Staying Connected...

I have learned, over the past few months, how so very easy it is for couples to drift apart when they have kids. Beginning with pre-marital counseling, and in every marriage conference we’ve ever been to, we have been warned about going through life and waking up one day when the kids are gone and not recognizing who is in bed with you. Both John and I both knew that was not what we wanted, and that we were going to do everything we could to make sure that didn’t happen.

But let me tell you…it’s HARD! For the past few months I feel like John and I haven’t had much time together. I feel like we’re missing a connection. We’ve tried talking about it, but unfortunately, there’s no easy fix. Our days and nights are in such a busy routine, and we’re not sure how to deviate from it.

On a normal day we’ll get home from work, eat dinner, play with the kids, do homework, Kylie and Ryan go to bed, John and Josh sit on the couch to watch sports, I go up to my room to watch TV, and we all fall asleep. So obviously our first try was to *try* to get Josh to bed, and then John and I can watch TV. But the problem was we were so tired, we would just fall asleep. It’s not that we are running around all over the place and need to slow down really, it’s just trying to figure out something for us to do. In the summer it’s easy…we’re all outside the whole night, and the kids are usually off playing with their friends, so John and I can sit and talk, or work on something together. But being inside is hard…there’s not a whole lot to do.

And it would be so easy for us to just continue living life the way it is…nothing is wrong. But, I know that if we continued down this path, we would wake up one day not really knowing who each other is, and that would suck.

So John and I decided that we need to come up with an activity for us to do. We both really look forward to Wednesday nights when we get together and plan what we’re going to talk about at house church on Friday. So at least we’ll have that tonight. But tomorrow night, or this weekend, we’re going to brainstorm some things for us to do together on another night. Some ideas that we had were: I have my wine kit that John got me for Christmas a few years ago that has never been opened, so we’d like to make some wine; work on some house projects together…there are some corners in the basement that REALLY need organized, and even though it’s work, I really have fun doing projects like that with John; or maybe start a Bible study together.

If anyone out there has any other suggestions of what we could do together for an hour each night, I would really appreciate the input! I just want us to live our lives like we’re in love and have fun with each other, not like we’re roommates!