Marriage is a beautiful, sacred gift from God. It’s worth investing in. Prioritizing your marriage after baby is truly one of the most important things you’ll do. When all your kids are grown and moved out, you will still have your marriage. And hopefully it will be thriving! I truly believe that you can set your future selves up for success by how you invest in your marriage today. (Which obv will help your marriage now too.)
I want to talk specifically to the wives and the mamas. These are tips for YOU. Proverbs 31 talks about an excellent wife (which we all want to be). Verses 10-11 say “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.” It goes on to talk about her working and providing for her family, having a good reputation, not fearing the future, but fearing the Lord. This is goals. And obviously we won’t be perfect, but it’s something to work toward. Here are some practical steps you can take to be an excellent wife, and therefore have an amazing marriage after baby.
1. Spend Time With Jesus Together
This will be the best thing you do for your marriage after baby (honestly anytime). Our Marriage Pastors at church say in their years of experience counseling couples, “couples who pray together, stay together.” Prayer not only draws you closer to Jesus, but to each other. It’s easy to just do your own quiet times (or skip them all together), I get it. My husband and I have always done this. However, we’ve recently made it a habit to have our quiet times in the morning together (before our son gets up). And when we finish, we talk about what we learned, and pray together.
It can be however long or short you want, don’t feel like it has to take hours (we all have places to be and kids to feed lol). I truly believe you will feel so much more connected to your husband. You’ll get to hear what’s on his heart, what Jesus is teaching him, what’s stressing him. If it feels awkward at first, push through. It WILL get better! Having this precious time just the two of you and Jesus is worth the cringe.
2. Know What You Want
This is really hard for many women (guilty). I can’t even decide what I want for breakfast some days. But to set our husbands up for success, we need to know what we want. It can be small, it can be big. But if you are confident in what you truly, deeply desire, your husband can help. He wants to help. I believe it’s our husbands deep desire to make us happy. (The Empowered Wife by Laura Doyle is a 10/10 must read for more thoughts on this). Obviously when you JUST have your baby, you will have to refigure out what you want. And what you want will continue to change. But take time to think about what YOU want.
3. Set Expectations
Do this before your babe is even here! Set expectations for who would change diapers, who will feed your baby, who would be responsible for communicating with visitors, etc. Will your husband get up with you in the middle of the night with you? Do you want visitors? And then as you move back into “real” life, set new expectations. Who will make dinner? Will you both do bedtime? Will dad take the morning shift? There are just so many things to think about. It’s very helpful to have an idea of who’s doing what. But don’t stress if you don’t know yet, it can be flexible! Have a general idea and you can change your mind if you don’t love how it’s going. I truly believe this will save you from so many arguments in your marriage after baby.
4. Plan Date Nights
If your husband doesn’t plan date nights, you plan them! He’ll love it. And I’m sure he’ll plan some eventually. You and your husband are the foundation of your family. Your relationship affects everyone. Seeing you love each other is a huge source of security for your children. They may cringe, but deep down, they love it.
Don’t get me wrong, scheduling date nights can be hard. You have to find a sitter, think about bedtime, probably drop your kid(s) off somewhere, and then decide what you even want to do. But trust me when I say it’s so worth it.
My husband and I just had a date night last week and it took us a second to figure out what to talk about without our son, Miles. Which made me realize “we need to do this more!” When your kids are all grown and out of the house, you’ll appreciate the time you invested in your marriage now (speaking with no experience but plenty of advice).
5. Love Language
Know your husband’s love language(s) and make him feel loved!! Your options are Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Quality Time, Acts of Service, or Gifts. (Check out this book for a deeper look into each one!). Showing each other affection and love is so much more effective when we’re speaking our spouses love language. We may think we’re being so nice to our husband (i.e. telling him you’re proud of him) but if words of affirmation isn’t his love language, he won’t feel as loved! There’s a free online quiz you can take to find out your love language – you may have more than one! Here are some ideas for each category.
- Words of Affirmation – write him a note, tell him he’s an amazing dad, hype him up in front of your family
- Physical Touch – snuggle up on the couch, hold his hand when you’re walking, give him a backrub if you feel up for it
- Quality Time – don’t be on your phone when you’re sitting on the couch together, go to a coffee shop with him, read together, go for a walk, be present
- Acts of Service – make him dinner, take his car through the car wash, take the baby and tell him to have some chill time
- Gifts – these can be big or small! Buy him his favorite snack or drink while your grocery shopping, get him something for his favorite hobby (i.e. golf balls, new shoes, basketball), tickets to a concert or sporting event (doubling over into quality time)
6. Include Him
It is way too easy to get in the mindset of doing things yourself (speaking from experience). You know how to do it. You’re better at it. It will take you way less time. But! We have to remember, we’re BOTH the parents. Your husband is smart and fully capable of helping you.
Show him how to do the things and let him figure it out. Do it his way. It might not be as efficient as your way, but he’s helping you! And as long as whatever it is gets done, does it really matter how? And I mean, eventually you’re going to want to have a girls night. Or need to go to an appointment. Or want to run an errand baby-less. And then what? Your husband will be helpless. All I’m saying is – set yourself up for success by setting him up for success. Help him, help you.
And not to go on, but bonding time for dad and babe is so important. I’m sure we all want our babies to have amazing relationships with their dad, so we have to actually let them spend time together. (Preaching to myself here).
Final Thoughts
I feel like as wives it’s easy to blame our husbands for how we’re feeling, whatever went wrong, insert woe here. I’m finding that a lot of times when I want to blame Nick, if I take a breath and look at myself, I am actually to blame too. Whether I didn’t communicate my needs, had expectations I didn’t tell him about, or just said something dumb.
I’m not perfect. You aren’t perfect. And neither are our husbands. So remember to have grace for each other. As much as your world is changing, his is too! I’d love to hear your thoughts on marriage after baby! If you try any of my tips or have any tips to add! I’ll leave you with this verse:
I Corinthians 13:4-7 – Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way: it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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