My Point of View

Sometimes when we get married and have children we forget who "we" are or who "we" were.We neglect ourselves, our friends and we concentrate solely on being a "mom". Sex sometimes falls by the wayside because we are just "too tired" to make love or spend the quality one on one time with our husband.

I met my husband when I was 19; he being 28. We met, fell in love, had Zman and got married 9 months later. We didn't have the honeymoon period or get to travel and enjoy just being husband and wife but it was ok. We had a beautiful son and we had our family.

However we still had "our time". We hired a babysitter or had grandma babysit when we wanted to get away for a few hours. When we were home Zman was in bed by 8pm. This was our time to be alone together; to be husband and wife and reflect on our day, our struggles, our desires and truly be with each other.

When we had Love 6 years later we maintained the same structure. Both kids in their room by 8pm as this was our time. Now don't get me wrong there have been exceptions...that is where Hubby comes in. He is spontaneous, he would wake Love up at 2am to watch tv or wake Zman up after I have gone to bed to play video games and this was their one on one time.

Each child is different in their own way and they have different personalities. It's important that I spend time with just Zman and times I spend time with just Love...my husband does the same thing.

Now we like any other couple have had our ups and downs and believe me we have had some downs! But it's how you make it through the situation that makes you the stronger couple that you are.

A few years ago we were having a difficult time communicating. We were arguing over silly things and one not wanting to be the first to apologize to the other so we sought counseling.

The counselor was amazed to meet us (I'm not kidding folks). He said that more times than not couples seek counseling when they are on the verge of divorce and he could tell that we were very much in love and had great children but were struggling in the communication department.

We discovered throughout our sessions that we thrived in chaos due to our upbringings. We thrived in chaotic environments. Hence that is why I am in the field I am in dealing with conflict everyday and Hubby is a stockbroker dealing with the everyday ups and downs of the market. (Strange how you end up in a career that kind of suits your personality).

One thing he made clear to us and stressed was the 2 most important things in a marriage were; a babysitter and another couple.

A babysitter to watch over the kids so we have our alone time to be a couple and another couple to have fun times with. Girl time and guy time is also very important because you need to be able to get away your girlfriends and let loose and have a great time. What a great feeling being able to go out with your girlfriends and then coming home to a wonderful husband and kids who support you still being "yourself". Or hubby going out and having beers with the guys or playing golf.

We never lose sight of this. We don't feel guilty getting our kids a babysitter or having them stay over grandmas house for a weekend because we know the end result will be that it makes us better parents to our kids.

They will be raised knowing that their parents love each other more than anything and we want nothing to provide them a loving home with parents who love them.

I post this because I know a lot of couples who forget they were once a couple. They don't go out with each other and they spend all their time with their kids. I am not saying this is wrong but it's not a healthy thing to teach your kids. You need to have independence and be who you are while maintaining balance and being a wonderful parent to your kids.