How To Keep the Intimacy With Your Wife After Children

New parents, especially first-time parents, often experience a drop in marital intimacy as they adjust to their new life as parents. Many couples find that the stresses of parenting and juggling work and home life take a toll on the intimacy of their marriage. The pressure can be especially acute for those whose marriages weren’t rock solid to begin with. Intimacy in marriage takes work. When you add kids into the mix, it gets even more challenging. However, you don’t have to let parenthood damage your marriage forever. If you are struggling with your relationship after welcoming children into your family, learn how to keep the intimacy with your wife after children, or even regain it if it’s lost.

Remember Why You Fell in Love

One of the biggest reasons that intimacy falters is that couples forget why they fell in love in the first place. When you’re young, you are constantly in the process of falling in love. But after a few years of marriage, many couples settle into a routine that is less exciting and romantic than when they were dating. If you want to reignite your romance, you have to remember what you loved about your spouse to begin with. Take the time to remember what it was like when you two were dating. What were the things that made you want to spend all your time with this person? Make an effort to bring the things you used to do together back into your life. Take a walk together, go on a date, or do anything else you used to enjoy when you were first dating. 

Remembering why you fell in love opens the door to intimacy again in your marriage. But with remembering how the way things were, you also need to keep realistic expectations that marriage and life changes through the years, and so do expectations, wants and needs in the relationship. You need to spend time reconnecting with each other, and be honest about what each other needs in this marriage. This is your chance, husbands, to simply listen and understand what your wife is asking you to do (or not do anymore). This is now your chance to show her that you love her through your words and deeds.

Before children, your wife may have accepted some flaws. After children, she’s got a whole new set of expectations about what she wants and needs in a husband. If there’s areas in your life that you need to fix or adjust, like drinking, staying out late with the guys, or something else that completely aggravates your wife, then you need to reevaluate your behavior and consider whether you will honor her wishes or not. If not, you can expect major trouble on the horizon. If you love her and want to maintain marital bliss, you will honor her wishes and work to meet her expectations and needs in a loving, graceful manner.

Remember that it’s not just the two of you any longer, and you need to adopt the perspective of your life in this marriage as a family, where your priorities are Christ, your wife, your children, and then your career and hobbies (in that order).

Set aside time for date nights

One of the best ways to rekindle passion in your marriage is to make regular date nights a regular part of your schedule. When you were dating, you were likely spending all your time together. So after a while, you stopped making time for just the two of you, because of kids, work, busy schedules, extracurricular activities, and the list goes on. Dating isn’t just about getting away from the kids. It’s also about creating a space in your relationship that’s just for the two of you. Date nights can be about anything you want them to be about. They don’t have to be fancy or expensive. You are simply taking time out of your schedule to do something just for the two of you. There are some great benefits to dating regularly. Dating regularly can help you rekindle your romance and create more intimacy in your relationship. It can also help you improve your communication skills. And it can help you build a healthy relationship with money.

To plan a good date that will help open up communication and restore intimacy, you need to find a way to meet your wife’s needs where she finds herself in life. Before planning, find out how she’s feeling or what she needs. Ask a hypothetical question, for instance if she would rather spend a day in a busy plaza eating and window-shopping, or relaxing in a quiet secluded place with just the gentle breeze rustling the leaves. Take her cues to find what she needs, and then recall those times and moments when it was just the two of you dating. From there, pick a date on the calendar and let her know. Tell her it’s a date. Make sure to put it on the calendar, and then plan around that time. Schedule a key event, like a meal at a restaurant or picnic in a park.

Make it about her, and find ways to help her feel relaxed and to forget about the stresses of life. Mull over the questions you need to ask or want to ask her to get her to open up and start communicating honestly with you. Keep the questions general, like where does she see herself in 5 years, or what she hopes for as the family grows? Ask her what she needs from you. Now when you’re on this date and ask her some open-ended questions, don’t get upset when she expresses herself in a way that may irritate you. Instead, gently acknowledge that you are listening to her, and you’re trying to understand. Show her deference. Open her car door. Open doors for her. Pull her seat out. Take her coat. Help her. Love her. Be gentle and kind. Show her your soft side. Be present and focused on her. 

Talk about what you want together as a couple regularly

It may seem like the last thing you want to do when you’re struggling with intimacy in your relationship is to talk about it. But talking about the issues you’re dealing with, especially if you do it in a productive way, can help you get through the rough patches quicker. You and your spouse may be struggling with intimacy because you want different things out of your relationship. She may want to stay home with the kids while you want to keep your career going full-time, with overtime and extra time on the weekends for work functions or activities. Or your spouse may want to spend more time with friends while you’re craving an escape from other people. You have to talk about these issues. If you don’t, they are likely to build up and lead to resentment. And resentment kills intimacy.

Find where you two differ and why, and work to understand where each other is at in life and together in your marriage. It’s okay to want different things, but you need to be clear about what each other wants and why, and see if you can find some middle ground. Talking about this will help you resolve these differences and develop a game plan. Not discussing them will only lead to each other harboring resentment and anger towards the other person. You are on the same team, a team of one (where two become one). Work together to help each other, and be patient, kind, and above all loving towards one another. 

Help each other feel more comfortable

If you have been dealing with intimacy problems for a while, your spouse may be feeling pretty uncomfortable. They may worry that you don’t want to be intimate with them anymore. Or they may not be able to relax in a sexual situation because they feel self-conscious. You can help your spouse feel more comfortable by doing some simple things. Try to be sensitive to your spouse’s needs, especially if they are pregnant or dealing with postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety.

Try to create an environment that helps your spouse feel comfortable. Dim the lights, put on soothing music, diffuse some essential oil, help with the dishes or cleaning around the house, and pitch in where she needs a hand. If she needs some space, let her know that you’ll hold down the fort, let her get away to the bedroom or other area of the home, and keep the kids out. Pro tip: do something fun with your kids that will keep them engaged while mom has some relaxation time. If your spouse has any special needs, try to meet them as best as you can.

Don’t forget to be kind and generous to your spouse

Mentioning that you are going through a rough spot in your relationship doesn’t mean you should stop being generous to your spouse. In fact, it’s exactly the wrong time to stop. Don’t stop doing the things you used to do for your spouse. Make their favorite meals, buy them their favorite flowers, or do anything else that you used to do. You also shouldn’t stop complimenting your spouse. Compliments are one of the best ways to reignite passion in your relationship. Compliments can be about almost anything. You can compliment your spouse’s hair or their eyes, or you can tell them how amazing they are as a person. And a gentle touch, a smile, those eyes that you used to give her while dating, anything to let her know that you love her and that you’re there for her. Your wife needs to know that you still love her and find her beautiful, and that she is the only woman for you. This is called security. By doing the things above, you will help meet her need for security, which is simply another expression of love. 

Conclusion

The stresses of parenting and life can wreck a marriage. Couples can lose their intimacy and spark if they don’t make time for each other and don’t work hard to make their relationship a priority again. Remember why you fell in love with your spouse, set up date nights, talk about what you want, and be kind and generous to your spouse. Doing so will help you rebuild intimacy in your marriage again after having kids.

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