Classically Abby - June 27, 2024


5 Secrets To A Happier Marriage Post-Kids!


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

214.95103

Word Count

2,100

Sentence Count

92

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

It s pretty common knowledge that once kids enter the picture, your relationship can feel a little bit strained sometimes. I think there are ways to spend time with your kids that make your relationship with each other and your kids even better!


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Here are five ways to make your relationship stronger than ever with your kids.
00:00:09.460 Hello and welcome to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Abby and I would love if you
00:00:14.280 would consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell. In today's video, we're going
00:00:18.100 to be talking about five ways you can make your marriage even stronger with your kids. I think
00:00:23.720 it's pretty common knowledge that once kids enter the picture, your relationship can feel a little
00:00:28.260 bit strained sometimes because there's so much energy put into your children and so a lot of
00:00:33.260 the time there's not that much energy left for each other but I think there are ways to spend
00:00:37.860 time with your kids that make your relationship with each other and with your kids even better
00:00:42.480 and that is so exciting. Instead of thinking, oh the kids are taking up all of our time so we have
00:00:48.180 no time for each other, you can view your kids as a way to connect even more. P.S. if you hear some
00:00:53.640 thunder, some rain. I hope you enjoy the aesthetic vibe going on here. It is rainy like crazy right
00:00:59.720 now and I actually kind of like the sound of it so let's just get into it. The first way to enjoy
00:01:05.100 your children as a couple is to recognize that your children are the entertainment. They are not
00:01:10.280 getting in the way of your entertainment. Just recently, my husband and our family went on a little
00:01:15.820 staycation to a hotel on the beach just so that we could enjoy the beach more easily and we had an
00:01:21.640 amazing time but we learned a great lesson. Basically, my husband and I really enjoy playing
00:01:27.080 board games but when you have a toddler and that toddler is awake, you are not going to be able to
00:01:32.520 play those games because he wants to play with all the pieces. He wants to do his own thing while you
00:01:38.240 guys are trying to follow the rules and put all the pieces down. What we learned was instead of viewing
00:01:43.100 it as, oh our kid is getting in the way of us trying to connect through a board game, he's the problem,
00:01:49.140 we just want to be able to spend time together by doing this activity. He became our activity.
00:01:54.580 He became the fun. We let him kind of guide the whole afternoon and so when we took out a board
00:02:01.120 game, just a small one where we couldn't really lose the pieces and he decided he wanted to play
00:02:05.340 with the pieces a specific way, we were like, yeah, let's follow his lead and it ended up being
00:02:10.960 so much better because we let him become our entertainment. We just enjoyed watching him figure
00:02:16.780 things out and him come up with ideas and him come up with rules that were a lot of fun to see
00:02:22.040 because he's so interesting and clever and enjoyable right now and it's so important to us
00:02:26.760 that we encourage that curiosity in him and encourage that creativity too and it's cool when you realize
00:02:32.680 that he's the culmination of our relationship, right? He is a reflection of both me and my husband
00:02:39.000 so whatever he's doing is like a reflection of who we are and what our love can make and bring
00:02:44.920 and we enjoy seeing him take on the world in the way that he does so instead of thinking,
00:02:50.260 man, I just wish he would stop messing up our board game, he became our game. He became our activity
00:02:56.660 and we just enjoyed seeing what he wanted to do and following along. So the big takeaway is stop
00:03:01.720 thinking of your children as getting in the way of the things you want to do. Instead, think of your
00:03:06.540 children as the thing you're enjoying right now and that might mean being flexible and putting those
00:03:12.180 really big activities that you guys enjoy on the back burner or for date night and instead the times
00:03:19.040 that you're spending with your children, those are going to be for them and enjoying what they come up
00:03:24.100 with. It's a really cool thing when you let yourself approach it with that mindset. The second way that you
00:03:29.300 can connect in your relationship more through your kids is to take your children places you enjoy as much
00:03:34.700 as they do. That's a way for you and your spouse to enjoy each other and your child. It's not taking
00:03:40.420 your kid to a place you actually despise and just sitting there while they play. It's taking them
00:03:45.900 somewhere that you can enjoy as a family and then you get to enjoy one-on-one time with your spouse
00:03:49.960 and one-on-one time with your kid and all of you guys are kind of the interpersonal relationships of
00:03:54.840 the family are developed in those situations. So for example, my husband and I actually love going to
00:04:01.340 the zoo. Before we had kids, we went to the zoo all the time, just the two of us. So now when we bring
00:04:05.820 our son to the zoo, we get to enjoy it with each other and we get to enjoy it with our son. So we
00:04:10.680 get to experience his joy and the newness of it all, but also when he's kind of looking at the
00:04:16.680 flamingos, the two of us can talk a little bit and enjoy the surroundings. It makes it a lot more fun
00:04:22.500 when you bring your child somewhere that you can enjoy with him. Now that doesn't work all the time,
00:04:27.300 obviously. I can't bring my son to an art museum yet. He's too young, but it means that I can be a
00:04:33.120 little more picky about the places we go and choose places that I enjoy too. I don't mind taking him to
00:04:38.700 certain play gyms because a lot of play gyms have a little place for me to set up and work and he can
00:04:42.840 play and I enjoy that. I don't mind it. There are certain play gyms in our area that are way too loud
