How To Keep “The Spark” and Remember You’re Not Just Mom and Dad
We always heard having kids would be a challenge to our marriage. Let’s face it, they change everything. We knew they’d cost us money, shake up our schedule, and give us a few gray hairs. But what we didn’t realize was how they’d take over every waking minute of our lives. We consider them in every decision we make. But, we knew this going in. I’d throw myself in front of a stampede of wild elephants for those people, but sometimes putting them first affects other important things in our lives. Like I said, they really take over everything. That includes marriage too, if you let them. Now don’t get me wrong, seeing my husband hold those babies for the first time made me feel a type of love I’ve never known. And watching them hug his neck and tell him they love him puts me all in my feels. But sometimes, we both forget that before we were Mom and Dad, we were somebody else’s whole world too.
It’s so important for us to still make each other a priority.
We don’t want to become empty nesters and not even know each other … or even worse, not even like each other. In order to do that, we knew we had to make it a point to make time for just the two of us. Family time is just as important, but alone time needs to be had too. My husband and I implemented a few things in our marriage to make sure we never lose sight of the person we chose to share our life with, in the midst of all the other chaos that kids bring to the picture. Here are three things we do regularly to keep the “spark alive”:
- Date nights – It seems simple enough right? But more times than not, I hear couples say, “We haven’t gone out to dinner alone since before our four year old was born,” or “I wouldn’t trust a soul to babysit our baby.” I get it. Mom and Dad guilt is real. But what’s worse: feeling the guilt of leaving them for two hours, or looking back in ten years and realizing you don’t have a healthy relationship to model for them? We make it a point at least once a month to have a date night … just the two of us, no kids allowed. I know what some of you may be thinking. How can you afford a monthly fancy dinner? What if I don’t have a babysitter I trust? Easy.
Date nights don’t have to cost anything. You don’t even have to leave the house! Pinterest and TikTok have tons of ideas on “date nights in.” An example of one I’ve seen a lot lately is painting your spouse. All you need are two canvases and a few supplies and you have a fun activity to make you laugh-together. Pull out old school games you haven’t played in year, create signature cocktails for each other, or even just pick something on Netflix. A good idea would be to write down a ton of these date options and put them in a jar. Pick from the jar and the rule is that you have to do whatever the idea is. Oh and one more rule, none of this happens till the kids go to bed.
- 20 Questions – Hear me out. I know you haven’t played this game since 8th grade, but this is a great way to encourage conversations you wouldn’t normally have. I’ve been with my husband for fifteen years and I felt like I obviously knew everything about him. Boy was I wrong. A simple Google search titled “questions to ask your spouse” will yield thousands of results. This is another game you can play using the pick-out-of-a-jar method. You could also just read them off your phone, taking turns answering. This is a favorite road trip game for us, and it has really been an enjoyable way to spend our time.
- This book. While I know it seems pricey, it’s super well made and doubles as a scrapbook, too. There are several categories of scratch off date ideas, organized by the amount of time they take, what you need and if you need a sitter. The catch is, whatever you scratch off, you have to do. My favorite part is the space they leave for notes and pictures. We are so bad about taking pictures together, because as we all know, parents are usually behind the camera. I love that this forced us to document a fun memory of just the two of us. Our favorite date from the book so far was a nostalgic night at home. We each were tasked with purchasing snacks from our childhood, and then we each chose two shows to watch together from that time. We bought things like Hot Fries, Squeez-Its and Nutter Butters and watched shows like Boy Meets World. It was something I would’ve never thought of on my own, but we still talk about that night often.
There are so many other things you can do to connect with your partner, but these are some favorites of ours. Now, this whole article was about taking the focus off the kids for a bit and on to your spouse, but I’ll tell you a really cool thing that ends up happening. Your kids will notice. They might act grossed out, but they will secretly love it. Ours will even fake gag and say “Ewww Mom and Dad’s date night is tonight,” but I know that when they look back at their childhood, they will remember two parents that made each other a priority. My hope is this: when my husband and I are in our 80’s, still hanging out, our kids are in happy, healthy marriages too. Ones full of date nights and deep conversations and love.
