Parenting and Your Marriage

I have talked before about marriage and relationships and given some advice. By no means do I think that I am qualified to give advice to the masses but I do know there have been some lessons that I have learned along the way that I would like to share. 


A lesson I am learning right now and will continue to learn over time is about managing your marriage with a child. Before the child comes into the picture, it is just the two of you. All of your time and love and affection goes to your significant other. Then a precious baby comes around and your time, affection, and love now has to be shared. That is the key word, shared. I have already been guilty of making sure that every need of my child has been met without worrying about my husbands or not worrying about his until after the fact. I thought of this while my husband was sick this past week. Since he had the flu, little man and I stayed on a different floor of the house. I had a heck of a time going up and down making sure both were taken care of in every way. It was tiring but I really need to be doing that all the time. I have also been guilty of being frustrated at the end of the day because it was a trying one with little man that I forget to ask the husband how his day was or if anything was on his mind. Of course you taking care of your child is of utmost importance but also remember that later on in life when your child grows up and have a family of his own you will be extra thankful for the person next to you.

I am an extreme picture taker. I love taking pictures and documenting all of life's awesome memories. Since my kiddo came along the camera seems to gravitate towards his cheesy smile 100% of the time. Looking back through pictures this past year I found that I have far less pictures of us as a couple than from ever before. I need to remember that I have to document our relationship too. It is just as important as the awesomeness of a growing child. 

Before you have a child have conversations about all aspects of child rearing. Once the child is here keep talking. I thought we had talked about most everything but little things keep coming up. You don't want to be having arguments about differences in opinion on raising a child as you go along. We talked about things before he was born about certain things like whether to breast or bottle feed, cloth or disposable diapers, child care, discipline, things like that. As I mentioned before, before I had him I truly thought that I would go back to work full time. Once he was here that went out that window and there was a new conversation to be had. The other day we got into a conversation about public vs. private school. We had never talked about it before and although we are years away from that, it is something we need to talk about. Remember it is a team effort and compromise rather than just one person getting their way.


Speaking of team effort, you should always support each other to other people. I have also mentioned before that parenting methods are always open for judgement. People are real quick to criticize certain things you may choose to do. As partners you need to stand united on your parenting choices and not let others' opinions influence.

My marriage is very important to me. I am learning and will continue to learn. We don't always agree on things but we work at it and stay focused! 

---Justine---