When you have kids it is easy to place all your focus on the child. However, if your week is filled with finger painting, trips to the zoo, and Saturday soccer league, with no time left for your spouse, you may be headed for trouble. Parents need to maintain marriage as their priority. The best gift you can give your kids is a healthy marriage. It will provide an important foundation and example of relationships for their future.
Now, don’t get me wrong, trips to the zoo and finger painting are fun activities to enjoy with your preschooler. We need to provide our child with experiences, joy, and love. They need to feel important and cherished. Just be careful not to sacrifice your marriage in the meantime. Always cherish and respect your spouse by showing priority to your husband or wife. Your child will feel more secure seeing a strong relationship and understand love through these actions. A child will feel loved as the parents show love for each other. Some say it is a balance but I say let the scale tip toward your spouse. I am not speaking to relationships with the complications of abuse, addiction, or serious fractures that require serious intervention. I am also not saying that one should provide for the spouse before the child. However, one should consider the feelings of his or her spouse first. For example, my husband and my daughter share a common bond over reading a chapter book series. He reads it to her every night unless it is date night or if we are staying in but plan a special evening, he only reads open chapter and not the usual two or three. Just simple little courtesies that show marriage is a priority. Often I make a dinner or desert that I know he enjoys even if the kids would rather eat something else. It is the little things.
My number one suggestion, after monthly date nights, is to spend one weekend or night a year away with your spouse. Spending alone time will remind you of why you enjoy spending time together and retain some of who you were before kids.