The secret to a long and happy marriage according to a local couple, Betty and Ernest, who recently celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary is, ’it’s not easy. Particularly during those years of child rearing,’ Betty said.
That’s the reality. Although children are a great blessing and I wouldn’t be without either of mine for one moment, they can put extra pressure on a marriage. This may be even more noticeable if children are close together in age. They will take up a lot of time.
Sometimes it means one or the other or both of the couple are busy doing things for the children or running the children around to various activities or the children are demanding of time and attention so that couple time gets neglected.
Sometimes what happens is that people grow apart. This can be a danger if the woman is a stay at home mom and spends all her time dealing with and talking about children and she has no other points of conversation. I’ve seen people do this. It’s important to maintain other interests and topics of conversation. It is most important that any stay at home mom still ensure they have some ‘me time.’
Yes, the baby or the children might need attention but when they are asleep take those opportunities to do something to relax – something you want to do – not the housework. That will get done somehow while they are awake. And if it doesn’t, does it really matter all that much? So long as the main things like cooking, washing etc are done.
When my daughter was little I was doing a university course off campus, so as soon as she was down for a sleep I got stuck into that or I picked up a book and read or I wrote poetry. The housework got done enough that Mick and I were happy with it during times when the children, even as babies, were awake. Long as my children were where I was in the same room, they didn’t mind if I was doing things.
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