Valentine’s Day feels like a good day to talk about Marriage Maintenance. I know the word “Maintenance” makes it sound like a job or a chore but in some ways it is once you have children. As new parents of a 6 month old, we are learning everyday the value of putting a little maintenance into our marriage. You want to hope that LOVE is all you need but sometimes it takes a little more than that. When we found out we were pregnant we were both SO excited and ready to take on parenthood. We were willing to leave behind travel plans, frequent dinner dates, spontaneous walks to coffee shop, you get the picture. During the 9 months of our pregnancy I started to feel a little scared and nostalgic for the things we would never be able to do again. I say never because it will never be just the two of us again. Even if we are alone, just us, we’ll always have part of us tethered to our daughter or subsequent children. Would we still get to enjoy each other’s company? Would we have date nights? My husband had become my best friend and thinking about having to share my time was a little daunting.
The first few months of parenthood brought us sleepless nights, breastfeeding challenges, a bit of a baby health scare, postpartum recovery and more in between. We’ve had plenty of arguments/conversations that were centered around Elle and what we felt was best for her and sometimes we were opposed and had to work to get the other to see our point of view.
On 12/31/14 one of the vows we committed to each other was to “always do the right thing….eventually”. On our wedding day this vow generated some laughs from our guests who were in attendance but it is one the the vows that my husband and I take the most seriously. To be honest, I’m not sure I understood the full scope of how much we would commit to this vow in particular until recently. To us, this vow means that we know we will mess up, make mistakes or do something that might upset the other person deeply but with a little bit of communication, two stubborn as all heck people can overcome challenges. This vow couples with something else we’ve committed to each other which was to never go to sleep with unresolved conflicts. This may sound cliche but I will tell you, it has allowed two stubborn people to ALWAYS make sure we reach some type of resolution before bed and I truly mean ALWAYS. One of us will always cave to be the one to say, “We have to figure this out.. We cannot let this go unresolved tonight”. This has helped us become better communicators and our commitment to this vow has stood the test of the first 3 years of our marriage.
Will and I have not always been good communicators. Tears and passive door slamming/banging around is how I mostly handled tough conversations earlier in our relationship (sometimes I still do initially). We have both been in therapy for the last few years and that has helped us immensely with our communication (more on that later – I could write a whole post about how much I LOVE therapy and how I try to break the negative stigma that surrounds it). Life has thrown some situations at us that have taught us to effectively communicate with each other. I’m not saying we’re perfect at communicating but with a little work and love we have been able to navigate conversations related to finances, parenting, family, conflict etc without wanting to kill each other.
But back to marriage maintenance! One of the things we do to try and maintain our marriage is to have date nights often. Over the last few months we were blessed with friends and family offering their babysitting services so Will and I have been on a lot of dates out of the house but you don’t have to leave the house to have a date! Will and I use calendar invites for literally everything. If it’s not in our calendar it most likely will not happen. So for something like home date nights we’ll send each other an invite! There’s just something about the act of inviting your spouse on a date makes an ordinary night feel different. So even if we’re just eating dinner after the baby is asleep or playing a board game late night it just feels different. It can even be something as small as just enjoying a cup of coffee or tea while baby is napping. It doesn’t have to be grand but just breaking the mold is healthy! It does take a little extra time and effort to maintain these parts of marriage but it’s important in the grand scheme of parenting and feeling that connection with your spouse!
What does everybody else do to maintain their relationships? You are probably actively participating in relationship maintenance without even knowing it!
Happy Valentine’s Day ya’ll!
Je t’aime ma Cherie!