As you look through the kaleidoscope of marriage, you will see changing patterns. Firstly there is the honeymoon stage, where you’re so in love and it’s all new and exciting. But not everyone finds the first year of marriage to be exciting. Some people find it decidedly stressful as they adapt to a marriage partner.
This is followed, for most people, by the pattern of one or more children. Again that will depend on circumstances and what the couple decide. Children are a great blessing, but they also mean changes and added stress in a marriage. Sometimes a husband can feel usurped in a wife’s affections and allow jealousy to rear its head. Add to that, a wife who finds the changes in her schedule and the changes in her life demanding and at times daunting, and it’s not hard to see why sometimes problems occur. A loss of interest in sex may occur at this time largely because the wife is tired so much of the time because so much else is happening in her life. Or it may be a lack of opportunity to make love and finding time just for each other could be the problem.
As children grow the pattern involves play dates, school, sport, music and other activities that usually involve parents ferrying them around as well supervising homework, discipline, fun times like reading stories and playing together as well as all the other little jobs that go with parenting. All of this means more demands on time trying to juggle these extra activities into already busy work schedules. So, while children are a blessing and one I personally would not have been without, they also bring extra pressures to a marriage. Sometimes unexpected ones like when children are sick, accident prone or seriously ill.
As they become teenagers there are added complications of exams, getting their driver’s license, dating, issues like drugs, alcohol etc. Parents need to be on the same wave length when dealing with rules, behavior problems and social interaction. This is just another area where discussion between husband and wife is vital.
Join me tomorrow for a further look at the changing patterns in marriage.
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