We talk a lot on here about making our kids happy, making ourselves happy, schedules & priorities. But what about making those working dads happy too? Brandy talked about how we appreciate them so much, having that right hand man is so integral to making my day work. But somehow I doubt that a glass of wine and a foot rub is the right type of “thank you, now here let’s spend time together” that my husband is looking for.
So with all.the.things that I have packed into my day, what about the romance? Where does that fit in? Brandee talked about ::giggle:: sex already, I’m talking about all the stuff before the sex.
Truthfully, I’m a lucky lady. My husband is incredibly involved as a dad, arranges his flexible work schedules to fit around mine, encourages me to write because he knows I enjoy it, and still tries to woo me after almost a decade of being together. With three young daughters, our date nights are few and far between. So how do we make sure it’s not just the dates that get the credit for keeping the romance? How do I make time with my husband as part of my schedule…without scheduling it? (gulp)
est. 2005
I want to pat ourselves on the back a little here, if I may. Ryan and I could have put our marriage needs on the back burner in favour of the more pressing concerns of life with three littles. Everyone would nod and say “Oh, they’re so busy. They are such involved parents. They’ll make up for it later.” But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to look at my husband ten years down the road when our girls don’t require us to get them juice and apples every 30 seconds and say to myself, “…now what did he like to talk about again??…” It’s true that I don’t have a lot of time left over in my day. Once I’m walking through the door after work I’ve got a list of no less than 12 things that need accomplishing before I convince myself to hit the pillow and go to sleep so I can hit restart the next morning. But lucky number 13 on my list is always: Go Sit on the Couch with Ryan.
He watches hockey, I don’t. I write; he doesn’t. Lucky that we live in the time of laptops & Wi-Fi, and that he’s not put off by my ability to type and talk and listen at the same time. I will often hit “save draft” six times in three minutes because while I’m writing, we’ve been chatting about the budget, or Bella’s fieldtrip, our broken furnace, or his employees. During our work days, we text our most random thoughts, our most heated complaints, our lamest jokes. Since we’ve likely spent most of dinner refilling water glasses and reminding Maëlle to please for the love of grilled cheesus SIT DOWN, we use what time we have after the girls have gone to bed to reconnect.
We’re not talking ground-breaking stuff here. I’m not exactly inventing a new way to do marriage-with-kids. But I’m making every effort I can to prove that my marriage, my relationship with my husband, my romantic self is not pushed so far into the background that it goes dark. I’m not making big commitments, not carving out huge chunks of my precious alone time to sit across from my husband and debate the state of world affairs. What I do instead is do my own thing…beside him. Eventually, because we’re compatible, we will connect on something. The scene usually goes a little like this:
Me: ::tee hee, bwahahahaha, oh my::
Him: What’s so funny?
Me: Read this!
…and then we spend the next 10 minutes verbally sparring about a joke or a dumb fact.
Him: (yelling) That wasn’t even a call! What are you, blind?!! He hardly even touched him! Did you see that, hun?
Me: O_O
…ok, so that one is kind of a lost cause. I mean, really. REALLY?!
Him: Do they really think that looks good? Wearing their pants hanging halfway off their ass?
Me: Stop judging them, YOU HAD A MOHAWK.
Him: Different story. I looked good.
Me: ::insert maniacal laughter here::
My point is that he doesn’t love all the things I love, but we find things to laugh about, things to debate, and things to discuss, and we don’t put too much pressure on the details. That’s how our romance works. Ryan and I are always talking; it’s where our romance is built. This is where we remember what it was like to date. This is where we reconnect. For us, intimacy goes hand-in-hand with romance. I need to feel like we’re connected, he needs to feel like he’s important. We are and he is, and this is how we prove it. We are both tired, we could have a million excuses for why we couldn’t make the time. No one would blame us. Except us.
I agree, this is so important in the long run and vital to our health and happiness as individuals, couples, and families. Your household craziness sounds a lot like mine.
