CynthiaTalksMarriage

My husband and I are going 5 1/2 years of marriage and we have 4 kids with the oldest turning 5 in July. So that being said, we have only experienced weekly dates without juggling kids for a year of our relationship. We’re not perfect. We miss an occasionally date night, some date nights are just a quick game of cards, and some we have with kids. But as we have prioritized date night, any time rough seas are upon us we have been able to weather the storm and come out stronger. So here are some date night with kids tips for you!

First tip, prioritize date night. Create a story that says you go on weekly dates and read it every day. Create an affirmation, I have weekly dates with my husband/wife. Write a list why date night/day is important and the benefits that will come out about. Write what will happen if you do not have weekly date nights. What ever helps you realize that date nights are important, do it and place it somewhere to remind you to go on weekly date nights. And be okay with being the instigator for dates every time.

Tip #2, have a consistent time every week to have date night. Obviously you can be flexible. But this was really helpful for Seth and I to get back in the habit. We picked a date that we always were available and set it as our date night. Once we got back into the habit, it allowed us to be flexible and now we plan what day to do our date at the beginning of the week.

Tip #3, have a babysitter. When we had a consistent date, we had a babysitter come over weekly. She came every week. We pulled the babysitting money from the beginning of the month for the 4 times she would come so we never had to worry about getting cash or if there would be cash. We made it happen. Now we do not have a weekly babysitter that comes but we still use her at least 2 times a month some times more if we feel we need it. Now if paying money for a babysitter is too much plus spending money on a date, look for other couples with young kids and ask if they want to do babysitting swaps. This way you not only are getting an opportunity to go on a date without kids, you are helping another couple achieve this goal.

Tip #4, Be okay with having the kids apart of the date. My husband and I have done a few at home dates with the kids. It’s been fun and I think it’s important to the kids to see their parents dating. They also feel super excited to be a part of our scratch off dates, I do advise that at least once a month you leave the home to have dates.

Tip #5 look into dating stuff to help think outside the box for date ideas. We have done date night boxes, and they were a lot of fun. Currently we are obsessed with the Adventure Challenge scratch off couples edition. We love it, it has given us ideas that we can recreate, it has gotten us out of our comfort zone and learn more about each other. My personal favorite about it, they have on each scratch off hints about the date. So some have a little baby next to it, letting you know your gonna want a babysitter for this one. And when it doesn’t have one we know we can either do it with the kids or turn a movie on in one room while we do the date in the other room!

Date night with kids doesn’t have to be hard. My biggest and best tip is the first one. Because once you prioritize your dates with your spouse, you figure out the rest.

We all talk mom guilt, but what about wife guilt? That nagging feeling that as a wife, you are always needing something from your husband. The feeling that you are inconveniencing your spouse when you ask them to watch the kids. That feeling when you are longer than expected and the kids start to began to be difficult. But why? Why do we feel guilty for asking for help from the one person who promised to do it with us.

For a long time, I felt guilty because I felt my husband was angry about the situation. I felt guilty because he already had so much on his plate that I didn’t want to add to it. I believed that the kids were my sole responsibility. I then started blaming my husband for the guilt I was having because he always seemed to be in a bad mood afterwards. But I soon learned that this was an image I was placing on him as well as he was mirroring my own behavior.

So what did I do, I shifted my mindset. I stopped thinking my husband dreaded watching the kids. When he shared that the kids were being extra difficult, I empathized but then expressed gratitude for the opportunity I was able to have time for myself. I told him how grateful I was to have a husband who I felt I could be at peace knowing our kids were being taken care of. I stopped seeing a husband who was disgruntled with taking care of kids and saw a man glad to be with his kids. I stopped apologizing for behaviors I had no control over, I stopped apologizing about prioritizing my self care or desire to grocery shop alone. I had to switch my mindset around the guilt I was feeling and replaced it with gratitude.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I believe that my husband is the head of our house. But too often after we hear that the man is the head, the women is then the neck upon which he turns. I recently decided this is my most hated saying because it creates an environment where the women decides for the family, the women tells the husband what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Not allowing the women to create and follow her own dreams, goals, and aspirations because she is too busy directing her husband. She becomes unfulfilled and resentful because she has nothing that is hers. But this also creates lazy, unfulfilled, and directionless men who are not able to think for themselves or trust their intuition. Creating a robotic marriage where no one is happy.

