Loving Spouse and Children...at the same time!

Living with the imperfections and idiosyncrasies of one's spouse can be a challenge. But sometimes another difficulty arises, namely, trying to be loving and attentive to one's spouse while also being loving and attentive to one's children.

We often hear presented a dichotomy of priorities: Kids first, spouse second! Or: Spouse first, kids second!

It makes sense that these options are presented in such a manner inasmuch as parents often experience a real conflict in being attentive both to a spouse and to kids. The first camp will argue that that kids are more evidently needy than one's adult spouse. The energy we put into caring for our kids is likely much more than we dedicate to caring for a spouse, who can eat, bathe, dress, etc. without assistance. Our kids' dependence upon us makes them our first priority.

The second camp will say that family life cannot succeed if the parents fail to prioritize the marriage relationship itself, between the husband and wife. The kids are important but should come second to the spousal relationship. In case of a conflict, attentiveness to the needs of the spouse should win out.

As mentioned above, such a dichotomy indicates a real challenge that parents face: to love spouse and children at the same time. And yet, this presentation can be quite misleading.

Spousal love is the foundation of marriage; family is built upon this relationship. Children follow upon this love; we can even say they are incarnations of this love. Spousal love precedes the love for one's children, and it should not be cast aside or demoted when children make their appearance.

Yet at the same time, we have to acknowledge that the acts of love that characterized courtship and early marriage become more difficult when children are present. The diversion of finances to support children can prevent indulging a spouse in filet mignon, fine wine, chocolates, and roses. The relaxed quality time together becomes rarer. Opportunities for physical affection and intimacy become harder to find. The effort of serving children by caring for them can drain a parent of the effort required to serve the spouse as before. And in the midst of the numerous challenges of parenting, such as sleep deprivation, having your belongings destroyed by kids, being insulted by your kids, and so on, it can be hard to remember to appreciate your spouse verbally in compliments and kind words of affirmation.

Clearly, then, we are presented with the challenge of loving our spouse and our children at the same time. It cannot be an either-or, wherein we focus solely on our spouse and ignore our children or focus entirely on our children and ignore our spouse. The situation may often appear to us as imperfect. A spouse may arrive home from work with big news to share just as a child vomits on the floor. The baby may wake up for a feeding just as you and your spouse finally sat down to start your game of Scrabble. Your romantic anniversary dinner may be postponed due to a trip to the emergency room for a broken arm. It may seem that children are interfering with the relationship or intruding upon the marriage relationship.

Yet the apparent imperfection of the situation seems to be God's will: the spouse is a gift, and so also children are a gift to the spouses. And if God wills it, we must find some way to embrace the challenge. Here's where mortification enters the picture: loving both spouse and children at the same time will certainly require a death to self. If we accept the opportunity to die to self, God will give us the grace to love spouse and children as best we can.

To be more practical, here are a few ideas to ensure that we do our best with this situation:

1. Because kids are needier than the spouse, it is easier to neglect a spouse. Therefore, it will be important to make an intentional effort to love and spend time with the spouse. Daily practical efforts include remembering a morning kiss and hug, pouring the spouse's coffee, getting out of bed on time to make sure the morning goes smoothly, putting down a tablet when the spouse enters the room, and so on. Ensuring an opportunity for conversation on a daily basis is also helpful. On a weekly basis, it is beneficial to have some set aside time without kids - a date night, for example. Of course we want to love and be attentive to the spouse, but consistency in effort to these little acts can become a mortification, where we have to put aside ourselves in order to love a spouse well.

2. When it comes to spending time with a spouse, don't let the best get in the way of the good. We often have an easy time envisioning an ideal:  a romantic, week-long trip to the Caribbean with no kids or a three-course meal at a fancy French restaurant. Upon recognizing that these ideals are not possible, many respond by giving up and doing nothing to spend time together. It is often possible, however, to come up with another option. A regular date night may appear impossible with multiple young children who are difficult at the time you'd be leaving them with a sitter; going out later would mean being tired and unable to enjoy the meal. And the cost of a nice weekly dinner out may be unrealistic. But what about Saturday morning breakfast, when the kids are better-behaved for the sitter, you are both wide awake, and you can get a bagel or pastries with coffee and not spend too much money? It may be a far cry from the luxuries of courtship. It may not be the ideal; it may not be the plan for quality time 20 years from now. For the present moment, however, it is better than not doing anything together. Working with the current situation while maintaining flexibility and the possibility of reevaluation can also be a mortification; we may need to kill our ideas of "best" and recognize that what is actually "best" at this time is sticking to something that is possible.

