Committed: The Ties that Bond
with Angella Dykstra
I'm a mom of three, a professional accountant, and an amateur photographer and writer. I am not a marriage expert. But my husband and I take "Til death do us part" seriously, and here I'll be sharing how we keep our marriage strong while we both do that insane work-life juggle.
Check out my Work It, Mom! profile and my blog, Dutch Blitz.
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One of the running jokes among my circle of friends who have young children as I do is the fact that we can never have a complete conversation. When we have a play date with kids running around we are dealing with fights, meltdowns, and diaper changes. The phrase most often repeated is, “What was I saying again?”
This is often the situation when at home with my husband. While we have a sweet set-up in that we both work (mostly) from home, this does not mean that we have oodles of time in which to have uninterrupted conversation.
We have it good in that all of the little things (First words! Funny things said by the kids! New tricks mastered!) are communicated immediately and we are both kept in the loop.
Trying to have a serious conversation while the kids are awake, however, is not possible. Not only are they demanding and all about the interrupting, there are certain topics that we cannot discuss in front of them. They are no longer placid little babies, but are intelligent little beings who understand what we are talking about.
I cannot state that our kids are “being little jerks today” without hurting their feelings.
We eat dinner together as a family, and this is a good time to get caught up on the day’s activities. It is not a good time to hash out the attitude problems of our kids or any personal issues that we might be dealing with.
By the time the kids are fed, bathed, and fired into bed we are often too spent to discuss anything of substance. Date Nights are a good time for us to get away from the every day and reconnect, but our house has been hit with the Cold of Epic Proportions and we have not sat down to just talk in weeks. It is too easy to choose rest over the effort it takes to communicate.
I think we need to make a weekly date where we shut off the TV (and the computer) and have a meeting of the Powers That Be. For the sake of my husband and I, and for the sake of our family.
How about you? When do you find time to communicate with your spouse?
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We talk in the car on the way to and from Bible study every week. I think that’s about it, but that’s a good 10 minutes each way! Oh, sometimes I will call him on my lunch break, and we will talk then. Sometimes we resort to email.
Robyn | February 24th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I totally relate to this one! We have the same problem. By the time the kids are in bed, the only thing we feel like doing is watching a little cable TV, reading magazines, or surfing the internet–definitely NOT conversing about anything important, necessary or not. Especially since the baby cries at bedtime for up to an hour a night, so honestly, there’s no rest for the weary! I don’t have the solution, that’s for sure!
Shannon | February 24th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
We are lucky in this area because are kids are both in bed by 7 ish. We spend most evenings at home together so we get plenty of time to talk. I find that most of our talking is done in bed before we fall asleep though. We watch t.v., play cards, play Wii, or whatever, hop into bed and visit for awhile until we drift off.
But you are right, middle of the day convos just don’t work any more with the little ones around. And now we can’t even spell words out anymore with little Abby listening!
Jen | February 24th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Each day when Hubby gets home from work we go upstairs into our bedroom & close the door. We spend about 35 minutes up there talking about our days & discussing anything else that needs to be discussed. We also go over our daily spending and balance the checkbook. I know that everyone can not do this because of the age of their kids,but I am thankful that we are able to with the girls being 11 and 14.
Domestic Extraordinaire | February 24th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
We’re pretty good at finding snippets of time. And, if there’s something that needs to be talked about NOW, we send Kaylie to her room and talk quietly. We used to spell things, but now that Kaylie is Reader Extraordinaire, we can’t do that anymore. We may or may not talk in metaphors a lot.
Mrs. Wilson | February 24th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
that was a problem with my husband and for the first 4 years when he took a job working night shift as an hourly supervisor. there was a point where we saw each other an average 1 hour a day and that was mainly because I picked him up from work and took him to work: about 5 minutes or so on the way home, 15 minutes at home and about a half hour after I came home from work. when a job came open on the same shift, I took it for obvious reasons. we don’t really spend alot more time together at home (I sleep in the mornings he sleeps in the afternoon) but we see each other all night and talk then. we also happen to have the same nights off, so that helps as well.
Charity | February 24th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
A date is a great idea. We do that sometimes when my husband’s been traveling and we have a lot to catch up on.
Other nights we catch up at the dinner table. We all sit down together and talk about our day. Our preschooler usually gets antsy and heads off to play and that gives us time to chat with each other, while she works on her independence and creativity. It’s really nice. Definitely not the time to discuss very heavy issues but we can get through most of what we need to.
Now don’t think of an ideal family supper every night - it doesn’t happen that way - but about 3-4 nights a week we usually can make it work.
Leanne C. | February 24th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
We talk in the evenings, once the kids are asleep. They both go to bed at 7pm, so we have plenty of time to ourselves each night.
And date nights are a good time to have those REALLY deep talks that just don’t happen on the average day.
Hannah | February 24th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Although our baby is way too young to understand our adult conversations, we’ve found that we already need to set aside specific time for “real” communicating. Being in the house is way too distracting what with the tvs and computers and piles of dishes and laundry, so we make sure that a few times a week we’re about to get away from all of that (either in the hot tub or in the car, while the baby sleeps in the backseat) so we can focus only on each other.
Leah K | February 25th, 2009 at 2:57 am
Sometimes we converse at the dinner table because our oldest son is still too young to understand everything we say. We also communicate at the end of the night when we’re in bed. Too bad it’s just a few minutes of conversation before my husband falls asleep though.
Linda | February 28th, 2009 at 3:22 am