Married Couples : Growing Romance Through the Seasons of Parenting
by Barbara Rainey
Is your marriage suffering from a lack of romance? Many couples are locked into the same tired routine but aren’t sure how to break out of it. Other couples get so busy they hardly have time left to think about romance. How do you balance the demands of parenting, maintaining a home and being a romantic and engaging spouse?
The first step is to teach your children that they cannot be more important than God and your spouse. Kids will take all your time — if you let them. Your marriage will not grow if your kids are allowed to dictate every minute of your lives. Set aside time for your spouse; in fact, schedule a block of time each evening if you have to. The next step is to realize two childhood seasons typically threaten romance more than others: the preschool years and the teenage years.
The preschool season
When we had preschoolers, Dennis and I found time alone by hiring a baby sitter and going out for dinner. We also arranged a few out-of-town weekends. But as our family continued to grow, going out became increasingly difficult. So we opened Café Rainey.
Occasionally, while I got the kids to bed, Dennis prepared dinner and brought it to our bedroom. While enjoying dinner alone, we’d talk in complete sentences, interact and laugh. Sometimes the evening progressed into physical intimacy, because we took time for romance.
Those special dates at home were lifesavers for our marriage for about five years. We still went out occasionally, and we tried to get away for a weekend or two a year, but these times at home gave us another option for keeping our marriage healthy.
The teen season
How do you maintain romance when a teenager might barge into your room without warning? One night, our daughter plowed into our room. I remember how Dennis sat straight up and said, “Honey, one of these days you’re going to get a sex education you will never forget!”
After a moment of silence, she said, “Gross!”
She never came into our bedroom again without knocking.
Apart from the privacy issue — we needed to set some boundaries and get a lock — we quickly realized the only way we could have uninterrupted time with each other was to leave home. We began a weekly date every Sunday night, a tradition we maintained until our last one left for college.
Teens often face life-altering choices, so the discussions we would have with our children about decisions they were facing usually left us with less time and energy for each other. Sometimes we spent our date nights talking about the needs of a particular child. Sometimes we agreed not to talk about the kids so we could focus on our relationship.
While on those dates, we kept romance alive by talking about what sparked our romance in the past. Revisiting special moments reminded us how to show love to each other. During this season, establishing and maintaining a regular date night is imperative. You need dates to keep your marriage alive.
Looking forward
As the two of you journey through the teen years, begin to talk, dream and plan for life together after children. The teen years may strain your marriage to what feels like the breaking point, but if you work to keep your relationship most important and look to the future together, your excitement for one another will grow. On the other hand, if you let your relationship falter and romance die, you will arrive at the end of the parenting years as strangers.
Growing romance in marriage is hard but valuable work. Children learn responsibility and greater independence when they see their parents leave to go on a date or a weekend getaway to work on their relationship. Children also see what a good marriage looks like, which is healthy for them — and for you.
Barbara Rainey and her husband, Dennis, are the founders of FamilyLife. Barbara is co-author of Rekindling the Romance and Simply Romantic Nights.
This article appeared in Focus on the Family Magazine, September 2005.