So, how important do you think your relationship is compared to the importance of your children? And what percentage effort do you expend on each do you think?

[WideWebWitch]

Following on from this thread (about leaving a small baby to go away with husband), where we started talking about parents needs compared to childrens needs, I'm interested to know how important people think parents needs are.

What priority do you and your partner/husband/wife give to your relationship compared to that you give your children? Can you put a percentage on it in terms of time/effort?

And when you think about the time you spend with and on your children as opposed to with your partner do you think you've got it about right or do you wish you had more time to spend with your husband/partner/wife (if you're a bloke)? Or do you wish you had more time with your children?

For us, we did every thing together in the 10 years we were together pre ds.
lovely holidays, weekends away etc, we were then ready to switch focus on our son.
we did this easily and comfortably and now we are both 100% for our son and a family life.
could not put real percentage on it, we are not that bothered about time alone, its nice when it happens but we dont feel cheated out of it or any thing like that.

Well Good luck to you moljam, I hope you manage to work things out.

Interesting...

I think happy parents makes for happy children, so it's important to make time for yourselves, however how much time should that be? Not only do you have to make time for your other half, but you need to have a bit of "me time" too.

Obv the extremes are the parents who never go anywhere or do anything without their kids. You have to wonder what they will do when their kids eventually leave home as the only thing they seem to have in common is their children.

Then there are those couples who leave the children with nanny, even taking nanny on holiday so they don't have to look after the kids. They seem quite happy to let other people do the child-rearing whilst they concentrate on each other's happiness.

We both work (my p/t job starts on Monday), so that is our individual time. Weekends are mainly family time but around once a month we like to get a babysitter in so we can go out together. We even managed a weekend away this year whilst the kids were at grannies.

The amount of time you spend with them changes as they get older too. When ours were babies we spent all our time with them, now they are 3 and 7 and at that age when we can leave them overnight or even a weekend with grandparents. Of course teenagers need even less time.

I do think kids need time apart from parental influence too so they can discover their individuality and independance. However some parents just don't want their kids to be independant or individual do they?

I have just started another thread about couples who spend 24/7 together because of being in business together. This is interesting to read to see that most NMer have a division between home and work and family time. Mines all blurred and it is very hard!

I do find this interesting. Do those of you who spend very little time with your husbands/partners worry that you won't have a marriage to go back to? Or do you just think it'll be ok in the end?

I am genuinely interested btw, that wasn't meant to sound confrontational.

I just KNEW this was your thread www from the title!!! Will read it now!

Dp has a friend who he plays golf with- this man is 40 and has 3 teenage daughters- he told dp that now the girls are older and doing their own thing- he and his wife are struggling with their relationship.

It appears that everything has been centred around the girls and they have lost what they had when they first met- they are trying to keep it together but he says its difficult.

How about time for themselves too? When their children leave, do they think they'll be able to 'find' themselves again? Some women throw themselves so completely into the mother role that they seem to lose recognition of who they are as individuals. I'm interested to read other people's take on this.

Good thread www.

I can't really put it into a percentage of time/effort, but it's more an understanding, a demonstration where possible, that we are a partnership.

We are making a major move in order to hopefully improve our marriage and family life in terms of the time we can spend together both as a couple and a family.

Children are a blessing, not a given, but you promised things to your spouse as well, and first. At some level, those vows must be honoured.

Children, after all, leave home, move away, die (unfortunately), don't want to have anything to do with you, etc.

My parents have an extremely happy marriage. I think this was a truly superior lesson we learned from them - how a husband and wife should treat each other. That's just as important to kids as any time you spend with them, IMO.

My mum and dad were a team. We knew it would do no good to go to the other parent if one had told us one thing, because they'd always back each other up.

As my dad said, 'I married your mother, not you. You were given to us by God, and God willing, you will go on to live a full and happy life. But I'll still be married to your mother. I promised myself to her first.'

Ok, have skim read it (going out to cinema later, sadly WITHOUT dh).

