Okay, you’re probably more with it than I am. For example, you probably know what BAE means. I didn’t until I was with a friend of mine and heard her talking about her teenage son. “Luke doesn’t have a girlfriend right now,” she said. “He says that nobody is his BAE.”
Say what? It turns out that BAE stands for: before anyone else. So that leads me to this question: Is your husband your BAE? Do you put him before anyone else, or is he definitely not at the top of your priorities?
If your husband is not your BAE, try shifting your mindset today to put your relationship with him before anyone else. Need some ideas to get started? Try these 8 Ways to Rev Up Your Relationship.
Has your marriage gone from hot to ho-hum? Guest contributor Lorilee Craker shares the 8 best things you can do to rev up and spice up your marriage. Here’s an abridged version of her list.
1. Do Little Things.
Duos who still have the hots for each other spark up those heated feelings in tiny, seemingly mundane ways, like (one wife named) Catherine: “We don’t really do anything romantic for each other,” she said. “We do more of the practical little things – like emptying the dishwasher before the other person knows or can get to it or getting a late-night snack for one another after our little one is in bed.”
You get my point. Small kindnesses, doled out regularly, will make your guy feel prized.
2. Fuel Your Own Interests.
Do your own thing on a regular basis and let him do his. Because carving out time spent apart (i.e., individual time off), invigorates a pair like crazy. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or in other words, more affectionate, doting, and tender. You know that old saying, “How can I miss you if you don’t go away?” Doing things independently gives you a chance to connect the dots your guy can’t connect for you.
3. Compliment Your Man.
Everywhere in your relationship that is! When you tell your man he looks good in that shirt, or he makes the fluffiest pancakes on the planet, it charges the atmosphere around you with good stuff. You may be in the kitchen when you tell him he’s a great dad, or he’s sweet, funny or smart, but whatever humdrum place you’re standing in is transformed. The air clears and the vibe changes.
4. Get Away a Deux for a Day, a Weekend, or More.
The tightest twosomes find creative ways to leave the building as a couple, not parents, on a regular basis. This means taking charge of your schedule and not letting your schedule take charge of you. It means chiseling out chunks of time to be the goin’-on team you always knew you could be.
If you both work, schedule a vacation or personal day together and then spend it together, relaxing together at home with the kids in their usual places. Have breakfast and lunch out, or simply enjoy the peace and quiet a kid-free house gives you. If your work gives you sick time for doctor’s appointments, schedule your annual checkups on the same afternoon and rendezvous later for a latte. It’ll still feel like a little bit of hooky!
5. Put Your Relationship with Your Husband First and Your Kids Second.
Now, now…before you throw tomatoes at me, try to keep an open mind. I know it sounds odd to suggest that your husband – a grown-up, able-to-cut-his-own-meat, doesn’t-need-a-car-seat man – should take precedence over a 48-pound, needs-his-crust-cut-off, drinks-from-a-sippy-cup child.
Two-thirds of new moms say that the person they feel most emotionally connected to right now is their baby. Oddly, the majority of dads say the person they feel connected to is their wife!
Something is off-kilter there. As natural and easy as it is to slip into the kid-ruled life, we have to consciously and intentionally make our husbands a priority, even the main concern, in our relationship pizza. This doesn’t mean letting your baby’s diaper drag on the floor because it hasn’t been changed or allowing your children to play with knives in the backyard so you can have a romantic candlelit dinner with your husband. But start giving your marriage the credence it deserves.
6. Give Each Other Gifts.
Don’t wait for his birthday or Christmas to gift him with a little somethin’ somethin’. Launch a new tradition in your household in which you two exchange gifts every other Wednesday or some such deal. Or maybe monthly on, perhaps, the month-i-versary of your wedding. That would make it quite easy to remember, plus ensure you do it once a month.
7. Do Something You Love Together.
If Doyle and I could find an activity we love to share, then anyone can. I used to tell people, mostly serious, that the only thing my husband and I had in common was a mortgage, a dog, and, oh yes, three children. He’s a burly outdoorsman who lives to snag fish and hunt deer, and I’m a city girl, born and bred, who gets chills (the good kind) whenever I get to walk Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, stopping here and there for foufy coffee at an outdoor café. I adore hockey, he’s stuck on football. I’m newfangled, he’s old school. Canadian/American. Lefty/righty. Musicals/plays. Romance/action. And the list goes on…forever!
But somehow, we have found a communal passion, a shared interest that we love to pursue – together! It’s rock’n’roll, baby.
8. Realize It Won’t Be This Hard Forever.
The demands of parenthood are bottomless. But someday it will get easier, quieter, and more peaceful around the family casa. The most robust and resilient partners are the ones that grasp the fleetingness of this epoch with little ones running around. If you can appreciate that the taxing, testing days of your marriage, under siege some days, it seems, are short-term, you’ll cope that much better.
Feeling out-of-sync with your man in this kiddie-intense daze is going to happen – every day. But it doesn’t mean you’re headed for splitsville. If you’re irritated or frustrated or feeling trapped, it’s time to hang back a little, assess the most vital relationship of your life, and make a greater effort to link up with your guy.
The kid drama will die down, and then it’s just you and him. What will your relationship look like then? The answer lies in what you give, starting now. There is something to be prized about this era of marriage in the midst of being Mom and Dad, a precious quality of protecting that spark while you’re hosing down a toddler covered in spaghetti sauce.
It’s right there in the mundane, the chaotic, the routine, and the crazy. You’ll see what I mean the next time you catch his eye over the tousled head of your child and smile because the kid just said something unbearably cute or outrageous. Or when you gingerly hand off your drowsy baby for your husband to tuck in. You’ll understand when, some night soon, you are both lazing around on the couch after the kids have been tucked in, and notice his lopsided grin can still make your heart flutter just a little. In a moment like that, you’ll know that what you have together is unspeakably precious. And you’ll be right.
Taken with permission from Date Night in a Minivan: Revving Up Your Marriage after Kids Arrive by Lorilee Craker.
Let’s Talk: Is your husband your BAE?
