One afternoon my husband and I walked in the door and lay down on the living room rug in our coats.  The world dissolved, and we melted into each other, bodies recalling the old spark and stir.

Then the children pounced on us–crying for attention, pulling us apart.  They couldn’t bear to see us kiss, focused only on each other.

What evolutionary instinct makes offspring disrupt their parents’ intimacy?  The way our girls carry on, you’d think snuggling threatened their very survival.  Maybe the behavior is a relic from Neanderthal days, when constant adult vigilance protected babies from predators.

But the irony is that “the parents’ relationship is the linchpin of the family.” So claim the authors of Babyproofing Your Marriage, three married moms who want you to “laugh more, argue less, and communicate better as your family grows.”

I’ve read this book many times, underlined and quoted it, carried it in my purse.  I believe that “nurturing the marital relationship is central to our children’s sense of security and happiness.”  But it’s a complicated task.

Several of my friends are getting divorced.  One college pal revealed over Facebook that she’d be flying solo to our reunion.

“I’m divorcing my husband,” she wrote.  “But don’t feel sorry for me– it’s the best thing I’ve done in years.”

Another friend has two children the same ages as my own.  A look of horror must have crossed my face when she told me her husband had moved out.

“Hey, it’s going to happen to half of us,” she shrugged.

I know the statistics.  Americans– who revere the institution of marriage– have the highest divorce rate in the Western world.  Many of my aunts, uncles, and favorite celebrities have taken a ride on the D-train.  But my own parents stayed together for 35 years, and I assumed that granted me immunity.

Let me back up:  I have a strong marriage.  But raising babies has challenged us to the core.  Many recent studies show that marital satisfaction drops– often steeply– after children arrive.  A few generations ago, “Baby Makes Three” was a recipe for happiness, but not anymore.

Today’s parents are overworked and overwhelmed, too busy and too tired.  With our child-centered lives and intense, hands-on parenting, we’re putting nearly all our energy into our offspring.  Before long the relationship slips into Autopilot.

Oprah says you can have a romantic date-night at home after the kids are in bed.  Turn off the phone, light the candles, and fall in love with each other again.

Is it really that easy?

NO.  How can we leave the kitchen in shambles?  How can we snap out of Mommy -Daddy mode and channel the old, free selves?  The girl who loved to dance at dive bars, shake her long hair till it flew.  The boy who once walked the red Hollywood carpet, surfed big waves at dusk.

He was a rock-star songwriter in a muscle car.  He won gold medals and drove cross-country eight times.  That girl would jump naked into any water– even the Connecticut right after ice-out, her bare skin flushed, face lit with exhilaration.

Winter Solstice drew them together under fierce northern stars.  Who can help them find each other again, the way they first did by a cranking woodstove, in a hunting shack by the cedar lake?  Ice four feet deep and all their clothes on the plywood floor.

“Let go of the past,” says my husband.

“You can’t go back,” says my mother.  ”You can only move forward.”

“Kill the ghost of your past self.  Surrender to the chaos and wonder of parenthood and embrace it wholeheartedly,” says Babyproofing Your Marriage.

It’s good advice, but I’m bad at surrender.  I like being in control, which makes me hard to live with.  I’d rather chart a clear course of action, check off tasks on my marriage-enhancing to-do list.

I remember my father shaking his head in disapproval when my aunt and uncle divorced.  “They stopped trying,” he told me.  “Marriage takes hard work, and they were tired of working.”

That was the only marital advice I ever received from a family member.  Back then, I thought I understood what he meant.  I remember childhood nights lying awake while my parents fought, head burrowed under the pillow to muffle their angry voices.  Once my mother threw a galloon of milk at my father– it bounced off his leg and glugged white onto the red linoleum.

Now I want to fill in the gaps.  How did they survive the emotional pain of arguing?  What hard work helped them through conflict and into compromise?

But we each live in what poet Louise Gluck calls “the privacy of marriage.”  On the outside, everything’s fine.  Behind closed doors, couples are struggling.

One friend says that most marriages have bad patches– a hard few months, even years.  But they’re not necessarily headed for the D-train (that sleek black engine, always waiting on the platform).

“We were in a dark place for two years,” my friend admits.  “But we made it through and we’re stronger for it.”

I want to follow her lead, though sometimes I fear we’ve displaced our intimacy onto our children.

My daughter strokes my eyebrows at bedtime.  “An ear nibble,” she begs, giggling.  “An ear nibble, and an ear bite.”   I oblige, taking her soft lobe in my mouth as she melts into irresistible laughter.

The toddler has already nursed to sleep, her free hand patting my cheek.  These girls love me effortlessly, sensually, but it’s a fleeting thing.  Another eight or ten years and they may withhold their affection.  They may return my embrace with an embarrassed half-hug, the way I grudgingly hugged my parents when I was a teenager.

Children eventually grow up and away. In the meantime, a marriage can starve from lack of intimacy.  If you neglect it for too long, it will wither like a houseplant.

“We didn’t make it,” said one friend.

“Our ship has sailed,” said another.

I wish them all the luck in the world, and try to plan another date-night.

Tags:   Babyproofing Your Marriage · date night · divorce · marriage · married with children2 Comments