At some point before we were married, I told Kacie I didn’t want to have kids. I looked at my three older sisters and the impact that kids had on their relationships and decided that wasn’t for me. Not that they had bad relationships or anything, just the commitment it takes from both sides to raise a kid was something I wasn’t sure I could handle. I told my wife that she would know if I ever got sick of her because I would tell her I wanted kids. Joking. Sort of.
My wife and I spent about two years trying to get pregnant with our first. I understand the kind of stress that it can put on a marriage especially because we made life changing decisions assuming it was going to be easy (like moving back to our home town to be closer to family). And then when she didn’t get pregnant, deciding that we might as well live somewhere new for awhile until it happens. This put some stress on our marriage for sure. For me, moving almost made it feel like I was giving up on us having kids. I told my wife that we could move and if we got pregnant, all she had to do was say the words and we could move back to our hometown again.
Well, shortly after moving we got pregnant. If you want to know more about what life with a newborn was like, you can find that here. At this point, my wife and I had fallen in love with Austin and we decided to stick it out here. Ever since we first found out we were pregnant, we continually question moving closer to family. For a lot of people, including us, we don’t have family that lives down the street. I am pretty close with my three older sisters and my folks and the constant dream of having people nearby to help out continues to linger in my brain but we both feel, at least for now, that Austin is the place for us. It is definitely harder in those situations where emergencies arise (like when you have a kidney stone and you have no one to take you to the hospital and then no one by your side at the hospital because your wife has to stay home with the kids).
Babysitters are few and far between, especially without family around. For one, they’re expensive, but also hard to find. I am definitely grateful for the handful of babysitters that we have found that we can trust and are dependable but it took us a long time to get to this point and I anticipate that with time, we will be on the hunt again, especially now that we have three kids. Early on we had issues finding dependable people to watch our kids other than a neighbor and let’s face it, everyone needs a babysitter at some point.
My wife and I are committed to spending time with each other without kids. Thinking back to when we were single, we could have literally had a date night any night of the week. My sisters were always quick to point that out once they had kids, but now our goal for date nights is a couple of times a month. Before when we would go out, we could have a cheap date and spend less than $30 for the both of us. Now, it feels that whenever we do actually have a date night, the minimum it will cost us is around $100 including paying the babysitter. We still strive for this and budget for it because communication is huge when you have kids. It’s important for us to discuss our personal needs and wants with each other but we also use this limited amount of time to discuss important issues about our kids, like how we want to handle certain disciplinary actions, what schools to look into, different parenting strategies, etc.
So how do you have a marriage in the midst of toddlerville? Ummm, wow that’s a tough question to answer. I’d love to say we have things figured out, but we don’t. Marriage is hard by itself, then you throw kids into the mix and it makes it even harder to have a marriage. Jim Gaffigan, one of our favorite comedians, tells a joke about what it’s like to have four kids and it goes, “Imagine you are drowning and someone throws you a baby.” That pretty much sums it up. But we do somehow still find time to be with each other. I will give all of the credit here to my wife. She continuously fights for us to have a marriage. She picks out the night of the week, contacts the babysitter, preps everything for the kids, and plans what we are going to do. She is truly a wonder woman to me. I have no idea how she can do all the things she does.
Before I go on any further, I want to provide my definition of marriage. Marriage is two people that have committed their lives to each other, that are attempting to make each other better people, help each other achieve their goals and dreams, and help each other through the hard times. Marriage is not all fun and games just like parenting is not all fun and games. Marriage is not all about me and how my wife can satisfy my needs just like parenting is not all about how the kids can help me.
Given that definition, my wife and I have committed our lives to each other, we live together, we share finances together, we make most decisions together. Big and small decisions, like what city are we going to live in to what lamp we want to buy. We make sure we are both in agreement and if not, we either don’t proceed or we continue to pray and discuss until we can agree.
Here are some things my wife and I do to attempt to make each other better people. Kacie has no problem calling me out when I’m out of line. Whether it’s how I handle a situation with the kids, a friend, herself, or just my behavior in general, she usually points me back in the right direction. For her, I continue to push her to help others. It could be baking something for someone in need, volunteering somewhere, or requesting that she join a Bible study with me. We both know we are not perfect so we try to help each other out when needed.
Here are some things we have done to help each other achieve our goals. My wife had a goal of becoming a postpartum doula. In order to do that, she had to take some classes and spend some time reading books and writing some papers. She also had to work with a few clients before she could officially get her certificate. I provided her with words of encouragement, we made room in our budget for the classes, and I watched the kids so she could do all of that. She is now officially a postpartum doula (so if you are interested in one, let us know). As for me, I had a goal of completing a very intense Bible Study through the Austin Stone called Men’s and Women’s Development Program (MWDP). Not only did she support me in this but she did it with me. It was countless hours of reading, writing, and meeting over nine months.
Lastly, here are some things we have done to help each other when in need. As I posted previously, my wife went through postpartum depression. In the midst of this, I was off work for two weeks for Christmas break and I put our son down for every nap and during the nights as it was causing her so much anxiety. I also pray with her when her anxiety pops up again or if she is struggling with something. And if she is having a particularly rough day, I will leave work early and come home to help out. Sometimes all you need to do is listen and stop trying to solve her problems. On the flip side, she gave me a tremendous amount of support when I was bouncing between jobs. She would pray for me, give me time and space to apply for positions and to take interviews, and would talk through our options when offers were made.
Not only all of that, but Kacie knows my weaknesses. I am terrible at planning. Even simple things, like when going through a buffet, I’m the guy that gets all his food, goes to my table, sits down, starts eating, and then realizes I didn’t grab any silverware or napkins. I do it all the time. My wife knows this and now grabs extra napkins and silverware for me. Take it a step further, she knows if I’m taking the kids somewhere that they will need to eat something. So she packs up all of their food and drinks and makes it really easy for me to grab on my way out the door.
Having kids makes having a marriage extremely difficult and I can only imagine as the kids get older that it will be even more difficult. But for now, my only suggestions is to try and take advantage of the early bed times, the naps, the babysitters, the family, and enjoy the limited moments you actually get to spend with your spouse.