3 Essential strategies for achieving balance in your marriage after kids
One of the biggest mistakes I think new parents make is expecting their life will at some point get back to what it was sans kid, without realizing ‘normal’ must now be redefined.
I had my first kid while most of the other people in my age group were pursuing high education, advancing in careers, or just beginning marriages, and I made a tonne of mistakes and learnt most things the hard way.
Now that I am redefining my life for the third time, I sure hope that I have a little more wisdom! Although it’s still a struggle to find balance, and even though three kids are difficult, it’s a little easier to manage our shortcomings and “issues”.
Find your “thing”
The most important strategy I think is that each parent has some alone time to do something that is fun and interesting to them, their “thing” if you will. I would suggest something physical, like for example, to join a sports team, or just have a regular, weekly game with friends. And if not, try a class, I am starting some cooking classes with my sister, first up is sushi! I think that each one of us need some space away from family and responsibilities to rejuvenate and get back to our true selves.
Redefining your spousal relationship
Now that it’s no long just the two of you, almost everything in the relationship needs to be reassessed and redefined. It is tremendously easy to fall into parenting and mundane living, and it’s even easier to become completely stressed out and feel like there isn’t any time for “fun”, and there may not be time for what you once considered fun, but surely once you get creative, I think you’ll find a lot of little ways to take away the monotony from the relationship.
With kids comes much less freedom and much more responsibility, so one of the things that we need to learn is how to unwind and have some enjoyment at home. This is sort of dependent what you and your spouse enjoy doing, I think the only thing my husband enjoy is movies, so we end up doing that a lot, but it’s works. Other things that I think may be fun, is cooking a meal together, or a game that you both enjoy, sometimes simple things are all you need, and of course a few laughs are essential.
Having fun as a family
With a first child, it’s easy to forget that the kid is now a part of the family, I mean it’s just natural almost to want to go back to what life was before, but of course since that is really not an option, it’s essential to instead think about “family activities”. Now that my kids are a little older, bike riding, playgrounds and parks are huge on our list of family things, but even with younger kids, walk are great, trips to the zoo, even spending time hanging out in the backyard can be fun.
Managing expectations, in my opinion, is one of the key factors in having a healthy marriage, and it becomes so much more important after we become parents. It’s impossible, I think for our spouses to actually live up to our ideals, I mean, there are possibly some of you with the perfect mate (lucky you!!), but I think that most of us need to set our expectations a little lower to be happy!
Surviving marriage after kids… it takes patience and understanding, and sometimes even a miracle! I am kidding! Sort of…