3. Caring for children is a way of loving a spouse. Time spent with children should not be viewed as set against the time spent with the spouse. When a parent cares for children well, with love and attentiveness, he or she is loving a spouse through this service. Sometimes, this is obvious, like when one gets up early with the kids so the spouse can catch up on sleep. At other times, this truth is not as apparent. Nonetheless, parents do the best they can caring for children and performing other work in order to contribute and serve the family as a whole. The children should not be seen as "mine" or "my project." Whether father or mother is interacting with the children, the sacrifices involved are not simply for the sake of the children themselves, but for the marriage. A parent's time spent at work earning money can also be seen as a way of loving one's spouse. With this perspective, it is important to work well, for the sake of the family, and also to work efficiently (not wasting time) so as to maximize presence and contributions to the home.

4. Because loving spouse and children at the same time can often seem difficult or even impossible, it is important to make a frequent examination of one's efforts. Spouses can benefit from reflecting on existing problems, such as being too busy to have time for each other or letting screens interrupt opportunities for conversation. Accompanying this examination is a willingness to change, even when it is difficult.

5. Of course, even with the willingness to change, failure is imminent. The demands of parenting may make it difficult to be loving and kind to one's spouse. After a hard day with kids, it can be challenging to be attentive to conversation. With the touch-time required by toddlers and infants, it may be hard to attend to a nightly spousal holding time or even to remember a goodnight kiss. As with any failure, however, parents have to be willing to try again, seeking the sacrament of confession regularly for support in the struggle.

6. It is a challenge to love spouse and children simultaneously. To meet their needs, to be affectionate, etc. Rather than cursing this challenge or regretting the situation, however, we are best off embracing the difficulty. It is a mortification; it requires a death to self and dependence on God's grace to do one's best when conflict ensues.

7. Keep the big picture. In the beginning of the marriage, the home began with the husband and wife. Eventually, it is likely that the children will leave and the home will once more consist solely of husband and wife. It may seem so far off in the future as to be inconceivable, but this is the normal course of marriage and family life. With this end in mind, it makes sense to maintain and strengthen the marriage relationship, the friendship between husband and wife. Retrospectively, all those sacrifices embraced in the midst of parenting will make more sense; they were helping all along to help husband and wife to grow in the generous gift of self.

It can be frustrating, and even discouraging to try to love and attend to a spouse and children at the same time. And yet, it is a wonderful opportunity to realize our limits and weaknesses, to embrace the challenge as a mortification, and to beg God's grace to help us to do the best we can to love him and serve him in this situation.

The Spouse: The Ultimate Mortification

Once when I finished a talk on parenting mortification, a woman informed me that what I said had been very valuable for her........in thinking about how to deal with her husband!

Given the examples I had used, and the subject at hand, I was quite surprised.

But should I have been?

Let's be honest that our spouses provide our first mortifications of family life; we deal with them before the kiddos come along. Moreover, these mortifications continue right alongside of parenting mortifications such as sleep deprivation, kid tantrums, physical pain, and so on. I mean no disrespect to the institution or sacrament of marriage (and certainly no offense to my own wonderful husband). Marriage is a blessing with many consolations. But that does not change the fact that our spouses (and we!) are human and can make mistakes or sometimes be just plain annoying and even difficult to live with. I have one friend who tries to explain to her college students that marriage is a lot like living permanently with your college roommate...except there is no summer break. What she means is that things like your spouse putting clothes on the floor instead of in the laundry hamper or interrupting you in the middle of a sentence can become daily annoyances with no end in sight.

With our children we have an important responsibility for their character formation, and hence we have a duty to correct and improve their behavior. Of course spouses may sometimes need a charitable correction and we must be willing to do this, but our relationship with them is of a different sort, characterized more by equality than is the parent-child relationship.

