I think the hardest obstacle to a dynamic marriage is children. We all realize that our children are an incredible blessing and responsibility. Our marriage is however, our first priority. We often forget that someday our kids will leave home (hopefully) and you are stuck with your wife or husband for life.
The best thing you can do for your children is to show them a great marriage. Our kids know they are loved and valued, but they also know we place great priority on our marriage than on them. We cannot let our children run our families and at the same time build a dynamic marriage.
Too many families are run by their children today. It is easy to see how it happens. Kids are busy today, they are in dance classes, art classes, sports, martial arts, tutoring, and church activities. None of these things look very harmful at the surface, but collectively they add up to kids that are being shuttle from lessons and practices with no real grasp of what childhood looks like. If your family, is so busy keeping up all the activities your kids are under taking, that you don’t have time to invest in your marriage then you need to slow down the pace of your entire family. For the sake of your marriage are you willing to tell your son or daughter that they can’t be on the travel team?
The principal here is about the priority structure of our families. The first priority is our relationship with God, both individually and as a family. The second priority is our relationship with our spouse. Our relationship with our children comes in third place. Most people feel like prioritizing one relationship over another means you have to love one person less than the others. Not true.
Look at this way, have you ever heard a woman say, “my husband loves God so much and has no love left-over for me?” I’ve never heard anyone say that before. Your children will never say, “my mom and dad love each other so much that they don’t have any love leftover for us kids.” Won’t happen, no child ever sits in a counselors chair and says, “my parents were so in love and that’s what ruined my life.”
What I have heard time and time again is this: “I am so busy taking my kids to stuff that I don’t have time for a date night w/ my wife.” I’ve said those very words myself. We can all justify our current behavior and schedules but if you don’t prioritize the relationship with your spouse with some very real and tangible actions then you will some day look across a dinner table and see a stranger whom you don’t love any longer. Life and marriage is too complicated to run on auto-pilot.
Don’t let your kids ruin a perfectly good marriage.
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