I remember that my mom and dad always loved each other. Sure, we were well aware even as kids that we were poor and scraping by most of the time, but we were very very lucky in that we never ever worried about our parents divorcing. There was never any hint of tension between the two-- they were a united front against eight children and a shield to the rest of the world. Dad still takes mom out to breakfast and posts about his lovely wife on Facebook.
Kids make it really hard to focus on your partner. Even Eric, who is above and beyond a phenomenal partner, much less husband (aaaaah some days I still can't believe it), was regulated to watching the other boy(s) while I took care of the baby because boobs. Negi was the only one who really took a bottle-- Oli refused entirely, and Izzy still fights it and is grumpy if he gets it from anything other than the tap. In the four years since Negi came into our lives, we've become a great co-parenting team. Our marriage, however, has for the past year started to transition from "get a room you guys you'll give me diabetes" to "bff/roommate with benefits." We're still crazy about each other. We've just thrown so much attention and intense focus on the children and raising them and making sure everybody is fed and how are the bills and cleaning and working and EVERYTHING, that we haven't taken a step back and looked at each other.
We've put a stop to that right now. New rules:
At the end of the day name a highlight and a lowlight that has nothing to do with the kids.
Text each other about non-kid related stuff.
No negative texting unless there is something the other spouse can actively do to help the situation. (Eric can't help me calm boys down when he's at work)
Make time at the beginning and end of the day to be alone and talk to each other. No phones or computers or games.
Day 3 of this and things have taken a definite uptick in regards to romance and viewing each other as a hot date vs co-parent. Because yes, there's more to us than just the parents of three wonderful boys. We are people, too.
Here's my card for Eric, shhhh. Shamelessly taken from a reddit post as it's brilliant.
