As I mentioned in my “about” page. I am a husband and a dad. I was a husband before I became a dad and inasmuch as I love being a dad; I must not forget my role as a husband to my wife!
Importance of not forgetting our roles as husbands/partners
Our marriage counsellor mentioned something I felt was controversial at the time; she mentioned that it’s important that we don’t allow our children to come in between our marriage! I wasn’t sure what she was inferring at this point. She went on further to say that we’re very much accustomed to making our children the centre of our worlds for years, potentially forgetting our roles as husbands, wives and partners. This rattled me, because prior to hearing this I thought it made sense to put your children before your spouse! After deep thought of what my marriage counsellor had to say it resonated with me for a long time, after all when our children hopefully grow older and they’ll one day move on with their lives; which will bring my wife and I back to square one again!
Apparently when we put our marriages, relationships with our partners on the back burner our kids can sense the lack of closeness within the relationship.
According to Philip Cowan, PhD. former professor at the University of California who has studied families for decades “kids whose parents’ relationship has cooled are more likely to have behavioural or academic problems than kids of happy couples”
Where your attention goes, your life goes
“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are” – José Ortega y Gasset
Being intentional is very important for me hence I like to view the word “love” as an action rather than a ‘feeling’.
Below are a few activities that my wife and I do to keep things alive:
Putting down our phones
The statistics on how long we spend on our phones are shocking and I suppose this can be detrimental to relationships. As a result of this we tend to put our phones on do not disturb mode in the late evenings, so during the day we speak to and message friends and families with the intention of winding down together whilst our daughter is asleep in the evening. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic I’ve been working from home and inasmuch as I haven’t seen my friends and extended family often, I have spent more intentional time with my wife. With the current lockdown situation we have more hours as I’m currently working from home. That’s an extra two hours commute saved per day (10 hours for the week!), I have allocated some of my spare time to spend with my wife, holding more intimate, intellectual conversations with her, talking about our goals and aspirations for the future as individuals and as a family.
Going for walks and talks
This is something we have been doing since when we were dating, nothing beats a long walk whilst admiring nature, the trees, the grass, the fresh air, the birds; just wonderful!. We haven’t been able to do this exclusively between ourselves as our daughter has joined the walks; nevertheless we enjoy her company and moreover she seems to enjoy its too! We tend to do this during my lunch breaks whilst I’m working from home, or in the evenings if I haven’t been able to do so at lunch. We use this time to escape the house, catch fresh air, reach our daily 10,000 steps target. We also use this time to clear our heads from a sometimes busy morning and prepare for the second half of the working day. This is very refreshing!
Date nights
My wife and I have our date night ritual every Friday and we’ve been doing this for nearly a decade, including the time whilst we were dating. We’re still going strong although Covid-19 has made it difficult for us. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic we used to go to restaurants, as lock down eases we’ll slowly ease our way back into this habit and find a family member that’s happy to babysit. This ritual has been an opportunity for us to wind down and set the tone for the weekend.
Good old Netflix/Cinema
We tend to go cinemas once a month, sometimes this is part of our Friday date night. Again Covid-19 disrupted our schedule and with the easing of lockdown we’ll ease our way back into the cinemas. During lockdown however we managed to replace the cinemas with Netflix and Chill.
Final Thoughts
These are just suggestions. I would like to include more travels abroad with my wife, perhaps on a quarterly basis for the weekends. The only issue is that I’m scared of flights. You may well decide to do something completely different. But I think its important that we get the balance right in being the best spouses/partners and parents we can be.
What ideas to you have in mind, if you haven’t had any children yet what do you think you’ll be doing to ensure you don’t forget your role as a partner?
Until next time
K.
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