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3 kids FOR THE WIN! (or the loss of sanity, whatever:)
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Its so all about the little things! Thnx for the reminder
Twitter: Erinasmommy
It really does start with the smallest of things. And if I nurture those? The big stuff doesn’t seem so big anymore, just a natural progression.
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Oh girl, you know where it’s at! It’s not about the big fancy dates, it’s about the every day ordinary. What’s funny is I’ve been thinking about the same things these last couple of days because this week has been rough on the hubs and me. For whatever reason we’ve both been exhausted so there hasn’t been the typical conversations or just sitting together that we normally get after the kiddo is in bed because I’m either headed to bed early or he’s falling asleep while putting the kid to bed. This NEVER happens. It’s amazing how quickly not having this time together can wear on me/us. I am definitely looking forward to recharging and reconnecting this weekend.
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We get like this too…where you’re sitting down one day and you think: “well where the hail did this week go?” and then you realize that you haven’t had a real conversation (that didn’t involve house matters) for five straight days. Then all of a sudden I feel like we’re fumbling in a new relationship again. It never takes long to reconnect, but still…so odd.
(also? you are pregnant, you just had a week’s worth of no water, followed by a week’s worth of dishes from said no water. I think you could probably cut yourselves some slack:)
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I have now read this post 3 times. I just love it. Perfect.
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Thank you, lovely.
Horse before the carriage right? Though I do love those carriages…
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three children …under three ~ check
busy ~ working mom, working dad ~ check
three children involved in all sorts of activities (this is good) ~ check
trying to keep the romance ~ check
and now….no one home…just me and him ~ and worth every minute….and Alicia you are so right…even now , after work ( we are so tired and the Old bodies just don’t respond like they once did) so we need to bond on a daily basis before we both fall asleep in our chairs before bed!
So we do try….and it is a daily event ( effort makes it sound so nasty which it isn’t)….we loved each other then….we still do….and being silly and having fun makes it all worth while…
You said it well alicia….and it is so important because one day…they are all gone living their own lives…
xxoo
(my aunt, ladies & gents:)
This is what I’m talking about. My parents are the same- did SO.MUCH.STUFF for my brother & I growing up (and still now!) and now they’re empty nesters. But it says something to their relationship that I still see them kissing & holding hands to this very day. It’s incredibly sweet.
I hope I always remember that while it’s important to be involved in my kids’ lives…it’s important to be involved in MINE too.
xo
mrshiggison recently posted..Brownchickenbrowncow…kinda- LWM
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So very true. After 10 years of marriage and 5 kids in I crave these simple moments of us on the couch talking and snuggling. We tend to put the kids first and time together is lost is the chaos of life. Add in house renos and they become further apart. Our date night consists of once a year on our anniversary going out for dinner. This has been weighing heavy on us lately and we don’t want to wait until the kids are moved out and we are in retirement to finally make time for us. At that point where you don’t have the kids being your center what will you have left? I don’t want to stand there with nothing to keep us connected. It is very important to keep a relationship as husband and wife not just Mom and Dad.
Listen, there are a ton of excuses. All valid. No one would ever argue with it.
But that’s not good enough for me. Sorry, but life without romance is miserable. And romance doesn’t have to be sweep-me-off-my-feet every time, sometimes it’s just innocent & charming. It’s easier for us to do the little things right now…but if we keep up with those, the big stuff will just naturally be there when we make time.
mrshiggison recently posted..Brownchickenbrowncow…kinda- LWM
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Absolutely. You can make excuses for anything to justify it whether it be to yourself or someone else. We sometimes get wrapped up in the everything else and time slips by so fast. The past year we have been able to have more “us” time and I find the more one-on-one time we have the happy we are in general. We are more playful with each other and laugh a lot more. Sometimes you just have to make a point of getting that time together. Thirty/forty years from now I still want to be able to look across a room and see “that look” the one where no one else is in the room…I always want him to be my high school sweetheart.
Sean and I used to text a TON. Then his job switched and email is our primary form of communication. Twitter has made me lazy. I respond to his emails… last? Bad wife. Thanks for this post. He is way more important than my beloved pocket friends (loved as y’all are). Thanks for the reminder. X’s & O’s.
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