attachmentdisordermoms - Taking Time for Your Spouse

February 11, 1984

A simpler time.

Big dreams.

Much ahead.

How do we keep this relationship alive and well?

Certainly not by taking it for granted. Not by trying to change them into our expectations and certainly not by placing blame, or taking our anger at our special needs kids out on our spouse.

We have to place THIS relationship above our kids.

My favorite marriage websites:

www.family.org

www.familylife.com

Marriage Seminar info:

http://www.familylife.com/conferences/find_conference.asp?DCMP=BAC-WTR+Static+RT&ATT=ImageRT

Chris and I attended this seminar last winter. It is not only a chance to get away and be alone. It gives you the opportunity and guidance to talk about things involving your marriage that you may have not thought about or are not sure how to discuss. It was amazing.

Here are a few ways Chris and I make time for each other:

Free:

A quick phone call during the day.

A note.

Attend church together.

Pick one show to watch together without the kids each week. For us, it is Seinfeld.

Do a chore the other person normally does without being asked.

Back or foot rub.

Call and ask if there is anything that your spouse would like for you to do for them today.

Go for a walk.

Send a free e-card. www.hallmark.com

Pray together.

Have a devotional time together.

Cheap:

Drop off his favorite snack at his office.

Run out for ice cream, pop or coffee.

Buy him a card

Go to the dollar movies.

Meet for lunch during the day.

Rent a DVD to watch without kids. It does not have to involve The Wiggles or Scooby Doo.

Treats:

Learn a new hobby neither one of you has tried. We play golf about once each spring and fall. We stink. We don't keep score. We pick up the ball and throw it out of hard places. We bring along a sack lunch and have a picnic.

Plan a date night and get a sitter. We have friends we trade with.

Leave the kids with friends or grandparents and go away for a night or weekend.

Get a massage at a spa together.

Surprise him with tickets to an event he enjoys that you normally don't go too. Chris enjoys hockey tickets. I don't but I remind myself it is for him.

Our kids with RAD were taught an incorrect definition of love. Love hurts. We can show them by example what love really is. Take care of your relationship with your spouse. Our kids are watching. As my girls have become older, they remember very little of the profound things I thought I said. They remember what I did.

"Love is patient; love is kind.
Love is not envious or boastful
or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way:
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrong doing,
but rejoices in truth.
Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things
And now faith, hope, and love abide,
and the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 13