Your Marriage Is More Important Than Your Kids

4. Help meet one another’s needs outside the marriage. Exercise or time spent individually with friends can also benefit the family. Don’t expect your spouse to meet all your needs. Help cover one another at home so these rejuvenating activities can take place.

5. Help meet one another’s needs inside the marriage. This includes touching and showing affection during the day, and making time for intimacy—sexual, emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy. Remember, you can hire cleaning help, you can send the ironing out, you can order a pizza for dinner, and you can even hire a babysitter. But there is no one else who you want to meet your spouse’s intimate needs. Sex Tips From a Mother of 3

6. Make decisions together regarding family commitments and extracurricular activities. We allow our kids to choose one sport per season, in addition to piano lessons. We would veto certain sports if they required too much time. During summer, we curtail most of their regular activities. If your lives revolve around sporting events, it may be time to scale back. Free time to enjoy being a family is so important to bonding. We often escape to a lake cottage where TV and computers are absent and board and water games are plentiful. This change in routine helps us de-stress and learn how to have fun again. But this time is only possible when we limit our other commitments.

Children are most definitely a blessing. They require a substantial investment of our time, attention and resources, but return joy that can’t be measured. However, parents must not lose their relationship in the midst of the overwhelming nature of parenting. Spouses must be intentional about their marriage so the whole family can thrive. After nearly 15 years of marriage, I’m still learning this. Small improvements in your family can make a big difference. Don’t feel guilty when you are taking time for your marriage. Remind yourself that you are benefiting your children as well. The alternative is to do nothing and continue the almost imperceptible drift apart.

Many marriages follow a U-shaped curve, where satisfaction dips after children enter the family, but climb again when the children leave. Some marriages don’t make it across the long bridge of childrearing. With intention, satisfaction in marriage can be maintained even during active parenting years and can reach even higher peaks after experiencing the rewards of raising children and spending decades together.

Lori Lowe writes a newspaper column and a blog called Marriage Gems, offering research-based marriage tips. She is writing a narrative nonfiction book profiling couples who have used adversity to improve their marriages. Lori and her husband—an airline pilot who keeps her grounded—live in Indianapolis with their two children, a crazy cat and two aquatic frogs. They are celebrating 15 years of marriage.