My marriage over everything

I was reading an article recently of a father saying that his wife is more important than his children. This dad made very important points as to why it is important for him to preserve and nurture his relationship with his wife, first, especially for the benefit of his kids. He states that their relationship is the cornerstone of the family. It’s where it all started and that in order for the family to continue in a healthy way, they need to keep the spark and connection going in their relationship. For more on this story go to https://www.babble.com/relationships/the-case-for-putting-my-wife-before-my-children/.

When my husband and I went for counselling before our wedding, as protocol in our church, we were repeatedly advised in 3 different sessions by 3 different groups of people that we should remember that before we had kids, we had each other and long after they have moved out of the house, we will still only have each other. That helped me realise importance of the health and well-being of our relationship. Generally, we have a lot of things vying for our attention, whether it's our children, social life (networks), work, family, etc. They all want a piece of what you have to offer, therefore you have to make a conscious decision to make your partner a priority and to nurture the connection that has been and will be in your life for a long time to come. Your kids will grow older and move out of the home and without constantly nurturing your marriage, you may find yourselves being two strangers who are unable to exist without your children.

Another point to note is that a marriage is a covenant that is made for a lifetime, not to just exist with the person that you are with but to live life with that person. Prioritising your relationship will help in ensuring that you reach that milestone of a lifetime spent together. Set date nights, take trips together without the kids, socialise with friends without talking about your kids, problems, or even family, just enjoy the company of the people that you are with. Allow yourselves to guilelessly enjoy being alive for the sake of your children and your marriage, because if you are miserably existing in life, you can only offer them misery.

As stated in the above-mentioned blog, there are advantages to prioritising your marriage that are for your children and they are that your children will grow up witnessing and, hopefully later in life, modelling a healthy and loving relationship. They will also learn what being valued in a relationship looks like and this will help them to avoid being mistreated in relationships. Finally, they will know that in life, should they need to return home, they will have a loving and caring environment to return to.

That being said, I am in no way promoting child neglect or mistreatment but I am encouraging prioritising your relationship, even if it’s by spending time together, even if it’s by simply having private time just to catch up every evening for the sake of the foundation of the family.

Cheers.