Dealing with Disappointing Our Kids

Just about a year ago, I watched Roger "compete" (I use this term loosely because it was definitely more about fun than competition) in the 24 Hour Mountain Bike Relay with a group of old friends.  He loved it, the vibe of the whole event was right up my alley, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it too.  Before the race was even over last year, I told Roger I was IN for next year.  I've been excited ever since!

So when it came to race time preparations, we prepared the tent trailer, pumped up tires, lubed chains, prepped food, packed coolers, and headed to claim our spot down at the race venue the day before everything got started.  Roger and I were JACKED!  So excited for the adventure together!

We ended up needing to go down to the park one more time that evening so brought the kids along.  They both love camping and were so excited to see the tent trailer set up!  At this point it became obvious to both of us that our daughter, Emma, was bummed to be "left out" of all of this excitement and adventure.  We tried to explain that it just wasn't going to be a great situation for kids when both parents are racing... especially with the lack of sleep... but she wasn't consoled.

Even the next morning, she was still bargaining to come.  She wasn't willing to compromise and come down for a daytime visit, but wanted to be a part of the whole event and stay overnight.  All or nothing.

So we chose nothing.

Our usually-super awesome kiddo was having a reeeeeeally hard time being selfless and happy for her parents to have this adventure together.  I get it.  She's 10.  It's hard to be selfless period, and much much harder when you're 10.  But it kind of surprised me that even when reminded about the countless swim/cross country/track meets that we have rallied for - her events - she couldn't rally for us.  She was bummed.  We were bummed and disappointed.  I even had a bit of a pit in my stomach.

BUT, we left anyway.  We knew she was in great hands with our niece and parents and left it all behind, even her disappointment.

Because, it's okay to choose us.  In fact, it's good to choose us.

Much of our life revolves around our kids, their needs, and their activities.  We choose them with happy hearts many, many times. We LOVE being active, involved parents.  We wouldn't have it any other way!  However, we've learned the hard way, that there are also times where we need to choose our marriage over our kids.  When Roger and I are close and connected, the whole family is so much better for it! Aside from filling our tanks and helping our marriage thrive, it makes us healthier, happier, and better parents too!

And beyond doing it for me, for us, for our marriage, we are also doing it for our kids.  We are teaching them that they will have an identity beyond being a mommy or daddy and that someday, they too will need to choose their marriage over their kids... and that their relationships and families will be better for it.

10 Lessons We've Learned About Quality Time

I don't really like running all that much and I especially don't like running uphill.

One day while running with Roger, he gave me some great advice.  He said don't sit and stare at the top of the hill, just keep your eyes on what's right in front of you, it never looks as steep.  Great advice for running and for life.

Sometimes when I work on goals, the end goal looks really "steep" and nearly unattainable.  But if I keep my eyes on the baby steps in front of me, it's not nearly as intimidating and somehow it's easier to take those first steps.  It's important to look up to see where I'm headed, but not to stay focused there.

One of the goals we have worked so hard on is spending quality time together.  We mentioned that we work and plan to spend 15 hours a week of time together. That's quite a bit of time if you start to really lay it out on your calendar and can be intimidating at first.

Why 15 hours a week?  Because Dr. Willard Harley recommends that couples need that much time in order to sustain a feeling of being in love.  Roger also loves his obvious statement that people who are in love are never the ones talking about divorce.  Since we don't ever want the "D" word to be in our vocabulary again, we choose to make the time a priority.

We wanted to share some of the steps we've taken and what we've learned along the way to get to 15 hours of quality time a week, something we believe is a critical component in helping our marriage thrive.  It's definitely not a prescription, just sharing what's worked for us.

1) There are no shortcuts and no substitutes to quality time.  When we don't spend the time, our marriage suffers.  We are less connected, less patient, less giving, less intimate, and become increasingly self-centered.

2) Being intentional is KEY.  You can't make it to 15 hours without planning ahead and making arrangements in advance, especially if you have kids.

3) It doesn't have to be a big chunk of time to be meaningful.  We often retreat to our office or bedroom for just 15-20 minutes to reconnect and have some uninterrupted conversation.  We also share coffee and breakfast together most mornings before the kids are up to connect before the day gets started.  It's only about 20 minutes, but it's a great way to start the day.

4) Intentional does not always mean intense.  We have one date night a week planned where we just hang out and have fun.  Sometimes we ride bikes, eat out, go for a walk, enjoy a cup of coffee... play.  Our focus is on enjoying each other and our time together.  No issue resolution, no major kid talk, no scheduling... just FUN.  We laugh, flirt, chat, dream, plan trips... anything that's enjoyable to us both.  It's often on these dates that I'm reminded what an intelligent, handsome, hilarious man I married.

5) It's important for us to have a "business meeting" each week.  We set aside a couple hours every Sunday to sit down and do our family business for the week.  This communication isn't nearly as fun, but is extremely important to the flow and function of our week.  During this time, we go through each day of the upcoming week, share what's on our schedules, talk about our kids' schedules and do a lot of division of household/kid needs. We get specific about pick ups and drop offs so that there are as few miscommunications during the week as possible. This is where we plan out our 15 hours a week and then look at when we can spend quality time with our kids, family, and friends.  We map out time for exercise and other appointments that we have.  We use Google calendar (and share our calendars) so we can know the day's agenda no matter where we are.

