I’m really pleased to be featuring a guest post from Amber Cornelisson, who’s talking about maintaining your relationship with your partner after having children:
When you have children it can be hard to still spend a lot of time with your partner, how many couples do you know that had a great relationship before children, but their relationship plummeted after children? Probably more than you should. This doesn’t mean that it has to be this way though, you can have children and awesome relationship, you just need to make it a priority. And I have some tips for you to do exactly this.
Accept that your relationship is not the same
You may want to have the relationship back that you had with your partner before you two had children, but the harsh truth is: It’s not going to happen. Your life has been altered completely, which means that your relationship is also different from what it was. This doesn’t mean that your relationship is going to be worse, but the necessary modifications have to be made. So remember, you can definitely have an amazing relationship with your partner when you have children, but it will never be the same as it was.
Realise that your children shouldn’t come before your partner
So this might sound a little counterintuitive, as a lot of parents would call their children the centers of their lives and want to give all their attention to them. Yet, the truth is that this isn’t a good mindset for either the children or the relationship. When you’re too involved in your children’s’ lives you risk becoming a helicopter parent, which is not good for the development of your child. And giving all attention to your children and none to your partner will lead to the breakdown of that relationship. In other words, your children don’t need you be around all the time, spent some time with your partner instead.
Love is in the small things
You’ve probably heard the date night preach about a hundred times, and although date nights are awesome, sometimes there’s just no time. Luckily, date night is not the only way to prioritize your partner. You can show your partner love in smaller, less time-consuming ways. A couple of examples are:
- Making them lunch, including a small love note
- Cooking them their favorite meal
- Bringing two cups of coffee to the bedroom on a Sunday morning
- Complimenting them on their hard work or good looks
These actions don’t take a lot of effort, but they do show that you love your partner and think about them.
Talk about the relationship
If you already feel like your relationship has gone downhill a little bit then you’ll need to talk about this with your partner. This way you can both recognize that you’ll need to make some changes, and both of you can work on the relationship. Ideally, you have such a talk a couple times a week so you know where you stand and you know what’s working for the other and what isn’t. You make prioritizing the relationship a lot more effective when you do this.
Go inward first
Something you might want to do before you talk about the relationship is diving inward and trying to figure out for yourself what needs to change, both from your side and theirs. Now I don’t suppose you make a list of all the qualities your partner needs to change, but it’s never a bad thing to make suggestions on how they can make you happier. You can also come up with things you could do to make them happier. Showing how proactive you are and how much you care about the relationship by taking this step is already a big step in prioritizing your relationship.
I can assure you that when you perform at least one of the actions on this list, your relationship will improve. Having children doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice your relationship, it actually means that you should make more of an effort to have a healthy and pleasurable relationship. So, try some of these actions, and share the blog with your partner as well 😉