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Hi Moms! It’s Monday!
I’ve got a lot on my heart and mind this week that I’ll share soon, but today, I want to talk about something that comes up in my conversations with moms over and over again. Can you guess what it is?
I’ve been talking about the subject of marriage for many years and I want to touch on in today again for just a few minutes. I met a mom recently who was really struggling with her marriage relationship. It seemed that “too much water” had gone under the bridge—and she worried that she couldn’t find “That Girl” again. I get it.
Are you tired like this mom? I could so relate to her! I have gone through periods in my life that have absolutely defied my ability to catch up with my sleep, and it’s not just because I’m a busy homeschool mom! It’s motherhood in general! I don’t know about you, but having seven children turned me into a night owl for several years of my life. The children are only just beginning to sleep through the night (haha!) and it’s been twenty-two years!
My seventh child is now almost three years old and we’re just starting to come out of that but for a long time, nights were the only time when the house was quiet. It’s funny, as the kids get older they’ve switched a little bit! The teenagers want to stay up late and the little ones want to get up early (because they go to bed early) and what mom finds out is that there is no time for her on EITHER end of the day! Right?
I’ve ended up getting up earlier to get ahead of the children—but if my husband or teens need my attention at night, well, you see where I’m going. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in 24 years! For a long time, nights were the time when I looked forward to unwinding and regrouping for the next day. I blamed it on the kids. 🙂
I wrote the first book that I published and have done much of my writing in the early hours of the day (as in midnight), and in fact, I wrote about this very thing in my first book, “The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Romance.” This book, by the way, is not just for homeschoolers. It’s for every mom who’s trying to balance the many demands on her time in a way that builds her family up.
Here’s an excerpt from that book on the importance of nurturing your marriage through seasons of extreme tiredness. See if you can relate. Keep in mind, I wrote this before I had a houseful of teens and middle schoolers and a toddler. 🙂
“At our house, nighttime is the only time of day when our house is quiet and I feel like I can think straight. I like to blame it on the kids. In fact, it’s late as I write this. The strangest things happen to me when the house is quiet. I can start to feel like my old self again. It’s the time I like to prepare for the next day, write a proverbial “to do” list or maybe read a book. (Or, get on Facebook. Just trying to keep it real.)
However, there have been many times in the evening when I have just sat down to relax and I hear the familiar sound of footsteps coming down the hall. “Are you coming to bed?” The question made me bristle. I have to admit, I have occasionally thought to myself, “Sure I am! After you’re asleep!”
In fact, when all our children were babies this was a real struggle for me. Marriage can be very stressful when babies are little. If you’re a nursing mom and your baby is four months old or younger, you have my unwavering understanding. But don’t take your eyes off of what’s most important. One of satan’s most effective weapons against marriage is simple: to create a separateness between a husband and wife—and He’ll do it however he can.
Sex and intimacy in marriage is one area in which he can create a chasm between a husband and wife, whether it’s poor scheduling or poor prioritizing, anytime I notice that we are at odds with each other, if I step back and look at the big picture of our life, I will usually find that we are not spending enough time with each other. If you’re too tired for sex, it’s time to make some changes. Affection and intimacy seem to come more easily (as I’ve told many busy moms before) when I have priorities in line and I save the best part of me for my husband. As a matter of fact, I usually say, “Why don’t we do this more often?”
That’s just how forgetful I can be.
Don’t let your lack of energy or sleep come between you and your husband for long stretches of time. Engage in conversation. Let him know how you feel—and find out how he’s feeling too. Communicate. Prefer one another. It’s worth it.
I am totally there. I have homeschooled for 14 yrs and finding the energy for intamicy is very difficult. I am tired and just want to sleep.Lord help me.
Excellent article. I love that…”Prefer one another.”
Amen. All of it.
More often than not, when I choose my husband over sleep, the baby wakes immediately afterward to nurse. So I go from sex to nursing with no in-between, and maybe it’s just me, but I feel so gross doing that. I also lose whatever sleep I would have gotten from the time of making that choice until the baby awakens, and that first stretch of sleep is always the longest. Perpetual zombie mom, who can’t live on caffeine due to nursing, or a temporarily satisfied husband who will just ask again the next night no matter what choice I make? More often than not, I choose sleep.