I think it is really important to work on the relationship between husband/partner and wife etc. The relationship with children in my opinion takes care of itself - it is more of a predatory relationship, in that if left to its own devices, may gobble up every other relationship you have.

I was talking about this with dd's godmother the other day - we got married around the same time, and each have 3 children, similar ages. She had observed how many of our friends' marriages were dissolving, largely because of the pressures children put on it, and we both agreed that NOW was the time we really had to put the work in, have some child free time together, and preferably some free nights. I'm going to see if I can leave at least the older 2 at my parents for a few days (will take a LOT of organising though), I think ds2 is too little to leave with them (he is 16 months, but doesn't know them particularly well, as they live 300 miles away, if he saw them every week I think it would be ok).

What I'd really like to do is go to a hotel with dh for 2 nights, with no children, but atm funds prohibit that (i.e. no money!). We did go out the other evening leaving the children with my mum who was visiting, and it was amazing, we didn't have to take colouring books, a buggy, snacks, reading books, change of clothes, change of nappies etc.

Its not something I can even begin to quantify or measure. DH loves seeing DD happy and so when I put effort into DD I see it as effort into the family and therefore effort for DH too. I honestly believe he sees it that way too. If we take DD out together that is often quality couple time too as DD plays and we talk and joke and cuddle etc. On the other hand if we leave DD for an evening to go for a nice meal or something then we are doing that for her as well as for us. We will have fun and be happier the next day and she will have fun with her grandparents etc.

What I am trying to say is our happiness is interdependent. Effort to benefit one of us usually benefits all.

adults have their own resources though, children are dependent for quite a long time. so for me (us) ds comes mainly first, but of course we have our own needs individually and as a couple. couple bit is sort of sated by parenting though.

I worry about my marriage constantly because we're both well aware that the children come first and that most of our time and energy is put into them.

I think marriages often run into difficulties after children come along because before babies, we have a tendency to devote an awful lot of time to our partners. We pamper them and run after them and attend to their whims and then along comes this little person who takes all that away. Men often find this shift difficult and that can lead to trouble.

But, having said that, it's important to spend time on each other. It's important to do things the other will enjoy. It's important not to fall into the trap of just being mummy and daddy. (I know a couple who call each other this-YUCK!!!)

In answer to the OP, I'd say 80% kids at the moment as they're both pre-school but I don't envisage it staying that way.

For me, the important thing is to frequently give each other a glimmer of a reminder of why you married each other. It keeps you going.

That's interesting, seeing it described as a predatory relationship TS. Ikwym. I'm really interested in all these posts, it's fascinating finding out what people feel about this.

I'd love to hear from some men too - what do you think? All of you (women) who say 'my dh sees time with ds/dd as the same as time with me/or it means he doesn't need me to spend time with him' - are you sure?

iput 100% into the relationships in my family.

i cannot seperate them out.

if the question were who do you love more?

i could instictively answer my children.

but i do ove my husband - i love my 'unit' i love my family.

therefore if i am ailing mentally or physically i may at any time during the year put effort into me.

i am part of the family. Should i have depression or should i be v. ill this is detrimental to the unit as a whole.

the same can be said of the mariage part of the unit. should that at any time in any one year be found to be in difficulty - i would expect us both to put more of an effort into that part of the unit at any one time - for a particular amount of time until the family unit as a whole is right again.

the same can be said of the children and the many troubles they have through out the year.

should one child be found to be in trouble then that child would for a short amount of time get more attention into solving their problems until the unit is right again.

this is a fluid process. a process that is not dependant on me alone doing the fixing of the unit.

as you know i recently lost my mum. My whole unit put their emotional and physical selves into helping me and supporting me.

this to me is family.

the way that this relates to the link that was posted in the OP is -

should i have an 8 week old baby and i thought that it would better serve the family unit to go away have copius amounts of sex and show my dh that i loved him and to allow him to show me he loved me. if i did this for a short amount of time - say a week or so and I personally thought that this would not be detrimental to the physical or emotional wellbeing of my child ( as i do believe from the information given in that thread) them i would do this.

emotional investment in any family member at any time from each of us in each other rather depends on the happiness and travesties that life decides to throw our way.

we are a unit. rather like the BORG we are individuals part of the colletive

DH is nice enough but only tangentially relevant insofar as he is the father of my children, makes some financial contribution, and makes me laugh occasionally.

