How to Keep Love at the Center of Your Marriage

If I stop and pause, I can see it… Fourteen years ago now, I met a sweet recent high school graduate.  He was kind, thoughtful, brought me burnt CD’s and opened my car door for me… what more could any 17 year old ask for?  I fell hard and fast.

Fast forward, to now…  We are in the middle of the hustle.  One house. Two Cars. Three Kids. A dog and soon-to-be flock of chickens.  Homeschooling. Small Grouping. Sports. Jobs. Extra gigs. Anti-sleep two year old.  Life is full!

That sweet boy I met has become a more than impressive man.  He leads us well. When I think of all the ways God has grown us both, my heart swells.

The honest truth is I love him so much but I show it less than ever.

It’s hard to remember you are in love when making the bed feels more urgent than making love; when getting through bedtime replaces time to catch up on how we are doing.  When temper tantrums, push your patience to the no-no land. When sleep is a dreamed about luxury.  When keeping up my figure, is trumped by park snacks and kids treats. When our schedule looks like a game of Tetris.

Yet, without that love that brought us here, would the busy be so sweet?  Would the work to keep this family moving be so worth it?  The love that brought us, to be us, is the engine that keeps this thing running.  

Even if I don’t show it as well as I should, I’m still in love. You and me; that’s the light at the end of a long day.  We are the icing on the cake. You are what I look forward to, even if it’s just five minutes of catching up before we both pass out.

How do we keep love at the center of our marriages, when life is pulling you in all directions?

We pause.

We take time to remember falling in love. We reflect on how sweet it is just to know each other. We tell each other that we are a team and we have each other’s backs. In the midst of the hustle, we remember we are in love.  

1. Don’t exchange the joy of a long lasting love for expediency and a completed to-do list.  
2. Don’t let exhaustion be your excuse for a lack of tenderness towards your spouse.  
3. Be intentional and let each other know that you matter.  

We matter and we are worth fighting for, even in the midst of our hustle.  

 

This Hard Season of Marriage

I recently saw a friend’s husband added to social media stating he came home to find his wife was reading a book entitled “How to not Hate your Husband After Kids.” My immediate thought was I need to get that book from the library pronto.

I’m convinced my husband should read my mind, know what the day entailed and sweep me into his arms with thanks for the day I’ve navigated. He should sing praises for me for vacuuming our upstairs. This task sounds menial but what he doesn’t understand is that I had to corral all our children up the steps, busy the big kids, hold the baby all the while, vacuum with haste and then clean up the toys used to busy the kids. Next, I must tactfully convince all the kids to return to the downstairs in order to keep the evidence of my completed work intact. By the time I’ve done all this everyone needs a snack. THAT’S JUST TO VACUUM, my friends.

But guess what? Normally my wonderfully amazing husband doesn’t notice that I’ve taken the time out of my day to vacuum. No one does. No one knows that I loaded the dishwasher three times today. No one is there to give my a high five for keeping my cool after asking my oldest to please be gentle with his sister for the 28th time this past hour. No one says “Wow, that was so creative!” when I come up with a nifty craft project to fill our afternoon with wonder rather than giving them over to the television.

Often my kind husband is swept straight into Dad Land when he walks through the door and he doesn’t see that I’ve spent the last 45 minutes prepping and cooking a new meal for our family menu just to impress him a little. Normally our kids want to wrestle, play and report all the details of their day to Dad. This means that means our check back in after hours of work is hurried and interrupted.

You can see it’s so easy to feel like I’m not on the same team as this guy that I choose. I’m finding the trouble is most days when I feel that hate want to boil up for the man I really love, it’s not because he’s not really his fault.  More days than not he’s a rockstar dad. In so many more ways than I deserve, he works to love me well. Nonetheless, it’s hard for me to not hate him.

I think it’s because I’m envious of this man that seems so much more put together than me. He doesn’t have 10 more baby pounds to lose. He is a superman when he enters after a long day gone, while I’m the taskmaster. He isn’t rattled with worry for our kids. He laughs freely. He’s well dressed. He’s a man with a plan. I’m the woman struggling to keep it together.

He’s also not in my head. Unless I open my mouth, he’ll never know how lonely just one day with the kids can feel. Sharing is hard, and it feels kind of crazy to point out that you vacuumed, right? Who wants to fish for compliments for their own cooking? Does a compliment count if it’s not freely given?

