Marriage Advice, Part 6

The Sixth and Final Idea for Marriage and Relationships is:

Having a Family Requires Lots of Planning.

Nothing will change your life quite like having a baby and starting a family. It forces you to maturity and will either drive you and your spouse closer together, or further apart. All decisions related to having children, or more children, should be taken with very careful consideration, communication, planning, and prayer.

Here is a list of things to consider when talking with your partner, fiancée’, or spouse about starting a family. Talking about these things before entering into marriage can save you much heartache in the future. It is important that you see eye to eye on most issues involved in child-rearing if this is going to be a happy marriage:

• Wait at least several years after you get married before trying to have children. The time you have alone together is invaluable and you will never get it back. Choosing to spend several years in intimate childlessness will strengthen your marriage in unbelievable ways and prepare you for being the best parents you can possibly be- parents who are secure in their relationship.
• Having a baby WILL NOT fix your marriage problems! It will only make them worse!
• You need to save and prepare for having children, but you will never have ENOUGH money to have a child. Being a parent requires intense sacrifice. You will no longer be able to buy whatever you feel like whenever you feel like. Children will control every financial decision you make.
• You must share the responsibility of disciplining your children or one of you will become the bad cop, and the other, the good cop. You also must agree how you will discipline your children well before you ever conceive one. Will you spank? Use timeout? Ground? Take away privileges? Use only positive reinforcement? If one of you feels a particular form of punishment is too severe, the other is bared from punishing in that manner.
• You need to talk about what you will do as a couple if you are not able to have children? Will you seek medical help? Would you go as far as in vitro fertilization? Will you foster or adopt? Fertility issues can cause MAJOR issues if you are not prepared to deal with them.
• Make sure that your spouse wants to have children. Some don’t and will just allow their spouses to have children to simply appease them. This causes resentment, anger, and the breakdown of relationships.
• Also, make sure that you and your spouse are aware and open as to how each of you interact with children. If it is negative, you need to work on that as a couple long before trying to conceive, and possibly even before you consider entering into marriage. No one wants to marry someone who is a jerk to kids, but sadly many women do.
• Decide before you have children who will be primarily responsible for taking the children. Will both of you work and share the responsibility and  possibly send the child to childcare. Or will one of you work, while the other stays home to raise the children? Will one of you resent the other if you chose that option? These are all important things to consider.

Raising a child is the most sacred of all jobs given to man. Make sure that you and your partner take these decisions as such.

One Responseto “Marriage Advice, Part 6”

1. Val Mccrystal says:

   August 18, 2010 at 9:09 pm

   You are a gem.