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Naples Foodie married with 2 kids. This blog is where I share all kinds of tantalizing cuisine found throughout Naples as well as recipes and other food related content. I hope you enjoy.

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Tuesday, December 9, 2008

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.

26 comments:

Helga Marie Bee said...

Wow Rachel, its awesome how the two of you are able to keep things in perspective.
I love that you both make one on one time for the kids as well.

Melissa said...

AMEN...wow, 2 great posts in a row!! You are awesome!!
Absolutely right on this one... toomany couples become too comfortable and complacent and forget what made them fall in love. We often forget that we still need to "dress up" for each other at times..still need to have dates..still need to have hot sex!! A relationship DOES NOT work on auto-pilot...it just can't!! The other thing is to remember that sex is not a "chore"...it should be done as a loving gesture...to enjoy between both of you...not because you HAVE to....
Thanks for this reminder (although we are pretty good about this...our babysitter is also my secretary so she is ALWAYS around!!)

Anonymous said...

Great post! Congrats to both of you :)

Unknown said...

what a great post. so true. so true.

Shorty said...

Excellent advice! I really enjoy reading your posts!!!

Megan said...

This is so very true! I love it when people are REAL on blogs and say "yes, we have had some rough times" Thank you for being real and honest!

THE Stephanie said...

Preach it sista! Joey and I have date night EVERY Friday. Can't live without it.

Love you girl!!

Amy said...

Wow,
this is all so true.
What a great post.

I think me and Kyle need to go on a date, we have been putting it off fror about 3 weeks in a row.

Maki said...

Yes, Yes and Yes!

Communication is the most important thing especially when you get married.

JT and I have had bad moments because of the lack of communication skills and we're both trying to learn how to do it better...

Rachel, thanks for reminding me!!!

Tiffany said...

Great post. We don't have kids yet but J and I truly believe this as well. I know too many women who get caught up in being a "MOM" and begin to just live their lives through their children and forget about their husband.

Amy said...

Sooo true. My 3 year wedding anniversay is tomorrrow. We got married in Dec and pregnant in Jan so the time we had as a married couple without crazy pregnancy hormones or a child was very short. We let Wes stay at his grandparents so we can hang out with friends but we never have a "date night" alone. We need to do that really bad, thanks for the reminder :) It really is sooo important for a marriage!

Jennifer said...

this is so great that you can write all this down. there may be some body out there who needs to read this..

awesome for sharing.

Mrs. Nurse said...

this is a great post. thanks for sharing

Whitney said...

This is such a great reminder for all the married couples out there! I'm not married and I even learned something from this!

Lump said...

this is so very well stated. I just know you two are awesome parents! :)

Live.Love.Eat said...

I think it's awesome you went to a counselor before things even got really bad. Kudos to you for sharing. I agree about the alone time. My husband and I always say we need more quality time together and we're able to, with both sets of parents near us. We just have to execute!!!

Lindsey said...

Great post with some awesome advice! I love when married couples can be honest about marriage, so thank you for your honesty!

Angela said...

great post. i see my friends just becoming a mother and wife and totally forget about who they are as a person. it's so important to have alone time and still do the couple thing.

Mommy In Pink said...

Wow! What a great post...really Well Said!

carissa... brown eyed fox said...

great... super post!
you are darn right...
i KNOW you are right... i just have a hard time DOING it.

Krazy Armstrong K's! said...

great post! love it and completely agree with it! now... to only find a babysitter!

Anonymous social worker said...

wow
so true.thanks god that won't happen to me.
I'm never having children.

Stacy said...

that is very, very true :)
It is all about making the time but sometimes 'life' just gets in the way.

Liz Harrell said...

Rachel, I think it's great how open you are about this. And I agree totally. We married pretty young, still in school with all kinds of stresses and went to counseling after a couple of years. It was worth it too.

Angie Seaman said...

Great post girl. I love it. We've all been there if we've been married long enough. My husband and I are approaching our 15 year anniversary in March and we are so proud of that. He refers to it as "world record time these days." However, we've had our moments just like everyone else. Marriage is the hardest job you'll ever have in life aside from raising kids - most times that is even easier. We have to remember to love more today than we did yesterday. Give more today than we did yesterday. Hug more today than we did yesterday. Etc., Etc., Etc.

Great post and thanks for being so transparent with all us blogger BFF's. Ha ha! Love ya, Angie
www.angelicagracedesigns.com/blog/
www.angieseamanphotography.blogspot.com/

Kristen Howerton said...

So well said! I can always tell when we haven't had babysitting in a while, because we start to feel disconnected. It's so important to give ourselves that permission as parents.