But I’m learning I have to start fishing for compliments on my own cooking so I don’t hate the man that I love. I need to explain to him in great detail the vacuum scenario. I must start talking. If I don’t, he nor anyone else will ever know.

What is even more challanging for me is to stop comparing. He’s never going to have to lose baby weight, the end. Why am I mad at him about this? I win in our house every time someone has a boo-boo because I nursed these little people. They are Team Mom all the way. We have different roles, different gifts, different challenges. It’s the way God made it to be. I won’t lie, I hate it sometimes, but if I don’t want to hate this guy, I have to embrace it.

We are still working on it, every day. It’s worth it though because more than getting all the thanks I may be due, I want to love my husband while we have kids.

Originally published on Her View from Home here.

Guest Post On HVFH- This Hard Season of Marriage

Yesterday was a tough day for us.  It ended with conflict and tears.  The absolute worst way to end a day.

Today, I logged onto Her View From Home, browsing to see what was new. I saw an article titled, “This Hard Season of Marriage,” I thought I need some encouragement in my marriage today, let me read this! I was surprised to see I was the author of the article.  I completely forgot this was going to run today.  Funny thing, my words turned out to be exactly the words I needed to hear today.  Isn’t life funny like that?

This married with kids thing, it’s beautiful.  There are layers upon layers of joy, love and the kind of happiness that almost hurts.  Yet, somehow staying in sync, staying in love, can be so hard.

I told my husband after our fight yesterday is that I want just to feel like I’m on his team.  This thing happened after we added three more people to our home, our lives got crazy busy! Being together, sharing, connecting is hard.  Sometimes even impossible.

My post here shares some of my struggle.  It also captures my heart, which is more than anything, I want to keep at this thing and do my best to love my husband through this crazy season of raising these awesome kids.

Love,

Amanda

Tips on How to Keep your House Tidy with Kids

We all tend to land in different spots on the whole keeping the house tidy with little kids in the house thing.  Some of us just throw up our hands and let the chaos rule.  Others of us spend our days trailing behind our littles restoring our homes back to perfection as soon as possible.  And then if your like me you live somewhere in the middle in which you like things tidy but have given up on the idea of home perfection.

When our oldest started having toys thrown about and needed to eat food in a less than “neat” manner I have to confess it stressed me out.  I had always kept our home neat and well put together, even when we lived in a one bedroom college owned apartment.  Now we have three toy loving, food throwing adorable kids and honestly there really is no way to keep the food off the walls and the toys neatly sorted and tucked away all the time. Honestly, I’ve finally just started to be comfortable with having a home that reflects the fact I have children rather than striving to hide all evidence of their existence.

Along with accepting there will be toys and food residue in strange places I’ve found some things that have helped keep things tidy without spending hours of my day cleaning.  Here are a few of my tricks to keeping things neat enough for me to stay sane in my own space.

