When you have young kids you and your partner usually go through a room mate phase. We definitely did, we kicked ass as parenting partners, ensuring everything was done, the kids were happy, the bills were paid, we hung out as a family and did fun things but we didn’t have a huge romantic connection. My husband really is my best friend, even if our marriage didn’t work out I think we would still be a great co parenting team and good friends. We fit the romantic connection stuff and intimacy in when we could, not just sex but just talking and hanging out too. It was fine, everything ran smooth enough. And then we had Oaklyn. Having Oaklyn had a way of showing us where all of our weak spots were as a family, as a couple and even just me as a person.

 

He just took up so much time that we went from “everything was good enough” to not even seeing each other. We only talked about kids or the house or the pets ect and we figured something had to change. We were only giving each other our leftovers at the end of the day and that just wasn’t enough.

 

So, Josh suggested we take 20 minutes every evening after Ryden goes to bed to just catch up for 20 minutes, no rules, we just talk about whenever. We do this before dishes, tidying up and all the other closing duties of the evening so we still had the energy. It’s amazing the difference it has made. We both feel more important to each other, we don’t feel like dishes or a shower or whatever is more important than the other person.

 

We have probably been doing this for a month now but we noticed a difference after probably a week. We got along better, we were more affectionate and continued to make even more time for each other. Instead of just doing our own thing when we have the time, we would purposely make like a mini date. We would watch a show together or eat lunch together, just get back to the “dating” part of our relationship. 

 

We barely argued because we purposely waited for our 20 minute talk to bring stuff up, so we were both level headed leading to a more purposeful talk and productive outcome. Once we started connecting we got more motivation, we continued to communicate better through out the day and share even more about our lives besides what we did that day. We started talking about goals and ideas and what we’re working on.