Two of my cousins recently came to visit. They stayed with my grandma and I went to see them on their first evening in town. I left immediately after putting my baby to bed, leaving my husband home to take care of bedtimes for my two older boys so I could go visit on my own, enjoying some adult-time with my family. And I was very grateful to him so I could have that time.
I had a lovely little evening with my cousins and grandma. We played cards, laughed a lot, caught up on each other’s lives, and had a good time.
At one point in the conversation they asked about my husband which led to two different topics:
First, we discussed how my husband doesn’t particularly like water-based activities and that I was trying to convince him to attend and enjoy our next family reunion which will be at the beach. My one cousin looked a little surprised when I said that my husband and I felt oppositely about water activities, that he doesn’t really care for pools, lakes, and beaches, but I love them.
Second, a little later I described my husband’s recent trip to pick up more teletypes, his favorite old-timey machines, and I explained his love of collecting, repairing, and preserving such machines. It’s a bit of an odd hobby and often needs some explaining, so I wasn’t that surprised when my cousin didn’t even know what a teletype machine is or why someone would want to collect them.
Just like before with the beach conversation (although I didn’t see it at the time), I pointed out that my husband and I are very opposite in this factor: he loves and collects these old machines while I…don’t.
Then my cousin looked at me. “So what do you and your husband like to do together?”
The question took me completely by surprise. Why would he ask something like that? What on earth did he mean?
Looking back, it’s much easier to see where he got that idea: I’d just listed two examples where mine and my husband’s interests were exactly opposite, completely incongruent.
I’m not particularly close with this cousin of mine and I hadn’t seen him for several years, mostly due to our significant age differences and the fact that we live in different states. I don’t think he’s actually seen my husband in person at all since our wedding. Since he doesn’t know my husband, this conversation and me sharing these two items were really his only basis for understanding us and our relationship.
So yes, now in hindsight I completely understand his question. All I told him was that my husband doesn’t like swimming with me and I don’t like collecting teletype machines with him.
“So what do you and your husband like to do together?”
I have a rule of marriage that I really try to hold to and it’s this: Always talk positively about your spouse to other people. I honestly truly try to uphold this and whenever people ask about my husband or our relationship, I always answer with a positive response. I want my friends and family to actually like and get along with my husband, believe it or not, and I don’t want their views of him colored because I vented some small annoyance to them once upon a time. So when asked, I always try to emphasize the good between us.
(Note: yes, there may be a time if you are really struggling with your relationship to seek outside help and share the negative and difficult aspects of your marriage. But that’s usually for extreme cases, and in such cases, casual catching-up kinds of conversations with old friends and family is neither the time nor place for such things. That should be something that you take very seriously and only discuss privately with someone you trust.)
Unfortunately it seemed like I accidentally broke my rule on this particular evening. But I most certainly didn’t mean to. I didn’t speak in a degrading tone or roll my eyes or anything. I didn’t say that I hated that he didn’t want to go to the beach, or that I was so ticked off that he brought more machines home for his collection. Far from it.
I simply spoke honestly: when my other cousin asked if he was still opposed to the beach, I said that yes he was, but that I’m trying to convince him. When they asked what he’d been up to lately, I said that he went on a trip to pick up more machines.
Unfortunately, all that seemed to boil down to one conclusion for my second cousin: we don’t share hobbies and disapprove of each other’s.
“So what do you and your husband like to do together?”
I hate to say that I handled the question horribly.
Like I said, I was really caught off guard by his question, mostly because I didn’t understand where it came from. So I kind of stuttered and paused for too long of a moment. “We like to do all sorts of things together,” I finally answered, but then I drew an enormous blank.
“Uh, I guess we watch a lot of movies,” I eventually dredged up, but the answer sounded hollow and stupid, even to me. Was that all our relationship had been reduced to, just watching movies?
But even as I said it I knew it wasn’t entirely true: yes, we enjoy watching movies together, but we actually don’t do it very often, only a few times a month. So what did we do together in between that?
I still came up blank, and so I said the very next thing that popped into my brain and out of my mouth before I could stop it:
“We have three kids. We don’t date anymore.”
It came off as silly and sarcastic and so we all laughed it off, but it still felt like the wrong answer to me. Well, it’s not wrong so much as it was…not right. No, we don’t often go out for formal dates–due to the three small children, of course–but we still do things together. But what?
So I kept trying to answer, but I felt like I just made it worse.
“We both like hiking,” I offered, but realized no, we hadn’t done much hiking since our kids were born, and we hadn’t gone just the two of us in years.
“We like seeing shows, musicals and things.” But no again; we hadn’t done that nearly at all again since having kids. And even then, those were rare and special occasions. And I’m actually the one who likes musicals more, while my husband kindly tolerates them for me.
“He’s really into guns and has a few new ones. We’ve been meaning to go shooting together.” Great, a date-night-plan that’s never come to fruition. And just like the musicals, guns are his hobby that I kindly tolerate.
Finally I really tried to think hard: what exactly do we do together in the evenings after the boys are asleep?
“Well,” I finally came up with, “We have a lot of similar hobbies, but they’re…you know…individual kind of things. Like we both like writing and keeping our personal histories…that sort of thing. So we don’t really do those things together, but we do them on our own computers while we sit together…” But I just kind of trailed away with that one.
Really, I thought it sounded pathetic, and wasn’t at all a good glimpse into our married life.
My grandma jumped into the conversation and bailed me out. “Well, it’s that sort of thing that actually lasts,” she said. “Sometimes it’s nice to just sit together.”
The conversation moved on to other topics and I still enjoyed my evening, but that question kept nagging at the back of my mind for the rest of the night.
When was the last time we went on a date, like a real date? Do I even remember? Didn’t we swear to each other when we were newlyweds that we wouldn’t drop that part of our relationship, that we’d still prioritize dating and enjoying each other for the rest of our lives? Have we really succumbed to our children? Have they really destroyed our dating lives so easily like little demanding tyrants? Have we become a lame stereotype?
Have I failed?
And of course, had I given this unmarried cousin of mine the absolute worst impression of marriage ever?
I stewed and stewed on this topic for a good long while, mostly feeling bad about myself for apparently having dropped the ball in regards to our dating life.
And seriously, what do my husband and I like to do together?
Well I finally came to the answer, the correct answer that I wish I’d been able to give to my cousin that evening.
To Everything There is a Season
When we were newlyweds, without children, we went on dates every single Friday; we rarely missed a week. And how I cherish those memories! Long walks, bike rides, hiking, making silly movies, baking treats, long drives up the mountains, overnight campouts, seeing concerts, playing games, sharing our traditions, listening to audiobooks, doing holiday activities, and using up all the gift cards we got as wedding presents. And talking, talking, talking through all of it.
But being a newlywed without children was only a season of our lives, and there was a lot of good to enjoy during that season. That freedom for dating so passionately, intensely, and often was one of the best parts of those almost-two years.
I loved that time. We were spontaneous and silly. We were open and adventurous. We stayed out as late as we wanted and traveled as far as our hearts told us to. We had so much fun. We fell so much more in love. We bonded very deeply. We built a great, happy start to our marriage, a foundation that we look back on very happily.
And then that season ended with the birth of our first baby boy. All seasons are, after all, temporary.
Since then, in terms of formal, going-out dates, our options are very limited and dependent on a babysitter. We can’t be spontaneous at all, and we definitely have to be home in time to relieve said babysitter.
With this most recent exception: My mom came to visit about a month ago and helped me with some projects around the house for the whole afternoon. That evening she very kindly offered to stay with our boys while my husband and I went out for dinner together. It was very spontaneous and very kind of her, and we were grateful for the opportunity. And we had a great time together. Thanks, Mom!
But even that story highlights the issue here: going-out dates are a rare and extra-special thing that we are especially grateful for because of its rarity. We always make a special going-out date for our wedding anniversary (June 6) and the anniversary of our first date (November 1), and for our birthdays, but that’s about it.