1. Develop a cleaning “rhythm” for your family.  Okay, so I tried one of those daily cleaning charts that said Tuesdays were for toilets but that just didn’t do it for me.  I find many tasks need to be done daily and for me if I’m gonna do toilets I want the rewards of seeing the whole bathroom sparkle at once.  What has worked better is finding a daily rhythm or routine for certain tasks and then a weekly routine for whole house tasks.  I do the dishes at breakfast and dinner while cooking.  That’s a daily routine- I can’t stand piles of dishes in the sink. We all pick up the toys and throw them into bins before bed.  I hate waking up to a messy house.  Every Monday (during the school year) I do all the floors and bathrooms to start the week with a clean house.  This helps cleaning feel manageable and rewarding.
2. Get your kids involved.  I was a little late to the game on this.  My oldest is 5 and just this year I really have started to employ his help in keeping up our space but boy has is made all the difference! His brother is 3 and I’ve realized he is fully capable of helping as well.  They feed the dog, throw away trash, pick up toys, water the garden, vacuum, dust, clean toilets, clean up dishes from the table, throw their clothes in the laundry, help unload groceries from the car, weed our flower beds and whatever else I can think up.  Now, they don’t always complete tasks with perfection but letting go of perfect is so worth it when setting the precedent that this is our space and it deserves our attention and care. If your nervous about push back with your kids not “wanting” to help well let me encourage you in that it has not taken long for help to be the habit in our home.  Our kids do many things automatically now that we’ve began to place the expectation of tidiness on them. Before bed they clean up toys without a fight because it is apart of our family rhythm to create a tidy space before bed.  Whatever normal your want to have in your home you have to create it.  If you can’t keep up with it all (because no Momma should feel she has to do everything for all the people in her home all the time) then take baby steps to create a new normal in your home that shares the load.
3. Limit the number of toys in your home. Okay people I know this is a hard one.  We get so many toys.  Our kids LOVE them all BUT they don’t play with them all.  They only have so much time and attention to give in a day.  Honestly I think kids get overwhelmed with too many toy options and this actually hinders their ability to play.  We are not perfect at this but we strive to continually evaluate the number of “things” we allow to accumulate in our home.  We also only have a 1450 square foot house for 5 people so there really is only so much stuff that can comfortably fit in our space.  We do campaigns through every room of our house every few months evaluating which things we really need and which things could be a blessing to someone else.  Sometimes this is painful but so necessary! I’ve also had friends the cycle toys so they store some in the attic and then take them down when the kids are bored of the toys they have.  Great idea!  Another thing we do is limit the number of bins we allocate for toys in our house.  If we start overflowing those bins than it’s time to adjust. Also…. I know when you have to make that Goodwill run your kids may not like it.  Our kids talk about toys they miss or get sad when it’s time to give some away.  Some ideas to help with that is talk about the importance of generosity and let them choose what to give away, make it a regular thing in your home so they begin to expect it, give your things away too so your model generosity, let them sell some items and save that money for a new smaller toy or outing or if all else fails give the stuff away when they aren’t looking and hope they don’t notice.
4. Share duties with your partner. We already talked about the kids but the kids may not be able to touch some of the heavy lifting never ending items like laundry or dishes! Enlist your spouses help in getting these things done.  When I work on the weekends and we have Saturday night dinner guests Brent cleans the whole house.  On Sunday nights he rounds up all the laundry and gets it started for me.  At bath time he often folds and puts away several baskets of laundry.  If he cooks a meal he empties and fills the dishwasher.  Over the years he has realized I like a tidy house and being the good man he is has realized its best for everyone if he helps keep this home neat.  If your husband is not as in tune with your OCD ways then talk it out.  Tell him which things you could use some help with and let him do it.  Remember what I said about it may not be done perfectly when training the kids.  The same applies to your partner but sharing the load is worth giving up on whatever version of perfect you have set in your mind.  It’s a struggle though, I know.

I hope these ideas help! They have helped me in as I’ve grown from our perfectly neat child free home to what we have now.  More than anything I hope our house always feels warm and inviting to my children and everyone we bring into it.  If we keep love in our minds as we cultivate our spaces we will always have good outcomes.

Happy cleaning!

Amanda

Eight Tips for Keeping a Connected Marriage While Parenting

 

The old saying is first comes love and then comes marriage, right? That is true if you’re lucky when you find a partner but is also true when making the giant leap into parenthood.  First you fall in love hard with this human. Miraculous, helpless, sweet baby and then life starts happening again and you almost have to completely reinvent what it means to be married (over and over again).  Here are a few things we’ve learned (mostly the hard way) that have helped us live much more of our time together as parents as a team rather than at odds.  Hope some of them help!

