In Response to JJ

JJ at Waiting for Mr. HOH asked a question on her blog.  She asked "Is marriage first? If so, how do you make that clear to your children? Of course there are times when you have to put your children first (when they broke their arm and you need to take them to the hospital instead of making dinner for your dear HOH, etc.) So I guess my main question is how do you find that balance? Is this a discussion you and your husband have ever had to have? How does this influence DD?"

Here's my answer:

We discussed this at length when we went through premarital counseling and I'd like to share what I learned here.  Before John and I met, we felt there was no way anyone would ever come before our children.  Our children were a part of our lives first and they would be more important than our spouse.  We knew the model of God first, spouse second and children third but we had no intentions of living by that even though we were both Christians and we weren't going to marry anyone who didn't understand our children would come first.

In premarital counseling though we discussed how, yes we should put our spouse first but we should marry someone who wouldn't make us choose between the two.  We also discussed that the relationship and the love you have for your spouse is not the same as the love you have for your children.  So it's more like we're comparing apples and oranges here.

Our pastor described the concept of spouse first and children second as not allowing your children to play parents against each other.  That we should provide a united front to the children and not allow them to come in between us.  This in turn gives them a sense of stability.  If your spouse hands out a discipline to a child that the child feel is excessive they may try to convince you of it.  If you agree with the child then you and the child can get into a discussion about how daddy's so unfair, you may not back his decision and your child and you sort of go behind his back and unrestrict the child.  This creates a feeling in your spouse that what he says is not important in the household, if this is something that continues for a period of time, your spouse will spend time other places that make him feel important.  The better choice is to explain to your child that this is what dad has decided is fair and uphold his decision.  If you feel he was unfair, you may discuss the issue with him behind closed doors, away from the child.


I feel like since we're in a blended family situation, it is actually even more important that we keep each other as top priority.  There are several reasons I feel this way.  One is because we didn't have that time before kids to cultivate a strong marriage, another reason is that both sets of step kids feel like their step-parent has encroached on their territory.  We were 2 set up families with 2 ways of doing things, so when we blended the families, each family had to give up some of their routine.  This made both kids feel like the other family "ruined" their lives, causing each to act out to the step-parent and to tell their bio parent that the step-parent was doing mean things to them.  Also, since it was just my husband and my stepdaughters before us and me and my kids before them, the kids weren't used to sharing their parent, now they have to share with more kids and another adult.  Frequently I've been shoved away from my husband by a step-daughter.  If they had their way, John and I would have no physical contact while they were here.  In the beginning I felt like every other week I stopped being a wife.  Of course I discussed this with my husband and we've worked on it with the kids.


She also asked how we make it clear to our kids.  We've sat down and had discussions with them about how the parent/child relationship is different then that of a spouse.  (we spoke in kids terms).  We talked to them about how everyone is born with the capacity to love the whole world as Jesus has so the fact that our family has gotten bigger just means there's more love in the family.  We have date nights, but I also work diligently to find fun unique things to do with the kids as well.  We also make one-on-one time with our bio kids so they don't feel as abandoned.  We have made it clear that if John and I are in our room with the door shut, they are to leave us alone.


Closing thoughts:
Without the marriage, there would be no family, but once an adult has children they now have a responsibility to that child to raise and nurture him/her to be a good adult.  If you don't nurture your marriage while the children are still growing, then what will you be left with when the children move out?  (this is what my parents experienced, I was an adult when they divorced).