Yes, having small children really limits our going-out dating options. In fact, having small children really limits a lot of other activities as well, such as that night visiting with my cousins when I had to leave my husband home with the children and go without him.
But having small children is the season of my life now. I’m a young mother and I have three boys ages 4, 2, and 1. My life revolves around a lot of diaper changes, mealtimes, baths, bedtime routines, play dates, preschool, and cleaning up. Always cleaning up.
I also handle a lot of tantrums with such little ones. That’s hard. I endure very irritating whining. I kiss a lot of bonks better. I start folding laundry just to have my youngest come throw the folded clothes around the room. I clean pee off the bathroom floor when my recently-potty-trained oldest misses the toilet. I wash sticky hands and I wash sticky handprints off my furniture and walls. I wipe runny noses. I argue over peas and broccoli. I make a lot of mac and cheese…and get sick of a lot of mac and cheese. I sweep endless graham cracker crumbs from the floor. I get up in the middle of the night if anyone cries from a bad dream.
Most nights, as soon as they all are asleep, I collapse onto the couch and barely have the energy to veg out over YouTube. Then I crash and wake up and do it all again the next day.
Dating my husband? When?
That’s my life with little ones. That’s the season I’m in right now.
But that’s only half of the story. That’s only the unpleasant parts of what life is like with littles. Here’s the other half:
I get the best hugs. I get to see my two-year-old’s eyes light up when he discovers something new and exciting–he’s just now understanding concepts like birthdays and Halloween, and his excitement for them is contagious. My one-year-old lays his head on my shoulder for good night snuggles and I get to kiss the back of his little neck. Then he waves goodnight to me from his crib, his little wrist rotating back and forth, and my heart melts. I get to be the first one my four-year-old wants to show his artwork to, and I burst with pride when I recognize the shapes and letters he’s mastering so quickly (his pictures are very distinct now and he especially loves to draw pirate ships topped with skull-and-crossbones flags, sometimes lots of flags when he gets excited). My boys crawl onto my lap and snuggle deep into the crooks of my arms whenever I read stories and I get to sit close to them. I get their precious little kisses. I get to tell my two-year-old Peter Pan before he goes to sleep many nights, and he nearly bursts with joy and acts out with me how the children rise up and fly after being sprinkled with fairy dust. I get the light and thrill in my baby’s face when he sees me after being babysat and he reaches and reaches for me; nothing makes you feel more special. I give horsey rides across the family room and I get to hear and cherish the ringing laughter and squeals of delight. I rub noses with the soft skin of my little one-year-old and I get to bask in his softness.
Best of all, I get the, “I wuv you too!” every night from my sleepy boys after I tuck them in and kiss them goodnight.
This is the season of my life: babies and small children. It’s hard work, both physically and emotionally, but it’s also the most rewarding work I’ve ever done. There are hard parts and there are sweet, tender parts that I hope never ever go away.
But I know that they will. I know that the snuggles and giggles and kisses will go away one day. And I also know that they’ll be replaced with other good things, different good things. Good things like having more freedom and time to date my husband in that spontaneous, exciting way.
Because if you say things like, “I’ll be happy when my new baby sleeps through the night,” then you’ll get to that moment and realize that you’ve also lost those precious newborn coos and the newborn cuddles on your chest and the newborn teeny tiny fingers wrapped around yours. Oh how my heart misses those newborn things.
And suddenly you’ll wake up to find that you’ve wished your life away. “I’ll be happy when…I’ll be happy when…I’ll be happy when…”
All seasons have good and bad to them, pros and cons. Finding happiness to life, I’ve learned, is choosing to focus on the good while it’s happening, and remember that the hard things are only temporary. Don’t wish your life away thinking, “I’ll be happy when…” or “I wish I could go back to…” There is no when. There is no going back. There is now.
Enjoy the good. Focus on the good. It won’t last forever.
Endure the hard, the tantrums and the poopy diapers. It also won’t last forever.
Obviously, this young-mother season of my life has a huge impact on my being able to date my husband.
