Revisiting No Excuses

Last week I revisited the first part of an article I’d done for our local homeschool support group many years ago and was one of the first posts on this blog. Today I continue with that article with part two where I talk about common obstacles and how to overcome them.

Without further adieu, here is the post from the past. :)

ObstaclesLast week I talked about making time for you and your spouse. I know that no matter what age your children are that there are obstacles to spending time alone together but I’m here to help. God has sent me to some wonderful sources of ideas and encouragement that I will share with you in the weeks to come. Some of the  ideas can be done with the entire family and just  continued with  you and your hubby in the privacy of your room after the kids have gone to bed. Some of the ideas on the sites I will share, are just plain FUN and can be done just as a fun time for the family. If you choose to do an activity as a family, be sure to snuggle up to  your honey and shower him with attention as you all enjoy the activities together.

Here are three obstacles or excuses for not spending time alone with your spouse and ways to jump over them.

#1:    I have a baby that wakes me up in the middle of the night and so I’m tired.

If this is the case, then there must be a time that the child sleeps during the day, so take a nap at the same time. If you are rested, things will go much better for you.

Even if you home educate your children and you have pre-schoolers, elementary, and/or secondary aged children at home, this will work for you too! Just make each child go to their bed, on which they can have some quiet time. I allowed my children to read, write, draw, color, or do nothing during quiet time, but they had to stay on their bed and could NOT talk (this kept them from disturbing me or the baby and kept them from fighting). {The reason they had to stay on their own bed was because the boys shared a room and I didn’t want them fighting over toys or making ANY noise at all. If your children don’t have their own bed, you could set up quiet spots for certain ones, on a sofa or recliner, on the floor on a blanket under the kitchen table and rotate places if this is a source of squabbles, that way everyone will have their turn in the ‘fun’ spot.}

#2    I have children that don’t have a nap time any more and stay up about as late as I do.

You have several options for alone time with hubby. There is nothing wrong with having your kids go to their room earlier, one night a week. Just explain to them that Mom and Dad need to have some time alone together––explain that God wants you and daddy to stay best friends and the best way to do that is to have time alone together in the evening, once a week.

You could make this a special time for the children. Maybe you could make it dessert night, served right after dinner so that they come down off the sweet rush before bed. Make it a night they get to watch a special show in their room, laying on the floor on sleeping bags with the lights out and eating popcorn. Maybe it is a night that they can play with certain toys in their bed or read a book longer than usual in bed. If you need more ideas, contact me with your special circumstances and I’m sure God will give us an answer, tailor made for your situation.

You could have one night be “go to bed early night” and one night be “stay up late night”. My kids looked forward to Friday night, after they got older, because I’d let them stay up until 3:00 am if they wanted but Mike and I would not stay up late ourselves. The key here is that they had to get up by 9:00 am on Saturday and weren’t allowed to take a nap unless we were all doing so. In other words, they couldn’t sacrifice their time with the family because they had chosen to stay up late the night before.

#3    I have older children/teens; this is can be an awkward time.

We generally go to bed at 10pm each night, or at least start in that direction; so at times, at 9pm I go and sit on the sofa, where Mike joins me. There he puts his arm around me or I scratch his back or rub his shoulders, as we watch a show on television together with the kids. By doing this, Mike and I are giving each other our attention and still spending time with the kids and not requiring them to make any changes.

Because my kids are old enough to stay home alone, we now have the ability to go out alone with no babysitter required. Yours may not be old enough for you to spend an extended time away from home with them unsupervised but maybe they can be alone for 30 minutes or so, which is long enough for you two to take a short walk together and have a little time to talk – not gripe – to each other. Sit out on the patio with some lemonade or sweet tea or some other special drink for the two of you, as you spend a short time alone together. Take a blanket out in the back yard and lay down and watch the stars together for a little bit.

As I said before, it is VITAL that you spend time with your honey; give him SPECIAL
attention! Let him know that HE is the most important thing in your life, besides God! I know those children NEED you. I know you get run down and burnt out and just plain tired but your spouse NEEDS you too. Think about this for a minute; think about your intimate times with your hubby. Recollect  how you felt about those times when you were first married. Now, try to recreate that  feeling and attention you had back then.I won’t say any more about that here but know that if you need someone to talk to, God has helped me and I’d be glad to share with you confidentially.

If none of this seems like it will work for you, Pray! Ask God! He has the answer for you because His desire is for you to be in correct relationship with your husband.

Until next time,

Michele ºÜº

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