What Happy Parents Do: The Loving Little Rituals of a Child-proof Marriage

by Carol J. Bruess, Ph.D. and Anna D. H. Kudak, M.A.

If you are married with children, you no doubt already know firsthand that for most couples marital happiness takes a dramatic dip during the years when we are having babies and raising children. Because you’re busy moms, you are probably also aware that, according to researchers, approximately two thirds of couples experience a dramatic increase in conflict and hostility after their first baby arrives.

For most of us who are both parents and partners, we’ve experienced the decrease in a couple’s emotional intimacy and cooling of romance that seems to appear out of nowhere – like a rainstorm on a sunny day – when children enter the scene.

Here are two bits of good news:

1. Most couples are experiencing the same thing. Good to know, isn’t it?
2. And most importantly, there is something you can DO to maintain and/or re-establish emotional connections with your spouse. Based on our own research with happy couples across the country, we have a few concrete ideas for what to DO.

The secret? Developing and maintaining loving little rituals. Unlike the rigid or more formal rituals you might experience in church or on major holidays, loving little rituals tend to be smaller and more subtle. Daily. Often just momentary. Like the couple who, despite their children’s best efforts to interfere, always share a theatrical smooch as they return home from their workday. Or the couple that bravely told us they have their own dance parties (surprising each other with their favorite tunes, of course) in the basement while their children are fast asleep.

Rituals of connection come in all shapes and sizes, are powerfully predictable, soothingly steady, and often plain-old silly activities that set and re-set the tone in your marriage. Most of the loving little rituals shared by the happy couples in our research teach us we can choose to shift our attention (however briefly) from our kids to each other.

For instance, one couple we talked to taught their children to let mom and dad sleep-in on weekend mornings. When ready, the children were summoned with a joyful and excited voice by their parents, “kiiiiiids!” to join them for a whole-family snuggle session. Great idea, isn’t it? The lesson is rather great too. To be healthy, your marriage and family both need to win. It’s so easy to nurture one at the expense of the other, but the cost is high if you do. We know what you’re saying: “But I don’t have the time or energy left to nurture my spouse AND take care of everything else I need to do!”

The fact is, loving little rituals take almost no time and very little energy. The best rituals are rather brief, totally free, and emerge simply. The most important ingredient in any connection ritual is intention. You simply have to DO something. Make an effort. Pick a time. Create an opportunity. Like the couple that decided every day at 11:11 a.m. they would acknowledge their relationship, through a call, email, or text. Or the couple that noticed they had fallen into that all-too-familiar pattern of crabbiness and grumbling. To recover, they initiated a new rule when referring to, greeting, or making requests of each other: All must begin with the phrase “O’ beautiful husband” and “O’ beautiful wife.” For example, “O’ beautiful husband, the garbage is stinky. Could you take it out?” or “O’ beautiful wife, would you mind picking up the kids because I’m running late?” What a beautiful symbolic language ritual, reminding us that kindness is contagious. We can all – with a little intention — infect our own marriages with it.

No matter how busy you are, ask yourself if you’re really too busy to make sure your children are getting the greatest start to their lives. Ask yourself if you’re modeling a loving relationship for them. Every day. In every action. With all your might. Because as the happy couples we’ve interviewed have told us time and again: your marriage is up to you. Why not DO something about it, right now?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Carol J. Bruess Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Communication & Journalism and Director of Family Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Anna D.H. Kudak, M.A., is a Ph.D. candidate in Interpersonal & Family Communication at the University of Kentucky and an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN. They are the authors of WHAT HAPPY PARENTS DO (Fairview).