The question is how do you prioritize to make that time or still have energy? And it becomes more complicated if the teenagers are awake later than my husband!
This is so very true, and facing it has led to some good discussions with my husband about these issues which we would not otherwise have had- such as me learning to understand that me being ill makes him want to be very close to me to comfort me….when I just want to sleep (let me clarify, this is when I am recovering not in the midst of illness!)
From the early days in our marriage on, my husband and I have learned that “crazy can’t fall asleep nights” or “the kids woke us up at 3 am and now we can’t fall back asleep mornings,” make for the best times to get it on so to speak. Never do I have trouble going back to sleep afterwards. Also, I notice that whenever my husband and I are snipping at each other a little more than usual it’s usually because we haven’t been intimate lately and for me I know it’s because I’ve been viewing him more as my life partner than my lover. Once we’ve done the deed I remember how much he loves me as a woman, not just a mother and help-mate and vice-versa. If your too tired go for a quickie and then go to sleep feeling better than ever.
Please, please make this a priority, moms. My husband’s and my intimate life has been one of the richest and most rewarding aspects of our marriage, and I am a homeschooling mother of five young children. Lovemaking is a way to communicate and share with each other that you cannot do with anyone else–AND it’s fun. Too many stereotypes exist about women not wanting to be with their husbands in this way, and I find it sad. Sex should be prioritized alongside all of the other areas of marriage. God gave it to us as a gift to each other, and we should enjoy it. Being positive about it helps a ton, too. I personally flee conversations in which I hear women talking about what a drag it is because that negativity is not good for them, their marriages, or me. Besides, if we are not engaging our husbands in this way, what or who will? Just a thought.
Love this comment! Thank you!
I’m a little passionate about this issue! 😉
Such a good reminder! We have six ranging in ages 3 -12 and it was five years into our marriage before we had children. It is especially hard when you go to bed and all you can think about is getting a few hours of sleep and they have other things on their minds:)
Beth Moore has a great video talk on intimacy that I really enjoyed and highly recommend. One of the things she said is that in the time it takes you to give your reasons for not wanting sex and then dealing with the fallout of an unhappy husband…. “Ya’ll could have been done already!!!” 😉
Great article from Christianity Today about how intimacy in marriage is meant to glorify God: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/october/meaning-of-sex-hot-and-holy.html
I will have to read this! Thanks for the link. 🙂
It’s not so easy when you’d like to, but both you and the hubs are terrified of getting pregnant. We love all our kiddos, but we’re done now…just haven’t made that permanent yet. Unfortunately that fear keeps us apart too often, even with family planning.
I thought I was the only person that ‘bristled’ at the coming to bed question! I feel better knowing it’s not just me. Our roles are reversed now. I’m not sure if it’s hormones or more sleep, but my husband is now the ‘always tired’ half of our marriage and I’m the instigator. Now that I realize what I’ve been putting him through, I feel terrible!
I love your honesty here. I’m hearing this more and more. Keep chasing him! I love your heart for your dh.
I feel so sad reading this kind of thing. There are many stereotypes out there, one of them being that men are always interested in sex. My husband is not very sexual at all. We’ve had sex four times this year and this is the norm for us. We’ve been married for 10 years and while we do love each other and have good times, I really wish we had more intimacy. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I guess I spend too much time thinking about it and upset myself – the time other people spend having sex.
I know that must be hard. I’m sorry! Has your husband had his testosterone level checked? It’s worth googling. Really easy, but very, very common!
We have 6 kids ranging in age from 22 down to 3. Our house is NEVER quiet…and while I know I don’t make enough time….we do have set aside time, even if it is not for sex itself, that is just us connecting. We take 10 minutes after he gets home to just be us….to visit. Hug. Just snuggle. My husband leaves VERY early every morning…so I get up and have coffee with him..and we pray together over each other’s day then as well.
While I am still tired…and I still don’t remember to engage in sex as often as I should…it is easier when we have taken that time every day.
And as corny as this sounds…we “plan” Sunday afternoon naps….the kids can put in a movie..the littler ones are put down for their naps, the older ones take naps (because they are on praise team etc and are up SUPER early on Sundays). We take our nap as naked as we can…even if there is no sex involved….(and there often is 😉 believe me…after 22 years of kids…we can be very quiet!)….and that helps too.