1. Keep the lines of communications open. If they are closed get some help re-opening them (christian counseling, shared devotional, trusted friends input, renewed commitment to date night).  Talk through the good, bad and ugly.  This is the only way to stay on the same team-  talk it out my friends.
2. Don’t compare.  You are in this together but your roles, struggles, strengths and sacrifices are going to be so different in this journey.  It does no good to say “ I have it so much worse than you do” (unless you are 9 months pregnant and then you ABSOLUTELY have it worse and are allowed to complain as much as you’d like) but in your day to day life- comparison leads to jealousy or pride which brings division. That doesn’t mean don’t share your struggles but in a honest open way not a “I have it so much worse than you” kinda way. I spent a long time being jealous of Brent (and sometimes still am) but when I feel that nagging voice in my head I have to remind myself that we are different. He supports me in the challenges I face the best he can and I also have to be there to support him.  If I only let him know how much better he has it than me then I end his ability to be vulnerable with me.  If we want to be on the same team we have to stop trying to play the same positions. Teams only work when each person does the best in the position they have been given.  If third base starts pitching things won’t go well and the same is true in family life.  We all benefit when we each have a unique and special place in our homes that are cherished individually.  
3. Make friends in your same life stage.  Community makes a difference! You can’t do this parenting thing alone.  You need a tribe to support you when you go through the sleepless months or celebrate sweet new beginnings.  Having people around you in the similar life stage will help you see how your struggles are so normal too! I’ve called my closest friends crying and complaining after another nasty fight. Their sympathy, listening ear and gentle reminders that my husband does in fact love me even if right now it doesn’t seem like it have made all the difference too! 
4. Research together. We have the privilege of so much great parenting, marriage, life information right at our fingertips.  If you are struggling in an area of parenting pick a book to read together on the topic.  Or choose some blogs to read up on and go over the highlights together.  No matter how you get your information review some ideas on how to tackle a particular issue together to start the conversation.  Then talk through ways you want to use or maybe things you’d like to disregard from what you’ve learned.  On issues I’ve been confused on how to deal with or wanted to talk to Brent about without sounding like I’ve shoving my way down his throat, adding a neutral opinion to the conversation has helped.
5. Treat each other with love and respect. This goes both ways.  I don’t think just men need respect and woman need love.  We both need both!  The times I’ve got the most furious with Brent is when he has called me out for a “parenting fail” in front of a group of other people and I felt humiliated.  He probably was right is calling me out but I felt so disrespected I could have cared less. All that to say we have to find ways to point out each other’s weaknesses and strengths with love and respect. Using kind words, waiting for the right moments to suggest our spouse takes a different approach and always showing each other how valuable we are to one another when we talk through difference. This keeps the lines of communication open and sets a great example for your children on how we should be treating those we love.
6. Have fun together.  Plan to have fun as a family and just the two of you.  Breaking up the routine of life is a MUST!  The thing about kids is there is there is are so many moving pieces in caring for them.  Snacks, bags, diapers, later other things like activities, playdates, etc, etc.  Just getting out the door in the morning takes a heroic effort! This can wear down even the most positive and free spirited soul.  You need days where you change the pace.  Sleep in late as a family or better yet let the kids have a sleepover with the grands, get ice-cream on a whim, make time just to have fun.  Take a break from the to-do lists and be together.
7. Accept Help when you need it.  There are times when we need help.  I needed help battling postpartum anxiety and depression.  I wish I got it sooner— like when Brent told me he thought I was depressed.  I waited until I almost couldn’t bear it.  There are times in our lives we have to get help and new parenting creates lots of potentially overwhelming life circumstances.  Sleep deprivation, tight finances, stretches schedules and parenting challenges are just a few! Sometimes it really is too much and you gotta let your community in and accept help.  
8. Keep making them babies.  Ok, so one of the things that suffers severely is baby-making-time once your add those actual babies.  Not to mention ruined bodies, sleep deprivation, lack of privacy and new uses for some of those once sexy body parts.  My midwife told me that while you nurse your body actually really doesn’t want any- so ladies don’t feel bad if your libido is down.  It’s just nature. Nonetheless staying connected in this manner is a must.  It may take a monumental amount of creativity, a strange amount of planning, an acceptance of less than ideal conditions and most likely a good sense of humor yet it key that this is not abandoned.  Not long ago I was haunted by the idea that these are actually my prime years if I ever want to be sexy… haha… let’s not let them go to waste. Sex isn’t everything but it’s something. It keeps you close and lets you to slow down and lean in during a time of life where everything around is demanding your instant attention.

Parenting well and loving your spouse well during the intense years with littles is sometimes a nearly impossible feat! More than anything grace upon grace for all the bad days, short tempers and long nights is essential.  I pray for God to step in all the places we are not enough.  Inviting His love to cover our failure is the most powerful thing we strive to do our best to love our families well!

Love,

Amanda

Grow old with me, my love.

