As promised, here’s a selection of some of my favorite post-kid intimacy enhancers. Ultimately, I learned all of them from my work with couples over the years, but each one of them is also heavily informed by my personal experience.
I could probably launch a whole blog devoted to this topic, but in the mean time, here’s something to kick things off.
1) Jump at chances to be with each other. When your schedule becomes squeezed by parenting demands, a carpe diem mentality can add a playfulness and excitement to intimate life that you weren’t challenged to try out before kids.
2) Take a good hard look at yourself. Could you learn to be more flexible? Or a better listener? If you’re open to learning new behaviors and attitudes, your kids will benefit—and so will your partner.
3) Embrace the changes brought by kids. I learned to start viewing “going to the beach” as “going to the beach with kids”—a slower, more meandering version of my kid-free beach days, but one that involved lots of games and breaks from packing. My wife and I both benefited by giving up our attachment to the old version. If you fight the change, you can count on tension with your partner. If you embrace it, you can start seeing things in a whole new way.
4) Use quiet times with kids as a chance to bond. Few moments provide the depth of satisfaction and emotional bonding of lying together, soaking up the bliss of a sweet, family moment. Sit close to you partner. Touch each other when you have the chance. This is family intimacy. It can only add to your relationship.
5) Celebrate when the day is over. My wife and I started a ritual of toasting at the end of the day: ‘We made it,’ we’d say; ‘the kids are alive and asleep. Ahhhh. We’d share the highs and lows. Parenting is a shared adventure, full of self-discovery and rich rewards. If you don’t take the time to talk about it, you’re nurturing distance and missing out—and then you end up as a statistic in a study.
Are you one of the couples who grew closer after kids? Let me know. Better yet, add to this list by sharing your own experience in the comments.
If you like my posts, let me know! Let's connect on facebook and twitter. I frequently respond to comments and questions there. And feel free to check out www.drcraigmalkin.com for more tips and advice, as well as information on my book in progress.