This is what my marriage felt like for the first 2-3 years, my marriage felt hallow as I lost myself to my husband creating one entity where we were always meant to be two. We are two separate people who experience similar situations vastly different. When I finally allowed myself to cut away from my marriage and focus on my own thing, I finally found my passion and found myself. I was able to stop trying to force my husband in a direction and instead trusted his intuition and honored his journey of getting there. I became responsible for my happiness and fulfillment in life instead of blaming my husband because he couldn’t read my mind. In doing so, I was able to create a marriage that is stronger, more intimate, and worth fighting for. I created my dream marriage because I stopped focusing on directing my husband and started trusting and supporting him in his journey. I started directing my life and where I wanted it to go.

Because of all that I went through, I have a passion for helping women in similar situations. Helping to create powerful marriages by cutting them in half so that they are able to both become more fulfilled in their own identity while finding their marriage identity. I help women find their passion and identity separate from their marriage so they are able to be more independently united. Being able to reach their dreams while trusting their husband’s intuition so he too can chase his dreams and passions. You do not need to give up on your marriage to find yourself again, you can find more joy and fulfillment in your marriage all you have to do is stop being the neck and start being the wife who supports but does not give permission to their husband’s intuition.

Some one reached out and asked me to talk more about meal planning. Yesterday on my social media I posted a reel with my top three tips and today I am going to break them down for you. To start I want to talk a little about my journey of meal prepping. First, I always associated meal planning with eating healthy and/or dieting. Meaning that if I meal planned I would have to cut out my ice cream and cookies. I found this is not true. I also associated meal planning with people wanting to lose weight, again false. The last false information I believed in meal planning was I had to cook everything before hand, you can but you don’t have to to have effective meal planning experience. Over all my experience with meal planning has helped me to find my way that has worked really well, whether for losing weight or for having a form of order. So here are the tips and how I applied them to my life. Tip one was have a goal or purpose behind the meal planning. Tip two don’t wait for Monday to start. Tip three be okay with eating alone.

Tip one; have a goal or purpose when meal planning. The first time I meal planned, my husband and I were looking to lose weight and find a solution to my husband’s migraines. Though we didn’t find a solution for his migraines, we were both able to lose 30 lbs. For the first week our coaches created a meal plan based off of what we were eating already, they just portioned it for us. It was a little annoying the first week to portion out everything we ate but we eventually were able to stop and eye ball our food, or recognize when we had our fill. But the goal was weight loss and so I kept that in the forefront of my mind, I wanted to lose weight so I put the work in to achieve my goal. I knew it didn’t have to be forever. The best lesson they taught us while meal planning was the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time follow the meal plan but 20% of the time is for grace, parties, date night, and other important events that enjoying the moment is more important than the long term goal. But after we reached our goal we stopped following a meal plan and I found I missed the consistency or predictability of knowing what my next meal was gonna be. I didn’t have to think I could just look and be like, awesome, we’re having that, giving you time to pull meat out to thaw or be like, ok, if I am making meat loaf and it takes so long to cook I need to start making dinner at this time.

Tip two; don’t wait for Monday to start. It’s super easy to be like I screwed up and it’s Wednesday I’ll just throw everything out the door and start over Monday or even I’ll start again tomorrow. Give your self grace and be like okay I decided on a different snack or had too much of a snack just accept it and get back to it. Eat the dinner you were planning, and if your goal is weight loss eat the amount you were planning. Just because you made a mistake halfway thru the day or week does not mean you can’t get right back on the horse and recommit to your meal plan. I get it, It’s super hard to not take the extra cracker your kid didn’t eat, or share a snack of goldfish with your kids, or better yet, say no to your sweet 4 year old who is wanting to share. But you have to ask yourself will it throw off my goal?