This weekend my better half turns 31.  We are officially entering our 30’s and we are coming up on 10 years of marriage – I know it’s insane.  We got married at the ripe young ages of 20 and 21.  I could not even legally consume wine at my own wedding.  I mean should people that can’t drink really be allowed to wed?

I often tell people I had to marry Brent so young because he is such a good catch! I had to scoop him up before any competition could come in.  He has been my lucky break in life. I mean how could I know what I was doing at 20? I just got incredibly lucky that God led me into a marriage with the best husband/Dad/partner I could have ever hoped for.

So here we are almost 10 years in and entering what I feel is a new season of life. We are like real adults now.  We have the kids, the van, the house, the dog.  We aren’t young 20 somethings anymore.  Our oldest is going to be a Kindergartner.  I mean this is the real adult stuff.

Seeing our kids lives bound ahead full speed is this amazing reminder of the brevity of our lives.  We are into this adult stuff and it so often feels like we just got started.  I am starting to see how having a partner, one to rely on, to love, to complain to, to cry with with when life is so happy to hurts or so sad you can’t even bear it is one of the best gifts I’ve been given.

Adult life is messy and hard.  I think apart of us always is reaching backwards tying to still be that kid.  I see in this season how much I need you. How deeply I love you.  How my whole heart appreciates you.  Even the things that annoy me- I still secretly love them and would never change them.

So as we get into this new stage where it’s fast and intense, I choose to lean into us. I don’t want the pace, all the needs around us or sleeplessness to steal the love we have been given. I vow to I hold you a little tighter on the long busy days.  Kiss you a little longer when I get the chance.  Relish the moments we can sneak away as sweet gifts amidst the chaos.  And I thank God and also pray each day that I get to grow old with you.

Happy Birthday, my love.

Amanda

30

The past few years I’ve started the practice of writing a letter for my children giving them a little insight into my world on my birthday.  What prompted this was me wondering what my Mom thought and felt at my age and while she often tells me about her younger years but inevitably we loose track of the exact details of our lives.  Here is my most recent letter as I just turned 30!

For me the lead up to 30 felt hard. Life goes fast. This is a reality that has hit me hard as I’ve reached the milestone of starting a new decade of my life and as I watch my babies grow so quickly before my eyes. I’ve had to search my heart and the word to know that my eternal destination is secure. One thing I am sure of is that I will fade away in what will seem like tomorrow. No matter how many years I’m given it won’t feel like a long enough. Ultimately my time is not my own. I must find peace knowing I’m using what I’m given well and that I’ll be ready to meet Jesus when he calls me to Him.

I’ve also observed that as time passes I’ve yet to feel any older and only minimally wiser! Ha.  I thought that at thirty you should feel “mature” “together” or something like that.  I still feel like a kid– just with bills and a family.  Which is probably the best way to be!… I only start feeling “old” when life gets too serious and life is too short to be bogged down with worry or seriousness.  

Aside from my emotional journey as I accept becoming a 30 year old, life is so sweet in this moment.  My girl! Oh my.  She is perfection.  I’m drinking in her baby sweetness.  This season with a fresh baby is so intense.  So much love.  Each first is beautiful to watch.  Seriously there is nothing more precious than having your sleeping babe on your chest. Each of my children have taught me so much about God’s goodness and love for us.  When I watch her grow and smile and hold her squishy body I am sure that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.   

Having a girl is a new sort of joy!  Headbands, ruffle butts and the shoes! I love it all.  I also look forward to seeing what our mother/daughter relationship is going to look like.  I love my Mom so discovering how it’ll feel to be her Mom is an exciting journey for me!

The boys.  Just listening to them talk, watching them explore and seeing them love each other fills my heart to the brim!  My sweet teddy bear but he also is learning how to share his thoughts and opinions in more and more sophisticated ways.  He follows his brother everywhere and relishes their playtime together.  He still loves his blanky, toy vacuum, phones and accessories of all varieties.  My oldest is becoming a kid.  He plays pretend constantly, making his hands into airplanes and dragons. He loves Toothless the dragon and Rescue Bots.  He is so kind and thoughtful.  HE LOVES HIS SISTER.  He realized he can carry her and it’s his favorite along with making her smile.  We are so proud of them both. They truly are already becoming such kind and thoughtful people.  

I pray my children grow to love the Lord with all their hearts and love others just as Jesus loved. My prayer for me is that in this year of life I help guide them in doing these things.

