Im Raising My Husband

Raise A Spouse in 30 Years or More | A Ginger Snapped

Makes a mean plate of spaghetti. Tackles our mountain of laundry. Rocks the baby at 3 a. Spends Saturday nights twirling our daughters around the living room and playing ping-pong with our son. He is everything I ever dreamed of in a husband—and you helped shape his heart. What did you hope for him as he slept in your arms, his blond hair curling against the nape of his soft neck?

Did you close your eyes and dream of him as this man, this honorable, loving, beautiful man? Want more stories of love, family, and faith from the heart of every home, delivered straight to you? Carolyn traded a career in local TV news for a gig as a stay-at-home mom, where the days are just as busy and the pay is only slightly worse. Dan and I weren't unhappy, but parenthood had more or less reduced us to a business partnership, complete with tax forms. We both worked, and we were like runners in a relay race, passing Aidan between us like a baton.

We'd comforted ourselves with the fact that we were doing everything in our power to make our son's life educational and fun.

Q: So when couples fight, what is it that they're usually fighting about?

We figured we had to: Aidan was a troubled sleeper and prone to acting out. We worried that if we didn't devote what little free time we had to him, he'd be even more difficult. But I think my mom was right—we were shortchanging our marriage, and even encouraging Aidan's attention-getting misbehavior.

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We throw ourselves into parenting or work to avoid dealing with issues that cause conflict. After all, when you put your marriage on the back burner, your kids can sense the lack of closeness between you. Think of your relationship as the emotional environment in which your kids live.

Just as you want them to breathe clean air and drink pure water, you want them to grow up in a loving atmosphere. Consider the following ways to make your marriage more of a priority. You always find time to listen to your best friend when she needs to vent. But if your husband seems irritable when he comes home, you might just hand him the baby and rush out the door to do errands. In these days of tag-team parenting, those lazy hours spent talking about everything can feel like a distant memory.

To stay close, Code suggests that you each share a highlight of your day like when your son winked at you across the room and a low point that parking ticket. Discussing your worst moments may seem like a downer when you have limited time together, but when you understand what the other person is going through, you'll be more of a team. No matter how great your marriage was before you had kids, you can't just leave it on autopilot now.

But I didn't want us to fight, so I stayed silent and got even madder. We all want our children to grow up feeling loved, but that doesn't mean you have to stop a conversation with your spouse anytime your kid wants you to watch her do a cartwheel. In fact, she'll be more likely to learn patience and resilience if you ask her to wait.

Sunday breakfast is sacred in our family because we can all sit down together. Dan and I like to read the paper and chat after we finish eating, but Aidan would constantly interrupt us. So we put a clock with a timer in the family room and told him he had to play on his own for at least a half hour after breakfast. If he did, his reward was that we'd do something special as a family later in the day.

Ninety-two percent of those in our first study described a gradual increase in conflict after having their baby. By the time their babies were 18 months old, almost one of four couples indicated that their marriage was in distress. One stage is not harder on relationships than another. There is a cumulative erosion of satisfaction over time. Parents of school-age children experience less depression and personal stress than they did when their kids were babies, but marital satisfaction continues its steady decline for most couples.

The key to marital satisfaction lies in how couples manage the decision-making process. It's not whether the couples have problems, because every couple does. But when babies come along, there are a lot more issues and differences of opinion to negotiate, and a couple's ability to do so with cooperation and respect can make or break the marriage. It's also important for partners to hear each other's outbursts without immediately firing back or engaging in blame.

And the one who's said or done something thoughtless needs to make amends later. Saying, "I made that comment out of anger. I really didn't mean it," goes a long way toward repairing a relationship. You also put some expectant couples in groups with trained leaders and found years later that their satisfaction did not decline. Many people take Lamaze classes, learning how to breathe during childbirth, but few give much thought to what the next 20 years are going to be like.

Couples in our first study joined the groups when the wives were seven months pregnant and met weekly until the babies were 3 months old. The group helped them start thinking concretely about what life with the baby would be like and enabled them to talk about their ideas, worries, and confusion before and after the birth. Six years later, the couples who remained married and had been in these groups were far more satisfied with their relationships. New parents say it's the division of labor , the who-does-what in the family.

Are You Your Husband's Mother?

When children become school-age, the issues of money and spending time together become more important. Sex is a reflection of how the rest of the relationship is going. If you feel hurt or misunderstood, or you and your husband are struggling over but not resolving issues, that affects how attracted, nurturing, and ready to have sex you'll be. The frequency of lovemaking declines during the early months of parenthood when mothers especially are exhausted, but we find that most couples' sex lives rebound within two years.

During that time, though, some partners may not initiate even snuggling or touching for fear that it will give the message that they're ready to have sex when they aren't. We advise couples to be perfectly clear: Many new mothers talk about feeling unattractive postpartum.

But while a few men find it hard to see their wives as sexual after having children, most husbands are supportive about their wives' appearance. What role does the relationship spouses had with their parents have in a marriage? It helps if partners understand how each other's family history is being played out in the marriage, which is another reason why couples' groups are so effective.