EP 30: Balancing Marriage and Motherhood

Can a woman nurture her children without neglecting her husband? Is it possible to be a loving wife and a devoted mother? How do we strike a balance between marriage and motherhood?

That was the heart of the question I’m answering this week on my Loving Life at Home Podcast. You can read the original message along with my response below the show notes.

Q: How do I nurture my marriage when kids require so much time & energy?

Dear Jennifer,

I have a request for a future podcast! I was wondering if you could do one about prioritizing your marriage when having kids.

I am personally so guilty of choosing my kids needs over my husband’s, not like their health needs or anything like that, more like sometimes I catch myself choosing to listen to my kids talking to me over my husband, which causes problems as to be expected.

I usually feel like sometimes being mom is more important than anything and I know that’s not true but it is a struggle to prioritize my husband sometimes.

Also I am finding it hard to make time for just us, especially when it comes to intimacy due to being exhausted at the end of the day. I would love to hear your opinion on this topic!!!

Torn between the Two

A: Lean on the LORD & follow His lead

For moms who already recognize the importance of nurturing their marriage, but don’t know how to do so when so much of their time is consumed by caring for young children, I offer the follow six practical guidelines:

1. Request God’s help

Pray about all of it: your relationships, your conflicted emotions, your lack of energy or interest. You can bring all those matters to God.

He offers wisdom to all that ask (James 1:5). He promises to renew our strength and enable us to run without growing weary or fainting (Isaiah 40:31). And He bids us to “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make our requests known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6)

2. Recognize your responsibilities

Becoming a mother does not absolve you of your duties as a wife. You took a vow when you promised to love and honor your husband and live in harmony with him.  So keep that commitment.

Let be said of you what was said of the virtuous woman in Prov. 31, who loved her husband and did him only good while still managing her household and raising her children. I love the way the Amplified version translates verses 11-12: “The heart of her husband trusts in her confidently and relies on and believes in her safely so that he has no lack of honest gain or need of dishonest spoil. She will comfort, encourage, and do him only good as long as there is life within her.”

And part of the good she does him is attending to his physical needs, because she understands what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, “The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise the wife also to her husband.  The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband also does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.  Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.“

3. Review how you manage your time

Audit your schedule. Keep track of how you are spending your time. Check for time sumps. Psalm 90:12 reads, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” That’s a great prayer to pray as you evaluate where exactly your time is going.

It might be you need to let some things slide during the season of mothering young children, but I promise you, your relationship to your husband is not one of them. You may have to relax your housekeeping standards a bit or scale back on time spent on entertainment or hobbies or develop new ways of multitasking (such as listening to audiobooks while driving or doing chores instead having your nose glued inside a book when your spouse and kids need your attention).

My own mother enjoyed sewing before she had children, but I remember her saying she found it frustrating to try and sew once babies came along, because she couldn’t stand the constant interruptions.

Knowing my Mom as I do now, I suspect it wasn’t so much the interruptions that drove her crazy — she was always so patient and attentive to me and my sister — but the mess an unfinished sewing project created that she couldn’t stand. So she set her sewing aside and pursued smaller craft projects (such as decoupage) that weren’t quite as time-consuming and that my sister and I could do alongside her.

The point is, as you track where your time is going, you can make more informed decisions about what needs to change to free up time for nurturing your marriage, even as you are nurturing your children.

4. Remember your first love 

In the book of Revelation, when Jesus is speaking to the church at Ephesus, he commends her for her labor and perseverance. In chapter 2 verse 2, he says, “I know that you cannot tolerate those who are evil, and you have tested and exposed as liars those who falsely claim to be apostles.  Without growing weary, you have persevered and endured many things for the sake of My name.”

Those are all good traits, right?

Yet in verses 4-5, Christ continues, “But I have this against you: You have abandoned your first love. Therefore, keep in mind how far you have fallen. Repent and perform the deeds you did at first. But if you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lamp-stand from its place.”

I know these verses were not written to wives, per se, but to the church: the Bride of Christ. Yet in Ephesians 5, when Paul admonishes wives to respect their husbands and husbands to love their wives, he makes it clear that part of the reason we should be careful to do those things is that God designed marriage to be a picture of the relationship Jesus has to the church.

The Ephesian Christians demonstrated the fact that right things can be done with wrong motives (and vice versa). I’m not sure what was driving the church of Ephesus to persevere in their good works, but it wasn’t springing from their love for Jesus. And the same thing can happen in our homes today with regard to our husbands and children.

Part of the reason I love and honor and persevere in my relationship to my husband is out of love and respect and obedience to Christ, because I want our marriage to accurately reflect what it was meant to mirror: Christ’s love and devotion to us and our loving and obedient response to Him.

So I’d encourage you to do everything you can to keep the spark alive between you and your spouse. Remember: You were his wife and lover before you were the mother to his children. Read the Song of Solomon for inspiration.

And acknowledge the fact that we find time to do the things that truly are most important to us.

In Matthew 15:8-9, while speaking to the pharisees, Jesus quotes Isaiah, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.”

Let’s do better than that in our marriage by not just telling our husbands, “I love you” but showing them in the way we respond to them and prioritize our relationship in a world of distractions.

5. Repent of wrong attitudes

If — as was the case for me on those early years of marriage — you discover contemptuous attitudes and prideful thoughts or just spirit of indifference, then confess and repent and ask the LORD to help you do better going forward.  

Philippians 2 sets a high standard for us to follow: “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.“

I doubt God is calling any of us to actually die for the sake of our husband, but He might be calling us to be inconvenienced. Are you willing to do that? You’ve likely put your own needs and desires on the back burner on account of your children. Can you do the same for your husband? Can you consider him to be more important than yourself? Can you put his needs ahead of your own?

This isn’t an idea I came up with. This is the clear command of scripture. So if you don’t like it, don’t shoot the messenger. Take up your case with God.

The fact is, Motherhood should enrich your marriage, not detract from it.

Watching the way my husband relates to our children –from the time they were babies through adolescent and teen years and into adulthood —  has only served to increase  my love for him all the more.

I would encourage you to never use your children as an excuse to be Inattentive or unresponsive, distracted or preoccupied, distant or indifferent toward your spouse.

Instead, work as a team.

I realize not every husband is the involved father that mine is. But they are more likely to be involved if you do not set up a false “him v. them” dichotomy. By making sure my husband’s cup is brimming with my love and attention, he has far more love and attention to invest in our kids than he would have if I created an adversarial relationship between them or marginalized his needs to attend to theirs.

6. Reserve some time & energy to devote to your spouse daily

Carving out regular time for him, giving him your full attention, and prioritizing intimacy will go a long way toward reassuring your husband the children don’t have a monopoly on your affection.

Again, Proverbs 31 provides a great example of a mother who does this well. 

If, like the listener who asked me to address this topic, you feel too exhausted for intimacy by the end of the day, I recommend taking a nap or getting up early to spend time with your husband. Think outside the box. I have a lot more to say about this topic, but will save it for another episode.

I think I’ve probably given you enough food for thought today. I hope you’ll chew on it and make whatever changes are necessary to send a clear message to your spouse that you love him and are prepared to demonstrate that fact as often as necessary to get your point across.

The Word of God is full of wisdom for every facet of life, but we’ve found it especially helpful in building a happy, healthy marriage. For a fascinating look at how science has confirmed the superiority of God’s design, check out my book Love Your Husband/Love Yourself.