I have been a parent for 7 years now and while there are a lot of sacrifices made, the hardest one to get over is the time spent together with my wife. Parenting is difficult and wonderful at the same time. You are lying to yourself if you do not admit to craving the long philosophical conversations you used to be able to have with your significant other about random stuff.
My wife and I used to go to a movie every single Sunday. In fact, it was one of the most cherished traditions in our week. We even continued the tradition for the first 8 months of my son's life having him join us in his car seat. The realities of being a parent really start to set in and before you realize it even happened you enter into a Brave New World that only vaguely resembles your pre-parenting life.
It is safe to say that I have only been to about 20 movies in the theater over the last 7 years and I am okay with that. When we do get the opportunity to make it to the movie theater it is something we take very seriously. Besides Pitch Perfect 2, we have seen very few duds in the theater. In fact, it isn't even the movies that I miss. It is the tradition of going with my wife that I lament.
In order to find an adequate solution a few months ago we decided to really try to focus on finding some more us time. My first solution was to create a Make Shift Movie Night. The plan was simple, every Saturday Night we will put the kids to bed at 8:00 and by 8:15 we will be on the couch ready to watch. I am a stickler for the previews so we have to sit through each one and decide with a thumbs up/thumbs down vote on whether or not they are Queue worthy.
While this Make Shift Movie Night has only succeeded about 2 times a month it has really been successful on giving us a true focus to hang out together again. We restarted our DVD Netflix (I know who does that right) and this has been the real magic. We have to decide on the next movie by the end of Sunday Night. The new movie arrives on Wednesday and we have 3 nights to plan. Some weeks it works and some weeks it does not (usually due to the strange amount of exhaustion still caused by having a 7 and 5 year old).
Regardless of whether or not we make the movie night happen is a mute point. It really has become a significant life change for us. It was a commitment to try and create time for the two of us again. While that may sound a little strange I have a feeling many of you reading this know exactly what I am talking about. One of the quietest things that get lost in the mix of parenting is the relationship you have with you spouse. In the midst of all the scheduling, school, work, bills, sports, etc, it is easy to find yourselves living parallel lives with one another.
My wife and I's thing just happened to be movies. You might have something else that was an important tradition in your relationship. I recommend you find it again and make time to remember how precious that time can be again!
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