Are your children able to look at your marriage as more of a “how-to” manual or a “how-not-to” manual?
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You might also be interested in my post at Zen Family Habits:
Make your marriage a priority and your kids will benefit.
Photo courtesy Moomettesgram
Corey is the editor of Simple Marriage as well as a licensed marriage & family therapist. While he has a Ph.D. in Family Therapy, he only occasionally likes to be called doctor. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so you don't miss any future posts.- Simple Family: The Lost Art Of Play
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
My husband and I don’t have children. Yet when I think back to when I was a child I DEFINATELY looked at my parents’ marriage as a “how not to.” An unintended, yet terrible example of a marriage dynamic. Examples taken from it, however, has impacted my own marriage and what my own ‘dealbreakers’ in a relationship have been.
I loved your post at ZFH and left a comment there a few days ago.
One of my greatest goals/sources of pride is to be able to answer “Yes!” to the question of whether we are providing a good example of healthy marriage/relationships to our kids. They are only 4 and 2 years old right now, but so far I think we’re doing pretty well on that front.
I would have to say we are showing our kids a “how-to” . My husband and I both came from that same type of marriage. Both sets of parents have been great examples of how families should be and My husband and I are striving to give that same example to our kids.
I had the advantage of seeing both sides in my parents marriage (I don’t have any children of my own yet.) It was wonderful when I was small, and then during my teenage years I started seeing the how-not to lessons.
I hope they see our marriage as a how-to example. My kids have seen a lot of divorce and dysfunctional relationships in the lives of relatives and friends. My marriage is not perfect (no one’s is), but we love each other, laugh whenever possible and always stick together. I often remind my wife that when we were married (18 years ago), no one gave us a chance. Now, we are one of the few marriages that has lasted. We started with nothing but love and now I couldn’t put a price on the treasures we posses as a family.
A good question… As children ourselves, we view my husband’s parents marriage as the how-to (happily married 35+ years, still date and can’t wait to see each other at the end of the day) while we view my parents marriage as the how-not-to (divorced at 8 yrs, then again at 20 yrs, fought constantly for the last 5 or so, slept in separate beds for the last 3, their “stayed together for the kids” was really “made the kids watch and suffer the unhappiness too”). We make a constant effort, every day and especially in the little things, to make our marriage a how-to by showing love, laughter, kindness and respect to one another.
Great question, I truly hope we are the “how to” versus the “how-not-to”. At this point I would say we are doing a great job, admitting mistakes and always trying to improve and our kids see this. Something to always keep in mind though!