I’ve been urged to respond to the bad advice that pops up from time to time to put your husband before your children. “The partnership is the cornerstone of the family,” you think, “though this doesn’t feel quite right.” This time around, it is in the form of a gem (insert sarcastic tone) of an article (I use that term loosely) linked at the end of this post, from which I have taken a few quotes to address the most pressing points.

1. “My husband must always come before our children.”

A spouse’s needs should not come first because your spouse is an adult, capable of meeting his or her own needs, whereas a child is completely dependent upon you to meet their needs.

Also, this just reeks of religious patriarchy.

2. “I strongly believe that modeling a healthy relationship for our children sets the foundation for how they form bonds when they get older.”

Having a relationship with your partner that exists separately from your children fails to provide role modeling a healthy marital relationship because they don’t actually see anything but you two walking out the door.

3. “In a few years, our son and daughter will leave our home and when they do, I want to celebrate a job well done with my lover-not sit in a quiet house with a person who has become a stranger…”

Your relationship with your children does last the rest of your entire life. Your children can become your closest of friends in adulthood. They can endlessly enrich your life as they expand their own families. You can relive the best parts of parenting without the day-to-day struggle as a grandparent. They are the ones who will be caring for you when you are old. The devoted love you build them upon today will be matched at the other end of your life cycle. Children are not a short-term investment.

4. “… you will not find our kids in our bed at night. If we can only afford to take one vacation a year, we take it alone, and I feel no guilt about soliciting the help of family so that we can have a date night where we talk about anything but our children.”

Nurturing your children and nurturing your partner are not mutually exclusive! We can invest in our marriages while we invest in our children (and ourselves).

This is the crux for me. You are better off investing your resources (attention, energy, money, time) into creating a life in which you, your marriage, and your children are all nourished.

Is more alone time with your partner or children the answer?

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”

Seth Godin

Is there anything wrong with taking a vacation? Absolutely not. But the goal should be to live a life that continually nourishes you, as opposed to living a life that depletes you and then needing to get away from it.

Related Side Note: Once my mother left me behind and went on a vacation with her husband to Hawaii. That marriage ended (because as much as we don’t like to admit it, relationships with spouses often do end while relationships with children rarely do) and now she is stuck with a resentful daughter.

The other day I had a lovely afternoon with my 3-year-old while my husband was at work and my 6 and 9-year-old were at the learning center. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying times in the different dynamics of the various people in your life that occur naturally to everyone’s benefit.

The problem arises when you need those times to maintain your connection.

This issue falls under the same category as everyone espousing “more alone time” when you have a newborn, “more special days” with one child when you have another, or “more date nights” when your marriage is not in a good place.

Compartmentalization is not sustainable.

Integration is how you honor the fullness of who you are.

So the question becomes how to nurture those various aspects of ourselves as one integrated being. Our society likes to keep everything separate and boxed. You are a lawyer. Then you are a mother. Then you are a wife.

I call bullshit.

People are not happy when they have to wall themselves apart. It is not sustainable and no one’s needs are fully met. If I have to neglect my children and abandon my journey of self-actualization to nurture my husband’s attachment needs, then it is not going to work. If you are disjointed, you have to choose either/or.

We need to INTEGRATE. Integration begets authentic connection. I strive to help families with this as they transition from a couple to a family through my work but there is no magic bullet.

The suggestion of putting your husband at the top is a weight loss pill in place of a healthy lifestyle. Whatever the “need,” there is a way to meet it wherever you are because that peace has to come from within.

It’s not waiting for you at your vacation hotel. It’s not on the dinner table at a fancy restaurant. It’s right there, wherever you are, for the taking.

What it looks like to honor everyone’s needs.

Right now I am sitting in my backyard alongside my husband. I am writing this article while he is painting on canvas and our legs are affectionately entangled. We are chatting about topics that organically flitter like the breeze around us: California’s water crisis, pasta, and then a newly acquired scar. Our three little ones are running all around us, jumping on us for a hug, running past for a high five, passing us an object for assistance, and talk-yelling exciting recaps of their backyard adventures.

I am not choosing a person priority. I am not wearing an occupational hat to indicate a present role. I am my wholly integrated self in all the ways that feed my soul while meeting the needs of those I love.

The key to a long, healthy, happy marriage is not a commitment to remain the same (staying the way you were before you had children) but evolving as you move through various life stages.

Do you lovingly help each other to be your best selves and add joy to each other’s lives while you are getting to know yourselves in early adulthood … while you are focused on caring for dependent young children … while you are helping adolescents to launch … while you are exploring the world as a twosome?

It’s the flexibility that leads to success, not the rigidity. You were both reborn as parents. You will now need to connect in new ways that incorporate your new selves.

If you want to learn more . . .

Listen to this Peaceful Partnership episode of the Sage Family Podcast. 

Link here to credit the quotes. Please don’t click it as I do not wish to send traffic to the site propagating this message.