Would I want to go back to that newlywed season? No, actually. I discovered a great purpose in being a mother, and while I sacrificed some freedoms in that discovery, I wouldn’t want to go back, except through pictures and happy reminiscing.
But the statement still stands: This current season I’m in, this one based on babies and littles, is not the time for that same free and passionate dating life that my husband and I once shared and loved so much. We can’t have things exactly the same as they were. Things are different now.
But here’s the biggest kicker: Different doesn’t mean bad.
Bonding Over Non-Dates
Now that being said, just because my husband and I don’t often have regular sit-down going-out formal date dates, doesn’t mean that we don’t bond in other ways. Our relationship is still growing and progressing, even if we don’t label that evening as A Date.
So what do we actually do together?
I’ll address this question strictly in terms of after-bedtimes, no-children-allowed time. Our oldest goes to bed at 9:00, and so after that we usually have about two or three hours until we ourselves go to bed. It’s not much, but it’s time I cherish.
Firstly, yes, we watch movies.
Sometimes when we are both exhausted and stressed, we like to just collapse together on the couch and watch a movie while eating secret ice cream that we swore to our boys wasn’t in the back of the freezer.
It sounds simple, but I love those carefree, laid back evenings. We enjoy a lot of the same kinds of movies, particularly ones that spark lots of conversation and critical thinking, and are full of allegory and symbolism…and sword fights. Every great movie should have a sword fight somewhere, right?
That may not be A Date, but it’s still bonding.
Second, we manage our home.
Movie nights with secret ice cream, as fun as they are, are unfortunately less common for us. Believe it or not, but we’re adults and homeowners, and that’s time-consuming stuff. We spend a majority of our nights together discussing upcoming plans and schedules, working in our yard or unfinished basement, cleaning up after the day and washing dishes, folding laundry, checking the cars, and all of those adult things.
It sounds boring, and yes, that kind of stuff typically is. But in a special way, it’s still bonding for us because we’re doing it together. Marriage is about more than just gazing into each other’s eyes and drowning in cheesey romance. I like those things, yes, but that’s only one part of marriage.
Marriage is about sharing a life and building a home together. So when we’re making plans for our basement or cleaning out something or organizing our stuff, we’re still bonding over that, working as a married team, planning our future together, and falling more in love…just in a less obvious way.
Third, we pursue our hobbies.
I also mentioned this to my cousin, even though I felt like it sounded lame at the time: we both have a lot of interests and hobbies that are done individually, but we still sit together while we do them.
I do a lot of writing (for my novel, my journal, and my blog), and scrapbooking (both digitally and with paper). I also spend a lot of my nights planning kid activities and prepping our preschool stuff. My husband also writes a lot, and he also likes to tinker with his machines, make videos, program interesting things on his computer, work on his online masters degree, and currently he’s digitizing all his family’s old documents and pictures.
These are all things we do individually, but as much as possible we are together when we do so. I often take my laptop down to his office if he’s working on something down there, or he’ll sit with his computer on one corner of the kitchen table in a single spot where my crafty papers aren’t spread all over. Or we’ll sit together with our computers on the couch and just enjoy being in close proximity to each other, enjoying the calm of a quiet house…and our secret ice cream, of course.
This is still bonding, and it’s still something we do together.
It’s also important to note that while we work on our projects individually, we discuss them together all the time. My husband loves to describe his latest teletype project to me, even if I don’t understand most of the vocabulary that goes along with it. He’s a very passionate man and I still love seeing his eyes light up when he gets talking about something so exciting to him, even if I don’t get the appeal of that old-timey machine. And I talk to him so endlessly about my work-in-progress novel that he actually can’t read it for me because he knows the twists and turns too deeply to give any genuine feedback. We talk and talk and talk and talk about our passions and interests and projects all the time. And I love that too.
These kinds of activities, I realized, may not be Dates but are still ways that we spend time together and grow our relationship. And I still value these small, after-bedtime hours we have together as much as I valued our spontaneous and exciting going-out dates during our newlywed years. That’s not something I need to feel like a failure for.