I also think that other men are very important too. For instance right now I'm having a torrid and purely sexual fling with George Clooney, this is good for my sex life, good for dh as he doesn't have to make the effort, good for the kids as I'm constantly in a good mood and great for George as he gets to shag me!

My position is that I consider my marriage as important as my children. It's important for my emotional health and my happiness. And if dh and I are happy then I reckon we're better parents: we have more patience, more energy and a higher tolerance to draw on when it's hard.

Sometimes in our house I compete with the children for dh's attention or dh and the children compete for mine. And I think the adults usually win, so we'll say 'ok, ds/dd, what do you want?, give it to them quickly (as it's often something practical) and then dh and I sneak off to talk. Sometimes we go and chat in our room too or go outside but again, I realise we're lucky in that the children do entertain themselves very well and so it's possible. And at the weekends/evenings then dh may spend time with both of them while I do something or I will while he does something. Or we do quite a lot of stuff all together, which makes us all happy. I don't want to suggest that we don't do stuff all 4 of us together, because we do.

I do realise that Dh and I are lucky in that we have my ex ILs (so my first husband's mother, who is equally lovely with both children although she's not related to dd) who will come and stay so we do get to go off and stay in hotels sometimes. Plus ds is away every other weekend with his dad (dh#1) so every other weekend we only have one small girl to deal with, which is easy peasy.

Although we haven't been away that often (5 times without children? Something like that) in the last 4 years since dd was born, before that we had every other weekend, when ds was away, which was just me and dh and that was lovely.

We both work ft oth so we talk on the phone at lunchtime too and that's uninterrupted conversation. And we have dinner together most nights so talk then too.

I hope this doesn't sound smug, I am very happily married but I do realise that this makes me lucky (second time lucky in fact) and I also realise that we've only been together 7 years so really it's quite a young relationship.

Having said that we've coped with a major bereavement (my dad), unemployment (both of us), poverty, moving house (4 times), new jobs, new baby, new cities (three times) and so far we've got through it and stayed happy.

I think I thought I would be more consumed by my children tbh and I didn't expect to think like this because it didn't fit my idea of how a mother SHOULD be. I love them madly and I would lie down and die if it would save their lives but I still think my relationship and happiness is important too.

(helenelisabth, I'm really touched to hear that!)

My parents had kids almost as soon as they married and, sadly divorced as soon as eldest left home.

TBH the signs were always there.

Its not just about weekends away and nights out, its about taking care of each other.

Not nagging, criticising, bickering. Not spending all evening doing your own thing (incld MN).

DCs need to see you snogging.

This is hard to do.
(not the snogging, the other stuff)

Lovely post and well put Custy. I agree about whoever needs it most getting what they need.

(I like the idea of being the Borg queen too But nicer, obv)

'My position is that I consider my marriage as important as my children. It's important for my emotional health and my happiness. And if dh and I are happy then I reckon we're better parents'

I couldn't agree more!

My parents lived by this philosophy whilst we were growing up and they are still happily married at 43 years this past June.

I think it's really important that parents make their marriage a priority because it's how kids learn not only how to treat a partner in a relationship but also what isn't at all on in a healthy, mature relationship.

They learn, too, the importance of a promise, of giving your word, of duty, of respect, of commitment.

Lots of things that are incredibly valuable.

Pretty much all of our time and energy is spent on the kids, and the five of us as a family. We don't have family nearby who can help out, so we're resigned to it. It would be nice to have more time to ourselves, but we both know that it's not forever, and we have a strong enough marriage to cope with it.
My dad was not at all interested in us as children, and dh's parents were very much a couple, with not much time spent with him and his sister. DH and I were determined that we didn't want to repeat that.

kids get 99% our relationship gets 1% and is pretty much fkd atm because of it