Brent.  We just celebrated 9 years of marriage and man things have just gotten better.  I am not sure how I got so lucky to find such an amazing partner.  He loves me so well. I love him with my whole heart.  It’s amazing to discover how deeply you can grow to care for someone as the years pass.  When you are young and in love you are only scratching the surface of what it is to truly care for each other.  Each year and new set of experiences good and bad we go through together only adds another layer to the depth of love we share.  It truly amazes me! I pray we get so many more years together. He is my best friend and I love doing life with him.  

Beyond our family my life now is blessed to be littered with amazing extended family and friends.  God has provided so much love and joy in this time.  I am so thankful for His amazing grace in our lives.  He is my guide through all my ups and downs. I pray that in my 30’s I find a way to press into Him more and grow a rock solid faith.

Married with babies… 6 years and learning…

So we have discovered that being married with babies is a lot different from just being married. Brent and I have always just got along pretty well (thankfully) and when we decided to get hitched and live together it was not hard… not to say we didn’t fight or annoy each other but we both are easy going. All those horror stories you hear about your husband driving you crazy because he does weird things with the toothpaste just never was an issue for us.

BUT once we added kids.. things got a little more complicated… We didn’t have very much time to just be together… especially while trying to still cram all the SAME things into our lives that existed before.

Thank God he is good and he used this time to teach US a lot. The honest truth of the past year is that as married people with kids our lives together HAD to change. We realized we cannot do all the things we used to. We must rely on one another MUCH more heavily. We have to actually plan to make sure we spend quality time together or SOMETHING (kids, work, goals, friends, etc) will suck all our time away. We have to go out of our way to make sure we let the other know they are important.  We must forgive often (being sleep deprived and stressed doesn’t always bring out the best in people, weird).

Brent and I just celebrated our 6 year anniversary! (woot)… and lucky for us our anniversary is right at the start of a new year so its a great time to reflect, evaluate and this year we decided to set some goals for our marriage.

I share this first to help keep us accountable (I’m not good at new year resolution things, luckily Brent is great meeting goals)… and also to hopefully encourage others who have found growing a family to be exciting/magical/miraculous/etc BUT still may find strategies to stay connected helpful.

Here’s the list….

1. Share at least one devotion together a week.

We have been working through the book Devotions for s Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. This devotion has been WONDERFUL! I recommend it to all married people. We may just re-read it once we finish it’s that good. (buy it, really)

2. Do something active together at least once a week.

This could be a walk, a run (after I have this baby), a gym trip, a hike, etc. There is something that just lifts your mood and makes you feel closer when you go out there and do something together.

3. Go out on one date/kid free outing at least once a month.

We LOVE our kids! They are so fun and adorable and entertaining and we just want to soak up every moment we have with them BUT we realized we still need time set aside just to be together focusing on the union that made all these adorable little people possible. When I had Isaac I sort of lost sight for a little bit (between the overwhelming love I had for Isaac and the severe lack of sleep) of the fact my husband is my anchor and the love of my life. I will always love my kids with the deepest, most unconditional love I have ever known… but I will grow old with Brent… when our kids have moved on it’ll just be the two of us thinking up “would you rather” scenarios together and being those adorable old people you see walking together at the park… but if we don’t continue to invest in us now we won’t have much to talk about then.

4. Run the half marathon together this coming fall.  

So Brent is really fit and driven… I like to move around but am kinda laid back.  I for some reason decided I really want to run the half marathon this year.. I am probably trying to rebel against the 3 years still going that my body has felt out of my control… as I have been in a constant state of pregnancy and nursing since October 2011 and probably will continue to nurse for another year or 2….and who knows by then we may get crazy enough to want a third precious bundle (crossing my fingers for a girl one day still)..  Anyways Brent is going to do it with me which will be a really fun way for us to spend some time together AND we can take the babies running too (bonus!).

These are just some very simple ways we have pledged to try to make one another a priority through this year.  I can’t wait to see how we grow together!

If you find yourself needing support or encouragement as you grow as a couple please let me know.  I’d love to pray for you and of course you can always pray for us as sharing a life together is always filled with ups and downs… but I can’t imagine doing life any other way.

Love,

Amanda