Tip three; be ok with eating alone. The first time we meal planned we both were looking to lose weight and we only had three kids and none of them knew they could say no to what I offered. So it was easy to meal plan based off of my needs and my husband’s. This time, because I am meal planning right now, it’s harder, my kids are getting pickier in what they eat and my husband doesn’t need nor want to lose weight. So there are nights when I do not feel like cooking and I am eating leftovers from one of my meal plans for dinner, my husband and kids eat cereal. There are times when my snack is an apple and my husband is munching on chips. It’s hard, it sucks and I sometimes give my husband the stink eye. But then I remember my goal and I know that it is just for a season. It’s not forever. This might also mean creating two separate meal plans.

Over all there is no right and wrong way of meal planning and there is no easy way. Depending on what your goal is and why you want to meal plan is a going to depend on the level of hardness because no level is easy. My few extra tips though, if your goal is weight loss, hire a coach, even if its just to help keep you accountable. There is power in knowing that someone is going to check up on you and when you put a price on your goal. If your goal is a peace of mind and knowing what to cook every day, have the same meals often. Personally, I eat the same breakfast and lunch for a week(sometimes longer if I like it) and I rotate through 3 dinners for a week or two(again depends if I like them or if my kids eat them easy enough) and once you get bored of them find new ones. The other thing is your can have three breakfasts and lunches you rotate through and 5-7 dinners you rotate through. Final tip, if your goal is knowing what to grocery shop for I recommend getting the app Mealime, its a free app with tons of recipes you can choose from and then it creates your grocery list for you. It’s really awesome.

This last year was a whirlwind of emotions and changes. Seth and I started the year with a massive amount of debt and we were unsure of how to take care of it. We had just found out we were expecting another child. Seth was still experiencing intense migraines and none of the treatments and medications the doctors put him on were working. This compounded the many other situations and challenges we were already facing. The year was starting to look very bleak and unsure, but as we moved forward we learned many valuable lessons in our marriage.

Lesson one, make date nights a priority. We could have let all the challenges we faced tear us apart, and I am sure that if we didn’t go on weekly date nights they would have. We made sure to spend quality time together so that as the different stressors got on top of us we knew we had each other to rely on.

Lesson two, time is your greatest asset in marriage. We learned when to take time apart and when to spend time together. If your marriage is struggling, spend more time together. Talk about what you want in your marriage and what needs you feel are not being met. If you are struggling individually, spend time apart. Take a break from the world you live in. Take a step back from everything and find out what you truly want in life.

Lesson three, be independently united. Come together often and talk about your struggles and trials. Talk about your wins and accomplishments. But also be aware that your happiness and satisfaction in life have nothing to do with your spouse. They are not responsible for your life and, vice versus, you are not responsible for them. Celebrate and mourn with your spouse but do not try to control what your spouse worries about, focus on yourself.

Lesson four, ask for support not permission. Unless you can read minds, you have no idea the connections that your spouse makes. Why will a 5 ton truck bring them success and joy? Why purchasing an all women’s mom retreat will help them be a better mom? You do not know, and frankly you do not need to know. If it makes sense to them and it is something they feel very strongly about doing support them in their choices.

Lesson five, start with the Lord’s will first. You know the saying ‘when all else fails…’? Don’t wait for everything to fail before seeking the Lord’s guidance. You can save a lot of heart ache when you start with what the Lord’s will is. When you seek his path for you, for your marriage, and for your happiness he will gladly provide you with the answers.

Each of these lessons allowed Seth and I to find more love and compassion in our marriage. Create a strong bond that is and will stand against all the fiery darts of the adversary. We are excited to start this next year because this year, we are starting with zero debt, a plan that is working for his migraines, and 4 happy children who are relatively healthy(we have a bug passing through our house currently).