The back burner is a term often used with regard to soap operas for characters that do not play a pivotal role in a current storyline. We may see them, but we don’t spend a lot of time with them. They drift into and out of the canvas of the current storyline with relatively little impact. When your marriage is on the backburner is can be because you are devoting so much time, energy and emotion into your children, family, career or some combination of the above that you unconsciously detach yourself from your spouse.
The Parent Trap
The parent trap is not just a Disney film, but a trap that married couples may fall into without realizing it. First and foremost, as a species, when we have children – we put them first. We wan to take care of them and care for them well. Because life is not an uncomplicated thing – our partners are whom we rely on for our physical, moral, mental and emotional support. Yet, the rapport that keeps couples together is one of the first to be sacrificed to the parent trap as a chasm filled with obligation, responsibilities, needs and others fills up the space between the couple.
When children are born, the entire landscape of the relationship between husband and wife alters. The changes are almost imperceptible at first. Fissures will form and burst in areas, but they are rarely noticed because the baby will take up so much time and energy. Eventually a second and third child can continually alter that landscape.
There will be moments where thoughts of it will always be this way or I can’t remember when we did have time or worse yet why is it when we do have time, we’ve forgotten how to be alone together?
Marriage is as Needy as a Newborn
You have to nurture your marriage and weather the tantrums and transitions from infancy to toddler hood to childhood just as you do with your baby. You can’t just ignore it for months on end and expect it to be the same as when you last looked at it. In fact, marriage is far too organic to be ignored at all.
Just like you garden, if you leave it untended – sure it will still be there, but it won’t look remotely like you left it when last you went in to pull weeds or plant flowers. While these are a number of different metaphors, it’s important to recognize that you should never put your marriage on the backburner. You need to keep tending to it and sometimes one partner is going to have to put forth more effort than the other – but you both have to put in the effort.
Interweave the Storylines
However, let’s get back to our original metaphor of relating your marriage to a character on a soap opera. Instead of just relegating them to the backburner and waiting for a crisis to jerk them out of their sonorous landscape – your role in your marriage must run concurrently with your role as a parent. You have to make the time for the marriage. While forgoing a baby sitter in order to go out for dinner and movie may seem more financially reasonable – remember, the investment you forgo in your marriage may cost you more than $20 or $30 you save in the meanwhile.
How can you make the effort to keep your marriage on the front burner while still meeting your other obligations and desires?
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