How to maintain a strong marriage after having children
After having children something happens, the dynamic of your married relationship changes. If you do not have a strong marriage foundation it can crumple easily.
Sometimes your relationship with your husband can get pushed to the back burner. But it doesn’t have to! Here are a couple of tips to build and maintain a strong marriage after having children.
Why is maintaining a strong marriage foundation important after having children?
There are many reasons why building and maintaining a strong marriage is important, especially after having children.
You and your spouse are partners.
You are 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?
Show them by creating a strong foundation now while they are young or start before they are even born.
Life is not easy. Your spouse is your rock. Having a rock during the tough times keeps you going.
it is no secret that life will throw you curve balls. Having someone there to be your rock is important.
Sure having somebody outside of your marriage that you can talk to is also important. However, having someone that you spend your life with who knows you and walks alongside you day after day as your rock is priceless.
Have you ever heard the term their strengths and numbers?
I love my children but children can sometimes try to turn you and your spouse against each other.
Having a strong foundation in your marriage shows your children that you cannot be put against one another.
You and your spouse will form a united front and keep it.
My husband and I have been married for 10 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. You always hear for better or for worse, however I was under the impression the for worse would come much, much later in our married life.
I was wrong.
A year and a half later I realized how wrong I was sitting in the NICU holding our dying son.
A tragedy that could have torn us apart if we allowed it, only made us that much stronger.
We grew stronger as we faced this tragedy because we had a strong foundation.
Now 10 years later we are stronger in our marriage than we have ever been. We face hardships head on the same way we embrace the joyous moments.
The reason we have a strong foundation is because we work on our marriage every single day.
Marriage is a lot of work, but it is 100% worth it.
Here are several tips that you can use 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 welcomed our second child, first living child, into our lives 2 1/2 years after we were married. This time was short, yes but we had spent the first 2 1/2 years of our marriage facing immense grief and hardship.
We started right away building a strong foundation with each other. If we continue to work on it daily, this foundation will last a lifetime.
Start early working on your foundation with your spouse. Make it a commitment to work on your relationship with your husband every single day. Even on the hard days when you feel like giving up. Trust me, those days may come.
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 life to look like.
It is important to talk to your husband about what you desire out of your life. It’s important to talk about your goals, your dreams, and what you want out of life.
Write down your yearly goals, five-year goal, ten year goal, whatever it may be. Talk about what you expect out of one another. Talk about what you expect out of life. And then continue to talk with one another. Keep the lines of communication open and honest.
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 look at how you were raised and be honest about it with your spouse.
Are there certain aspects of your childhood that you want to carry over with you as a new parent?
Are there certain ways you raised that you do not want to carry over with your spouse and children?
Keep the lines of communication open with your husband. Write your passionate ideas down if you need to. Why are you raising your children a certain way, be honest about how you want them to be raised. What is important to you? and also listen to what is important to your spouse.
Come together in agreement with you on how you want to raise your children.
Look at God’s model for marriage. His model is the church and himself.
Continue to dig into God’s word about how he would like your marriage foundation to be. The Bible gives us a clear model for married life.
Read more about God’s design for marriage here.
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 dating 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 the passion alive.
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 a priority first.
Your children must learn that there are people outside of them that are also important. Although your children are your world, they aren’t your whole world.
It is important that your children see you take care of yourself, and take care of your marriage and relationships with other people. This will provide them with 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 marriage that was neglected. Pay attention to your spouse’s need.
Embrace your spouse’s quirks.
Chances are your spouse has a few quirks. You probably have quirks as well. Instead of criticizing these quirks and putting him down for having them, embrace them for who he is.
My husband has very ill-timed humor. He has said things without realizing the timing was really bad. These jokes are always meant to be funny and to make us laugh when we’re sad.
This is his personality. He tries to alleviate sadness because he wants people to be happy and to laugh.
Instead of being upset with him, I embrace this quirk, 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 at 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 are arguing I don’t go blast him on my social media accounts.
I also keep any arguments that my husband and I may have to myself. I don’t go share it with my friends and I don’t go share it with my family.
Because chances are we are going to make up. I do not want their opinions of my spouse to change based on one little argument.
Unless there is abuse. Your private life with your spouse should continue 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 a discipline that my husband does not necessarily agree with, he still supports me in front of our children. And then we talk about it in private out of this earshot of our children.
If one of our children wants to do something and has already asked daddy, and daddy said 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 discuss it privately and come to an agreement together.
Support your spouse in discipline.
This tip goes along with the last one. When my husband ushers discipline I do not step in, I do not tell him in front of my children, if I think he’s being too hard or too soft.
I allow him to continue the discipline and if I disagree with how the misbehavior was handled then I talk to my husband about it privately out of earshot of our children. And vice versa. Your spouse needs your support when it comes to guiding your children. You need your spouse’s support as well.
Be intimate with your spouse regularly.
I saw this quote the other day, 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 I continue to use to this day. She said have sex with your husband because it is how men can tell that you love them. And most of the time it’s only 10 minutes out of your day. If you’re not in the mood chances are he can get you in the mood.
Sad to 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 of God had created has created for a husband and wife after marriage and should and can be enjoyed by both men and women.
The Last Thing You Need to Know about creating and keeping a strong marriage.
Building a strong foundation for marriage takes work. Marriage is something you need to work on. Wake up every day and decide “I am going to work on my marriage, I am going to protect my marriage, I am going to keep the lines of communication open so that I can have a strong foundation in my marriage with my husband.”
Having a strong marriage is 100% doable and it is so important ladies.
Not only important but having a strong marriage is enjoyable!
It brings me joy every day to have someone who loves me, takes care of me, who I can have fun with and who protect 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. You can build and maintain a strong marriage that can last a lifetime.
What are some steps you use every day to build a strong foundation with your spouse after marriage?
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- Why Consistent Parenting Matters
- 12 Habits of Immensely Peaceful Moms
- 63 Mom Hacks That are Pure Genius
- Connect With Your Child and Build Up Their Heart
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Most of my readers are moms, who are in the midst of this parenting gig.
I love to give out advice, but there are some topics that I just can’t offer advice on because I haven’t been there.
I also look at mom advice as a good pair of jeans. It’s never a one size fits all. What works for me may not work for you!
That is why I decided to start a segment on the blog that feature interviews and guest posts from other mommas. Maybe you are a momma raising 4 kids under 5 like our guest today. Maybe you have a blended family or you’re raising children unexpectedly later in life, whatever your circumstance may be, my hope is that as more moms share their advice and experience, you will be able to find something that really resonates with you.
Whether it makes you laugh or reminisce and say, hmmmm been there, or yes! finally some tangible advice. My desire is to have a large array of advice for you from moms who have been there or who are there now!
If you want to be interviewed for a guest post or have an idea in mind that you would love to talk about on the Peaceful Nest Blog, send me your ideas here! I would love to hear them!
Hi there, I’m Jenna! I am a devoted mommy and wife. As well as an advocate for children and creating a peaceful atmosphere for those we love. I co-wrote Faith Actually: Living Life After Tragedy with my husband. I have my Bachelor’s Degree in Biblical Studies and currently working toward my Master’s in Positive Psychology. My number one desire is to create a peaceful home life for my family. My second desire is to share with you the tips I learn along the way!