Connecting with your DH

[Jbird]

Kind of a spin-off on the martial strife topic, maybe. For me, anyway. LOL.

How do you and DH make time to connect? Do you reserve/plan for time alone together to connect, like weekends away, date nights, nightly talks, etc.? Or is it more casual? Does it come easily? Is this important to you or to him? Does it affect your feelings about your marriage? Does it affect your interest in sex and how often you have it?

[Danielle]

We're admittedly VERY bad at this!

We RARELY go out without the kids and we NEVER get overnights without them since my mom moved back east. We have no family, so leaving them overnight isn't an option. :(

I know that we need to make more time for each other and maybe schedule some "dates" but it's really hard. :sigh

I really do cherish the time we have alone and it does remind me that I love the man I'm married to and we really do *like* each other.

[Mary]

We're very bad at this, too. Between his being gone four days a week and the fact we have no one to babysit, our opportunities are limited. We can't even get an evening out alone, let alone an overnight trip.

We try to spend time together after the kids are in bed. That's the best we can do.

[SabrinaJL]

Being as we only have one child and she's a teenager, getting time alone is fairly easy. We don't really have to plan things. We just go to the movies or to dinner or just hang out and watch movies whenever we feel like it. And it is important to us to do these things, especially with his job being what it is.

[Christine]

We also don't have a lot of opportunities to spend time alone, seeing as finding a babysitter for four kids isn't that easy. We do try to connect, though, in more casual ways. Since we've shut the tv off, it's become a habit to sit and talk in the living room after he gets off of work. He sees the kids for a little bit and then we talk alone for awhile. We also have downtime after they're in bed.

[Kristen]

Christine!!! You shut your TV off???? You have to tell us about that. :giggle

[Lisa]

Our alone time is very important to us and we get stressed even more when it's been a while. it happened when we moved and moved back. Luckily we are back to having alone time frequently enough. The kids we at MIL for 5 days and even though I had shitty days at work and late hours we still got time to spend with each other. It was great.

[Christine]

Christine!!! You shut your TV off???? You have to tell us about that. :giggle

Yup. Last week. It was one of those things that Dave and I were never in agreement on. I'd want to do it and he wouldn't. Or he'd want to do it and I wouldn't. We both thought we couldn't "live" without it. It helped that we didn't get into any summer programming and shut it down before the new fall season started. Our compromise was to sign up for Blockbuster again so we can rent seasons of shows or movies whenever we want to. We can also roll our computer over to the TV and hook up the TV as a monitor. So we can still watch things like The Office and Heroes online. The difference is, we don't turn the TV on just because anymore. We have to plan what we're watching ahead of time, so our time in front of it has naturally cut down a LOT. Not to mention it knocked $75 a month off our expenses! ;)

[Kristen]

That's awesome!! :thumbsup It makes such a big different to not have it available in the living room, doesn't it? We canceled our cable, but the cable company has still left it on(despite several calls on our part!). So, we can technically still watch TV on Steve's computer(he has a TV card in it) but since it's not convenient, there's no more channel surfing going on.

I'm so happy that we don't have a TV in our living room anymore. Even Steve doesn't miss it, and he was usually the one who did the channel surfing.

[Shana]

Honestly, we have more time alone together than is probably necessary.

What a weird response! But - since my kids sleep at their dad's 4/7 nights of the week, that's just how it is :dunno

We are together all. of. the. time. I'm not complaining, Brian is my favorite person ever and I looove being with him :)

But, I wouldn't mind being interrupted a little bit more often by some precious kids of mine.

[Erika]

We are finding it difficult to get time to really connect. At the moment, James' dad is back in chemo as is his uncle so he is naturally wanting to spend time with his parents. And the knock on effect of this is that he ends up working late into the evening which is the only time we would have together.

But we are working on it. Last night we even went out (albeit to friends LOL) and I'm hoping my mum would like to have Sasha overnight in the next week or 2. She LOVES having Sasha over and since she will be heading back into her work year very soon, she won't have much of an opportunity to look after her.

[Jbird]

We have a difficult time finding time. DH works 60-70 hours a week, plus mows on the side for extra cash, probably 8 hours a week, plus he has his band. Add two kids into the mix, and we just don't get much alone time. It can get frustrating at times, but we're dealing.

[Kristen]

We don't get as much time as we'd like, that's for sure! Four kids who are here all day, every day will do that. :p

One thing that does help is that we put them all to bed before we go to bed. Even Joshua, who doesn't actually have to turn out his light until 9:00(which is around the time we head to bed) usually goes to his room around 8:00. It's not a "Go to your room!!!" kind of thing...we just send him in there to read or build legos or something so that we have a little kid-free time every night.