00:04:49.500 and I hate going there and I never bring him there because I hate it. I would not want to be there and it
00:04:54.700 would make me not enjoy the experience. And if I were to go with my husband, the two of us would
00:04:59.360 be unhappy and it would actually not be something that would bring us together. Instead, we try to
00:05:03.540 find places that all of us can enjoy as a family, even if it's not entirely directed at our age group,
00:05:09.480 meaning adults. It needs to be pleasant enough that the two of us are enjoying one another's company
00:05:15.160 while we're enjoying our child. The third way to connect as a couple is to not take your children
00:05:20.140 places they are bound to fail. I think this is kind of the flip of what I was just talking about.
00:05:26.040 You should take your kids places you enjoy, but if you take your kids to places that you enjoy
00:05:30.540 that they are not going to do well, that is only going to put stress on your marriage,
00:05:35.480 on your relationship. If you go to an art museum with a toddler and they're supposed to be quiet,
00:05:40.680 that is not going to be fun for anyone in the family because the parents are trying to struggle
00:05:45.060 to keep the kids quiet. And then you guys are fighting and arguing and it's just not a good
00:05:49.760 fit. If you take your child to a restaurant and they are not ready to sit or they don't have a
00:05:54.580 toy and you didn't come prepared, that is a place that your children are bound to fail. They are not
00:05:59.580 going to have a good time. You are not going to have a good time. Everyone is just stressed out trying
00:06:03.480 to hold down the fort. I don't recommend bringing your children places that they're going to create
00:06:08.620 problems and then you and your spouse are just caught in the middle. Instead, find situations that are
00:06:14.880 going to be a really good fit for the family and that you and your spouse can feel good about being
00:06:19.080 together and working as a team to manage everybody's expectations, to manage everybody's
00:06:23.840 moods, and to manage everybody's behavior. So for us, that means going to an early dinner right when
00:06:29.700 my son is hungry, a place that brings out the food pretty quickly, and that maybe we sit outside so
00:06:35.200 that after he's finished eating, one of us can kind of chase my toddler around while the other one
00:06:39.540 stays with our six-month-old. That can be a way for us to eat out, enjoy one another's company,
00:06:44.640 our son is eating something he likes, and then after about 25 minutes of that, he can kind of
00:06:49.980 run around while we get everybody situated and leave. And that works really well for our family.
00:06:55.160 If we tried to go to a fancy sit-down dinner late when everybody's crying, everyone's exhausted,
00:07:00.760 that would be a disaster and it would not bring me and my husband closer, I'll tell you that.
00:07:04.540 The fourth way to deepen your relationship through your children is to see the world through your
00:07:08.940 children's eyes. Everything is new to kids. Everything is amazing. And that is such a special place
00:07:14.480 to inhabit. And it can really bring you and your spouse closer together when it kind of reminds you
00:07:19.220 of the childlike wonder that can exist in each of you. When you both kind of embrace that outlook,
00:07:24.920 that childlike outlook, it makes you both feel like younger and it makes you both enjoy one another
00:07:32.080 in a really special way. So when your toddler sees a truck and thinks that it's amazing, now my husband
00:07:37.360 and I think that trucks are amazing. We like thought about it and it's like, yeah, yeah, trucks are really
00:07:41.860 cool. When we see a truck, both of us are excited. And it's just fun to see your spouse reliving these
00:07:48.280 really cool things that as adults were jaded. As adults, of course, it's not new. Of course,
00:07:53.240 it's not cool. But as a child, it is. And so it's really a wonderful way to bring you and your spouse
00:07:58.600 closer together when you start to see the world through your child's eyes. The fifth way that you
00:08:03.820 can enjoy your children as a couple and allow your children to bring you closer together
00:08:08.240 is to discipline your children so that you enjoy them. I think we're in a in a complicated time
00:08:14.660 where gentle parenting crosses over into permissive parenting quite a bit. And so eventually parents
00:08:22.300 don't really enjoy spending time with their children. There's a lot of layers to that, meaning a child
00:08:27.500 who doesn't listen or if there's not a good schedule and children are overtired or if you're constantly
00:08:33.060 letting your children kind of dictate the day and not taking you on your role as like boss and parent,
00:08:38.800 I think it's really easy to just not enjoy spending time with your kids. And if you don't enjoy
00:08:43.460 spending time with your kids and you're spending time with them and you're spending time with your
00:08:46.780 spouse, like that's just an uncomfortable situation. Everybody is just with people they don't really
00:08:50.900 enjoy spending time with. The goal is to be a gentle parent who sets boundaries and uses discipline
00:08:57.960 in a really positive way so that your children are fun to spend time with. And then when your
00:09:02.580 children are fun to spend time with, the family dynamic brings couples closer and brings couples
00:09:07.320 together. So it's really important to lay down those boundaries to create that structure for your kids
00:09:12.280 and to make it so that you enjoy spending time with your kids so that your family enjoy spending time
00:09:18.000 together and you and your spouse enjoy being the head of the household as a team. So I hope you guys
00:09:24.620 enjoyed today's video. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. And if you watched all the way
00:09:28.800 till the end of today's video, leave a building emoji. They have a house, they have apartment buildings,
00:09:34.900 they have some really interesting emojis these days. So leave that down below. It's unrelated to
00:09:39.500 this video, but it's kind of fun. And thank you so much for watching. Please make sure to subscribe
00:09:43.100 if you haven't already. And I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye!