouble getting out together very often because we work opposite shifts. Plus the family isnt too helpful on the babysitting thing and my sitter can only do certain days. So it takes a WHOLE LOTTA planning on our parts to try and do something together. We are happy many weekends just renting a movie from the cable box and curling up together on the couch after the little one goes to bed and watching it together. But every now and then we get the sitter to agree to a sat. nite and after i get home from work we go do karoke at the local place in town. Its fun.
We do the stuff we liked to do before we had kids and couldn’t afford to *do* all that stuff (husband now has a much better job)!
We go to movies, we go out to dinner (our very favorite pastime), we take walks, we take vacations sans children, and tomorrow night (for example) we’re going to a comedy show.
So just keep doing what you like to do. Plan a suprise vacation (my husband did that for me for my 30th birthday, right down to having my mother come up for the weekend to watch the kids), read books together; do whatever it was that got you two together in the first place.
Hubby and I used to have weekly “dates”. We’ve fallen out of the habit since The Mouse was born but will no doubt pick it up again once I can get some breastmilk bottled up for her. ;) Some of our dates have included:
- Dinner and a Movie;
- He taught me to play pool at a local pool hall;
- Sunday drives to nowhere;
- A couple of pints and some pinball at a local pub;
- Picnic in our livingroom after the kids are asleep, complete with candles;
- Playing Name that Tune with his iPod.
My husband and I make a point of DVR-ing our favorite TV shows to watch together after the kids have gone to bed. We also get my 13 year old sister (she and my parents live nearby) to babysit at least once a month so we can do something fun together, like dinner or a movie. We also double up with our best friends and get joint babysitting every spring for at least a few MLB games.
He also gives me footrubs. I’m never leaving him.
I wonder how old everybody’s kids were when they started doing regular date nights, and esp. how old when they started overnights away. ‘Cause, with our babygirl going on 17 months and both our familys 2 to 3 hours away, we’ve only gone out to a few movies when we were staying over at either grandparents’ houses, for a max of 4-5 hours. When AD wrote that bit about coming home and seeing their son tucked in and asleep–whoa! We’re so not at that point, never had someone else put her to sleep for the night, barely for a nap! (I tend to freak out about the amount and quality of sleep she gets, can you tell?) Wishing we could get to that date-night point, but not there yet…
One of the things we enjoyed doing together when we first got married was trying out new recipes. We would find one we wanted to try, go shopping for ingredients and come home and prepare wonderful meals together, then wash the dishes together. Thats something we try to continue doing as much as schedules permit. Its time alone with the two of us to talk about our days, the kids, whatever is on our minds. The kids want no part of cooking and they are off playing, doing homework, whatever…and we get to have uninterrupted talk time.
We also make it a point to take a child free vacation every year. We leave the kids with the grandparents and we go away together. We do a family vacation with the kids too, later in the year.
Our kids are 11, 2, and 4 months old and we don’t live near family, either. We’re actually going to move to be closer to family so that we will be able to have that free babysitting from the grandparents.
For now, we watch different TV series on Netflix (right now it’s Smallville) from the beginning. We also play video games together and constantly play practical jokes on each other. We had 2 childless weekends back when we only had 1 child, and one was to a couples retreat. I would really suggest everyone do this at least once a year, even if it’s not an overnight thing. It really helps to keep your relationship fresh and in perspective. As soon as we get through the breastfeeding stage, we’ll be attending another one.
Our Booga Bear is now three and just recently as a birthday gift to me my girlfriend watches our son once a month. That has been amazing. We see movies and try new restuarants. Now before my girlfriend helped us out, we hardly went out just the two of us. The three of us would go for walks, family friendly restuarants, parks, and wknd trips to an ocean town. To keep the spark alive between my husband and I: I leave him love notes, I have mailed him cards at his work, made him special meals that I know he loves, and I know he loves sports so I make sure I pay attention when to the daily sports events that he enjoys so we can debate it later. He keeps the spark alive by taking showers with me and washing my hair and brushing it, foot rubs, doing the dishes from time to time and every once in awhile he will cook dinner. I love it when he does things that make my daily life easier without me asking. I find it very sexy.
When I was growing up, my parents spent their ‘nights out’ by inviting friends over or going over to their houses. Kids included. We’d all disappear to the rec room with big bowls of popcorn and bottles of pop while the parents ate, talked, drank a few beers, and maybe pulled out the guitar. We kids would inevitably pass out on the pull-out sofa, tired from playing so hard. Later, the parents would untangle us and carry us to bed or to the car to go home. It was a great memory, falling asleep to the sound of my parents laughing and having a good time with their friends while I was with my friends. It makes me realize now, as I think about impending parenthood, how I want a very similar environment for mine. Being in a new town makes it a bit more complicated, but I’ve noticed that we’ve already surrounded ourselves with people who like to laugh, people who also happen to have similar timelines to us regarding children. It’s not intentional, but it is convenient and hopefully it will be a whole lotta fun.
We live 5 miles from my mom and dad, so every Tuesday (so as not to interfere with their weekend plans, plus hubby is off on Wednesdays), we have date night. My mom and dad come to our house so they can do the whole bedtime routine, including putting them down for the night. We usually do movies and dinner, but sometimes go to LSU sports events (during football season, we’ll have to switch to Saturdays for home games), go out with other friends, go to the casino, etc. We took two weekend trips this year to Connecticut and Vegas. Ours are only 9 months old, so we’ve actually packed a lot in during those months. I know it’s only because I have my parents so near.