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Married with Children: Keeping the Fire Alive

Married with Children: Keeping the Fire Alive

Last updated on September 30th, 2021 at 10:16 am

My husband and I have been married 19 years as of May 2014. We have four beautiful and healthy children that we are thankful for everyday. We were only married one month when we discovered we were expecting our oldest son. We weren’t planning to get pregnant, but if it happened it happened, so we were excited when we found out. One and a half years later we were expecting our daughter. Time flew past us, it seemed, in a blink of an eye. Before we knew it my son was in kindergarten and my daughter in preschool.

parentsmomdad6Like I imagine all couples do, we had our differences and so we argued from time to time. But looking back now I realize this was just a part of our “growing together”. This is a stage that I now realize all couples must go through. You start out as two separate individuals with different personalities and sometimes those differences can clash until you learn to accept that this is just a part of your partner. And eventually we did learn to love those differences about each other.

When the twins came along our oldest was 15 and my daughter 13. We realized that the age gap was quite substantial but the older kids were ecstatic about the newest additions and this made the transition go along pretty smoothly.

Bringing the Twins Home

Suffice it to say that when our twins came home from the NICU we were both walking in a bit of a blur. We made all the motions and nodded when an answer was required but in all honesty those first six months we barely remembered our own names. My hubby took a little time off when they came home but soon he had to go back to work and so I took it upon myself to get up at night with the twins because I could sleep during the day when the babies napped (bless you NICU nurses for putting them on schedule!) So after up-all-night feedings and one poopie diaper after another the days sort of ran into each other. One on one time for hubby and I was nearly non-existent. We saw each other but I don’t think I even realized he was in the room with me half the time the first 3 or 4 months in. Like I said…the blur was in effect at this time.

parentsmomdad4Six months later I was able to lift my head and look around me and I realized…I missed my husband. I missed our snuggling on the couch watching ridiculous cop shows. I missed him just smiling at me and saying I love you (not to say he didn’t say that…I just don’t REMEMBER it…the fog remember?) I missed his smell, his gravelly voice as I laid my head on his chest, and I was terribly sad that I had let it go this long. I immediately called my mother in tears and she instantly agreed…we needed a night out! “Me time” was about to commence!

We went out and we flirted with each other like we were teenagers again. We laughed, drank adult beverages, and yes…we had US time. It was fantastic. I was still a parent though. I still had responsibilities and so I think for a while I let being a wife sit on the back burner and being a mom sit on the front. I wonder now if my husband minded that? Was he just patiently waiting for his “wife” to come back to him? I’ve never asked him if he was resentful of that time taken away from him. I occasionally feel guilty that I didn’t make a more concentrated parentsmomdad1effort to just “be” with my husband. But, like all phases in a marriage, it passed relatively quickly. After our night out it was like we hadn’t missed a beat. Except now….now I make a more concentrated effort to just BE with my husband.

That little patch of “foggy life” that every twin parent deals with didn’t do any damage to my marriage. We no longer fought and bickered about every little thing because we were frustrated or over-exhausted. We just were. And that’s just fine. Because we still say “I love you” as often as we can. He still tells me I’m beautiful. And he still gives me butterflies.

deanna burkettDeanna Burkett is multi-tasking mama of two year old boy/girl twins and teens and a wife of 19 years to a very patient husband. On any given day you can find her pinning her heart away at Twiniversity’s Pinterest page, saying howdy to a new member of Twiniversity’s Facebook page or message board, working on school work while she earns her double degree of History and English at Ashford University, catering to her teenagers every beck and call or chasing one or two naked babies around the house! Look for her on Facebook, Twitter or on Pinterest!

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