dividends of dating....

I've been thinking of writing a post about how important it is to date after you are married. (And by dating I do mean....dating your SPOUSE).

To be honest, I had never thought much about dating my husband after the wedding. Everything until that time was about making it to the finish line. Or what I THOUGHT was a finish line. Six months after getting married, we were blessed with my first pregnancy. When that baby was four months old, oopsie....I was preggos again. I can't remember much from that time. I just remember that I was REAL clear that putting some space between the next child and the ones that I already had would be essential for my mental and physical health. hahaha.

And just like a young married couple we kept plugging along trying to find our way and to find where we needed to be.

The first sign of real trouble came when number 2 was about 16 months old. My mom caught the vacant look and the lack of appropriate responses. I was oblivious at that point. I had two ankle biters and the oldest one was two. We managed to get a group evaluation at UNR and they were clear that there were "universal" delays. So Guy and I took those delays and put them aside for a few months while we moved to Moapa Valley and enrolled Guy in graduate school. Because what makes more sense than going back to school when you have no career, two babies, one car and one income.

Guy and I grabbed whatever time we could which usually was about 5 minutes before we passed out every night.

Dating was NOT at the top of the list and in fact it was getting pushed further and further down it with each passing month. The need to get more testing for number 2 was growing and at the same time, we were serious about having another child. I can remember counting on the fact that number 2 was just passing through something that was going to sort itself out and then we would just keep moving forward. The new baby was going to be great.

But the big fat "A" word got in the way.

So the fast track story is this....we started number 2 in super intensive therapy for autism while I nursed number three and waited for the other shoe to drop.....and to be sure.....it dropped like a size 20 right on our family.  At nine months, I knew we were going to be in the doubles club. Thank goodness my mom was in the meeting we had with the state to figure out services for number 3. She had the good sense to ask if there were mental health services for me while they started interventions for the little caboose.

Lisa ended up changing my life. She taught me a great deal but the more important was that I needed to start dating my husband again. It didn't matter if it was just for a half hour per week, but it had to happen and there were rules.

1. we had to have alone time together
2. we were NOT allowed to talk about the children.

What the whiz was that about? I had nothing to talk about. I had no energy for dating and I was NOT interested in trying. To be completely honest I had lost that lovin' feeling. Not only had little babies taken over, AUTISM was eating my brain. It seemed so difficult at the time to try and change. I was annoyed all the time with the horror of our circumstance and Guy was my closest moving target. Everything was pushing me to get tough and hard; strong enough to deal with the worst thing imaginable And now I HAD to be soft and loving and sweet.  YUCK.

But, I did it anyway.

Every week we chipped away at the walls that we had been building to brace ourselves up. Every month got a teeny tiny bit easier and we found out how to laugh again. I listened to Dr Laura for 10 years and heard every story imaginable where women were fed up and tired of their husbands. I learned from their regret and with every tragic story I took hope that what we were doing was going to help. I heard stories of divorces after 20 years of marriage and the last date they took together was 15 years ago. The years had been lost in children and church.

I think that it is inevitable that without a sincere effort...every couple can turn off the part where you are boyfriend and girlfriend and you turn into roommates. 

I can say that it took about four years of consistent time to truly feel like newlyweds again. It took four years to pull apart and then four to put it back together. And the truth of it all was that we had no IDEA how much we would need that strength in the years to come. I thought that what we were doing right then was just for us to make it through graduate school and learn how to take care of each other through very difficult times.

The difficult times were nothing compared to what hit the fan after we moved to California. (Because moving to California was going to be our saving grace. We had a unique opportunity for even more intensive services and that hard work was going to heal my boys and help us all to move on like a more normal family).

But we had done the work. The foundation had been put in place in the years before we had arrived. And it made all the difference. Instead of ripping us apart, we were able to face our greatest challenge side by side...strong.

I"m glad I finally got this post out. My sister just posted her story about how important it is to get away as a pair and reboot. I have to say....amen and amen. And you need to add in a weekly date. When you don't feel like going out.....go out. When you don't feel like being nice.....be nice. When it seems like trying to find a sitter is dumb when you can't afford it and the nearest town is a half hour away.....go. Your relationship will be blessed. Your children will see you dating and learn how important it is. They will see you treating each other better and learn what a healthy relationship looks like. They will see that after 20 years of marriage.....it can be so much sweeter than just tolerating each other for the sake of the children.....you can adore each other. It will give them confidence. Do it for them, and do it for yourselves.

I can tell you straight up....dating works. Do it.