5 Ways To Reconnect with Your Spouse

J and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this past August. As the girls got older, I thought our lives would be less busy but it seems to be the opposite! 2017 was a year of juggling what I thought was a smooth running household. We don’t use outside childcare so we take turns going to work and working from home to be with the girls (we’ve been doing this since I returned from maternity leave with Liv in 2013). We also take turns taking the girls to their activities. Sometimes I would drop off and he would pick them up on his way to work. We almost always had dinners at home during the week and weekends were basically filled with coffee dates with the Loks and soccer games. There wasn’t much relaxing, let alone, romance. (That word sounds so cheesy!)

What Happened?

Sometime during the year, we hit a winding road and could not find our way out. We had disconnected and that is a difficult situation to be faced with. My BFs reminded me that communication is key in any relationship but my tendency is to shut down when something becomes hard to handle. It took a lot of strength but I ultimately decided the only way to find the exit to this spiral was to get everything out in the open and re-establish ourselves as a couple again. In December, J and I had a good long chat about what was working, what needed our attention and how to reach balance again.

One of those solutions was reconnecting with each other, but that in itself is a challenge. Our busy schedules don’t give us a lot of flexibility: when he’s at work, I’m home (and working during school hours) and when he’s home, I’m working. We have never paid for a babysitter; we usually ask family to watch our kids so we don’t like to take advantage of it. J suggested that we find time to spend together when the girls are at school and I really liked that idea. So today, on the girls’ first day back from winter vacation, we met up for lunch. We asked about each other’s mornings, chatted about house renovations (and disagreements), as well as solutions. When it was time to get back to work, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to spend the rest of the day together before those two sassies get released. Lol.

 

What I Want

After 12 years together, 2 kids and a lot of growing up (I speak for myself), I want our relationship to be strong. Through good times and bad, I want us to stand together as parents, as a couple and as individuals. I want to laugh, have fun and be able to tell him things that bug me until we are old and wrinkly. This is what I want.

How Do We Get There?

So that brings me to ‘date night’. I do not like that term [either] but reconnecting is a must. Here are 5 ideas to reconnect that won’t cost an arm and leg; I’ve rounded them out here on Lindsey’s blog, Delicately Balancing Life.

What do you do to stay connected with your spouse without breaking the bank? Let me know below in the comments.