And yet spouses do provide a crucial opportunity for parenting mortification, in part because our willingness to live with and forgive the faults of others, most especially our spouse, is a wonderful model for our children. Marriage, in and of itself (even before or without children) enables us the situation of having to die to ourselves to live for God in particular ways that may be contrary to our personal preferences and opinions. We sacrifice for our spouses sometimes in big ways - choosing locations to live, sacrificing career advances for the good of the relationship, negotiating where to spend family holidays, compromising on a budget, etc. But we also sacrifice for our spouses in little ways - living with the hair in the bathroom sink, the coffee cup left on the counter instead of placed in the dishwasher, the occasional sarcastic comment or complaint.

To get practical here, we often have to make a choice. Can we accept something as a mortification and offer it to God so as to die to self and live more fully for God? Or do we need to address the spouse out of charity and suggest a correction? Sometimes the answer to this choice is obvious. When a spouse is sick or injured and cannot assist in housework or childcare, we are best off accepting it as a mortification, offering it to God, and embracing the death to self such that it encourages in a spirit of generosity and even gratitude for the opportunity. (This may take continued effort and perseverance through the years, and trying again after failure.) As with children, there are many times we are faced with these mortifications that we simply cannot avoid or change. Hence, as with parenting mortification, the best thing we can do for our soul is to embrace the mortification, die to self, and live for God.

Or maybe the spouse has a slightly annoying habit, such as having long pauses before finishing a sentence in the midst of a conversation. For rapid thinkers and quick talkers, dealing with a spouse like this can be truly frustrating. But is the spouse sinning by taking a long time to communicate a thought? No, probably not. And so it's best to accept it as a mortification, striving for patience out of charity. Failure in this terrain is likely as we all have our little pet peeves that bother us, whether or not it's the spouse who is doing them! But the potential for growth is also amazing. With the grace of the vocation of marriage and the willingness to accept each other's faults, the habit of mortifying one's self with regard to a spouse's annoying habits becomes a gift to the relationship and the family as a whole.

At other times, however, mortification may not be the only solution. We may need to communicate honestly about something for the good of the spouse and the marriage. Is the frequent putting away of a spouse's shoes a problem or a mortification? It can be either or both; it may be simply a small nuisance easily offered as a prayer each day and forgotten. Or it may become a huge annoyance and cause for anger and resentment. It may begin as a prayer and end in sinful anger! We may strive to embrace an attitude of helpfulness and generosity, using this as an occasion for mortification, only to find that we have ended in bitterness. Moreover, it certainly is not a bad thing to ask spouses to be responsible for their belongings. The commitment to this little act of love may actually aid the spouse's sanctity more than your resentfully doing the work unnoticed aids your own sanctity.

Or perhaps there may be an instance when a spouse doesn't seem to be listening well, but rather turns the conversation back to an earlier topic that the spouse finds more interesting or important. Even if this doesn't happen frequently, it might be better to address it directly rather than offer it as a mortification, especially if it will detract in the future from maintaining good communication for the marriage relationship.

One thing is certain, though, and that's if you ask a spouse to do something and then criticize the way the spouse does it, you are becoming a mortification for your spouse. Sometimes gentle guidance is needed ("um, the diaper goes on this way; you put it on backwards, no worries, you'll get the hang of it"). But rarely are complaints warranted unless your spouse is actively trying to spite you. So if your spouse makes the bed one morning...and is not quite as good at it as you are...you are better off saying a prayer of thanksgiving for the effort and living with the wrinkles as a mortification (or, if it really bothers you, you could remake it when your spouse leaves the room for the day...). If you criticize and complain about the efforts, you'll be discouraging your spouse from future efforts and mortifying your spouse. And while it's good to accept mortifications, it's not good to choose to mortify others. The goal is to embrace the cross, not to strive to be a cross.

Moreover, if you know your spouse is working on something - for example, not being so critical or smiling more frequently or not looking at a phone during a conversation - it's best to try to appreciate that progress and be grateful for the spouse's efforts, rather than continuing to complain or offer corrections on the matter. When you know your spouse is making a concerted effort in a particular area, it's especially important to accept their failures as a mortification for yourself, offering it in prayer for their perseverance in the struggle.

Someone once told me that you can't get married expecting to change the person you love. But on the other hand, marriage does change people, especially when it is lived out as a vocation that involves sacrifice - the death to self in order to live for God in the marriage.  The demands of marriage provide a crucial opportunity for growth in holiness. If you embrace your spouse as your cross - both your greatest struggle and yet your greatest joy - then you will be changed for the better. So don't miss this opportunity.