Make Time To Nurture Your Relationship
By: Shawnee Eskridge, Faith Based Clinical Therapist
Distractions come so easy in marriage that it's unfair. If only the feelings of affection and happiness came as easily (or more frequently) as the distractions. The kids, our careers, extended family issues and unexpected emergencies distract from a marriage and become habit so quickly. The realization that there is a disconnect can blindside you. The thing is you cannot let the distractions continue to cause disconnection in your marriage.
I, specifically, had to learn to become proactive against distractions. It started in a bad cycle. The bills were due. The dishes weren't done. The laundry piled up. The kids have homework. Work assignments are piling up. All this is happening and the romance or affection isn't coming fast enough. I became resentful, distant and standoffish (which came off as angry). The downside for me became that, in my distance, I still wasn't getting what I wanted. This cycle went on and I became less open to receiving any efforts or advances my husband would attempt to make. As you can imagine, this furthered the distance between us.
Something had to change. I had to open up. Once I did it turned out that Terry and I were missing the same things from the relationship. We were missing the relationship itself. We got caught up being parents, in our jobs, and everything else. We both felt like we had no time and we both felt like without a babysitter we were doing all we could. We were at the end of our ropes . . . or so we thought.
We stumbled on these next tips from various sources (and by simply trying to see what would work), but they improved our situation drastically. We learned to work with what we had even though we felt like we had not much at all. I'll share these tips with you.
1. Hug a little longer at the door.
2. Cook meals or do the laundry together.
3. Leave a love note. (Or email one.)
4. Share a love song.
The next thing we learned is that part of nurturing our relationship was not only maximizing small pockets of time, but to make the time. For instance, putting the kids to bed early at least at the same time every night. Their need for routine works to our advantage. The kids go to sleep and then we have alone time. One of my favorite memories so far was an in home date night in the living room. We had homemade pizza by candle light. Other times included the nights we'd catch up on our shows. You know the shows with adults having real conversations and without alphabet songs, fuzzy puppets, or character voices. 🤣
It's good to have time uninterrupted by the kids. The girls do try to interrupt, still. (I swear sometimes it's like they are psychic or allergic about us having time without them). When they do, we work together to get them back to sleep as quick as possible. (That is when I am not already sleeping.) We have grown to prioritize our alone time. It's not always about date nights. Most of the time it's about just being together in the moment.
We both had to learn not to give in to the chaos of life nor the distance created by not checking in with each other. It still takes time, but we learned to speak up before we lash out because we're hurt from missing each other. We make the time to check in and be present with one another and it feels good.
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