6) Keeping the slate clean.  During our "meeting" on Sundays, we also make time to bring up any small conflicts or issues from the week that weren't able to get fully resolved for whatever reason.  This helps keep the issues from compounding and keeps the slate clean.  At first it's hard to ask the question, "How do you feel like we're doing this week?", but even a hard conversation is worth it and brings us closer together.

7) Asking questions (and of course listening to the answers) is a great use of our time together. I've learned so much about Roger from asking questions.  Not just the tough ones, but asking about his goals for the future, dreams for our family, and even what he would like me to pray for him about have led to some great conversations and even changes in our lives.  More on this later, but I love working to be a Roger "expert".

8) Going on dates doesn't have to be expensive.  We do lots of our "dates" at home before the kids wake up and after they go to sleep.  We do trades with friends for babysitting and ask for babysitting from our parents and niece for Christmas and birthdays. A lot of times we go for walks or bike rides (so we can still talk) which doesn't really cost a thing.  Also, we try to do more "coffee dates" instead of dinner dates because it is incredibly less expensive... I've also been known to pack and bring food with us.

9) Getting away is great, but we don't have to go far. Although there's definitely something to be said about the get-away weekend Roger planned for us at Grouse Mountain Lodge complete with flowers, champagne, luxurious meals, and a couples massage... it was awesome... but that is definitely the exception, nowhere close to the norm.  It's special to get-away somewhere new, but not necessary for meaningful quality time.  Often in the summer, you'll find us out on our chaise lounges sharing coffee, our daily devotional and some connection time.  It's not exactly a "get away" but yet, that's exactly what it is.

10) No excuses.  There are a million reasons why we've put our marriage on the back burner.  But we've learned the hard way that NONE of those seemingly critical "emergencies" are as important as the health of our marriage.

When Teammates Aren't Enough

One of the tough reality checks during this process was coming to grips with the fact that our life and priorities were totally out of whack.  

You are married to a good person, you live in a comfortable home, you work in a profession that you enjoy and has meaning,  you love your child, you have your health... what is there to complain about? In a seemingly "great" life, it's hard to really own the fact that although you love the different parts of your life, when you put it all together it's not a life you love.

How does that happen?  How can you love the parts of your life, but not the whole?  It happens when you are not living your life in congruence with your priorities.

It's really easy to say that your relationships with God, your spouse, and your family are the most important things in your life, but are they really?  When you get real about the way you spend your time, how you use your energy, and where you invest your resources, does it match what you say your priorities are?  For us, they didn't.

From the outside, things looked really good.  We were a great team...supporting one another, cheering on one another, covering child care while the other trained, and then swapping.  Sometimes, one would train in the morning and the other would train in the afternoon, then we would grab dinner and sit across from one another on our computers as we answered emails and perused social sites. We were good...training partners...teammates...roommates...but not necessarily a couple.  We mastered the schedule, or rather, the schedule was our master.

Don't get me wrong, having a teammate you can trust and count on and know that they have your back is great...but you typically don't marry them.  You meet them for a few hours a week when the team comes together to figure out how to perform as task as a unit.  But have you ever tried living with your teammates for any duration of time?  "Tolerating" and "being in love with" are pretty far apart on the relationship spectrum.

One of the harsh realities was that there was too much investment in our hobby of triathlon.  We spent a lot of our time, energy, and resources planning, training, racing, traveling, maintaining equipment, logging, communicating with sponsors, volunteering with our triathlon club, putting on events, etc.  Before we knew it, triathlon had the largest piece of our pie.  It became easy to justify because we did lots of our training together, were still very involved parents, traveled as a family, and spent a lot of time with friends during our training.  But that wasn't being honest with ourselves.

We also were guilty of putting our daughter before our marriage.  We found many, many hours to play/read/draw/dress-up/spend time with her, but never made that time for each other.  We sat through every swim practice, every ballet practice, every soccer game, every school conference... we even adjusted our whole lifestyle so that Jessi could stay home 2 days a week with Emma.  But in looking back, we were depriving her of one of the greatest gifts we could ever give her, parents who invested in each other the way we would hope and pray that her spouse would invest in her. 

Truth be told, when we peeled away the excuses, we were failing.

Even though so much of what we were doing was good, even at times great, we weren't honoring God with our commitment to our marriage.  We put each other and our marriage on the back burner and justified it with the fact that we were being good parents by spending quality time with our child, honoring our athletic talents, putting on great community events to promote health and fitness, and volunteering to help children.  

But even great things, when prioritized higher than your marriage, become not-so-great.

So what did we learn from all of this?  When we looked at our calendars and schedules, they should be a reflection of our priorities.  Our children/work/hobbies should not be at the top of the list, even though they are extremely important and an essential piece of the pie.  Giving our marriage the "leftovers" was a critical mistake.

As a part of this amazing journey of rebuilding, we have learned to design our life with our marriage at the forefront, giving our time and energy to that first.  And in doing so, it's amazing how there's more energy for other parts of our lives.  When our marriage is nourished with the energy and time it needs to thrive, we work as a united team and everything else in life just seems better, brighter, happier, and easier to manage.