Keeping Your Marriage Alive

If you are a parent.....you know how hard this is. Between work, kids, activities, conferences, assignments, homework, housework. Where is the time and how does a couple make time, especially if money is tight.

Date night! No matter what night works for you, spending a few hours out of the house away from the kids will do your relationship a heck of a lot of good. Make it a rule, no talking about kids, finances or problems in your marriage. Use this time to reconnect. Talk about work, what you've been doing, a project you've been working on, a movie you've just seen together. Dinner and a movie isn't just for brand new daters and couples, it's great for married couples as well. The movie will give you something to talk about while you eat. If your budget allows for it, go out somewhere nice like, Olive Garden, Longhorn, Red Lobster or some other fancy restaurant in your neighborhood. If your budget is tight, plan a picnic somewhere away from home. Here you can talk about all the sights and sounds around you. Be creative. The point is to relax and have fun. Feed each other, dance in the park together to no music, or turn your car radio up and dance to something on the radio or a favorite CD. You will be surprised what a difference one night a week or every two weeks or a month can do for your marriage.

Communicate! I really think a lot of marriages would not end in divorce if couple's could just talk to one another. If you have a problem with your spouse do not keep it bottled up. If you do that, one of two things are going to happen. You will either explode when there is too much tension, throwing everything off topic and the problem will not get resolved. You'll both walk away from the argument feeling frustrated and depleted. Or you'll get divorced.

The things we love the most are what we invest the most time in. If you loved your spouse enough to marry him/or, then 10, 20 or even 50 years down the road, you still love the person you married. But marriage is hard work and sometimes you need a little help. If you find your relationship is rocky, seek out counseling. If one of you isn't receptive, go get therapy for yourself. This will help you to learn better coping skills when the marriage gets tough and if there's improvement in you, that may be just enough encouragement to get your spouse to go with you. Please, whatever you do, don't agree to divorce if you haven't invested any time into the marriage yourself or in another context, invested any time into bettering yourself with in the marriage. It takes two to get married and two to get divorced, two to fight and two to make a marriage fail. You have to take responsibility for your own actions before you can place any blame on the other person.

Spend time as a family! There is nothing sexier to me then watching my Hubby being a Daddy. Watching how he interacts with his kids, how he plays with them, reads to them......anything he does to try to be a good Daddy is golden in my eyes.

And last but certainly not least........SEX! It's not about the quantity. I realize that with how chaotic life can get with having children, sometimes the average couple are too exhausted at the end of the day to even think about it. But there is always morning sex, or afternoon sex if your kids are in school or at friends....weekends are awesome too! If your budget allows, steal away to a hotel room for a few hours. It'll feel spontaneous and dirty and fun all at the same time! Also, if you can....take a vacation together, even if it is just for a night or two. Ask grandma or a friend or another trusted person to come watch the kids. Pitch a tent in a campground and spend some good quality time together.

Because that my dear friends is the important part.....quality, not quantity.

Until next time.....

Becca ♥