Bonding as a Family
After this conversation with my cousin, I felt bad that I couldn’t answer satisfactorily and pondered on the question for several days. The very next morning I asked my husband the same question, without any preamble or context, just to see what his answer would be.
“What do we like to do together?”
He didn’t fumble or stutter or pause at all. He rattled off a whole list of things right off the bat without any push or reminders from me. Yes, he very quickly listed our movie nights and sitting together on the couch working on our own projects.
But he also listed more. Road trips up the canyons for picnics, walks around the neighborhood, bike rides, visiting our extended families, traveling, going to the park, all sorts of things!
However, that entire list was of family things we like to do together with our boys in tow, not just things that the two of us do alone at night together. Still, the list is accurate: those are indeed all things that we like to do together with our boys.
It wasn’t exactly the answer I was expecting because my brain had gone so completely into the Formal-Date-Answers-Only mode, which is of course why I came up blank.
But it got me thinking. Do those family activities count? Are we still bonding, growing, and falling in love when we haul the boys in a bike trailer behind us? Or when we strap them into the Jeep and drive up the canyon for an afternoon of exploring and snacking? It’s not A Date in the same way that getting a babysitter and going out to dinner is, but do we get the same end result?
In many ways, yes!
Let’s be perfectly clear here: yes of course we’d get more one-on-one talking time if we were alone without our children. When we take our boys out on these family outings and activities, our activities also involve a lot of potty breaks, snacks, and hauling our massive baby carrier around. It takes some work to take kids on an outing and it’s not the same as if we went alone. That’s fine. It’s the season of my life, remember? And it’s temporary.
Regardless, my husband and I are still bonding when we are parenting together. We’re still making memories together, still working as a team, and still enjoying each other’s company. Just like how I described earlier how maintaining our home together also grows our relationship, maintaining our family is very much the same concept–it takes work, but is beautifully rewarding.
And most importantly, we’re doing it together.
As I thought about this concept further, it reminded me how much more deeply I’ve fallen in love with my husband since we became parents. I spoke about finding my own calling and purpose in motherhood, and my husband agrees in his own discovery of fatherhood. It has changed both of us and continues to do so every day.
And best of all, this journey of discovery and change as we navigate parenting is done together. We’re learning how to best fit our boys’ needs, we’re supporting each other, we’re sharing all those happy and tender moments with our boys…together! And as we grow closer with our children and closer as a family, my husband and I grow closer too.
I love watching my husband be a father. He’s very involved with our boys; he gets on the floor to roughhouse and play, he reads them stories, he plays games with them, he chases them around the yard, he loves sharing his own passions with them, and he helps put them to bed every night.
A big highlight for my two older boys last month was when we put up our tent in the backyard and they had a campout with Dad. They ate smores and lots of other treats, played hide-and-seek around the yard, goofed around in the tent, watched a movie together on my husband’s laptop, and slept all snuggled up out there. My boys had a blast and have been asking and asking when they can have another backyard campout.
I wasn’t involved with any of this activity, by the way, besides helping to set up the tent. But then I went inside, put the baby to bed, and enjoyed a very peaceful night all to myself. This was a boys-only thing, and I was happy to let them have that. So this wasn’t a whole family activity, but it still made me love and appreciate my husband so much more, watching him play with our boys and give them this extra special memory. I wasn’t sitting there holding his hand through it all, and it most certainly wasn’t A Date for us in any way, shape, or form, but the experience still made me fall more deeply in love with him.
The Moral of the Story
I initially felt really disappointed in myself when I thought that I’d wrecked mine and my husband’s dating life. How could I have dropped the ball so monumentally?
But as I’ve pondered this issue, I’ve happily come to this conclusion: just because my husband and I don’t often go on formal date Dates, doesn’t mean that we aren’t still building and enjoying our relationship. We still spend time together, just in a different way that better suits our current season of life. We still grow together, learn together, work together, and fall in love together. We’re living our lives together, and that’s the best part of marriage.
