5 hours to a Better Relationship

This posting continues a four-part series on improving your relationship to improve your children's well-being. Go here for Part I, "Your love life, your child's happiness," and here for Part II, How To Fight.

Just to restate the obvious: it takes time to work on a relationship. Time you might otherwise be spending with your children. But the research shows that working on your relationship with your co-parent - even if you aren't married - can really influence your kids' well-being. So EVEN IF it means giving up a little time with the kids to become better friends with whomever is helping you raise them, I say: make it a priority.

There is a lot of good news here on all fronts. First of all, we don't need to worry that we are spending less time with the kiddos than traditional parents did during that supposedly blissful era of the nuclear family, circa 1965. Research shows that more than half of us feel guilty about how little time we spend with the kids; I'm here to say let it go. We're not spending less time with our kids than our parents spent with us. Married mothers now spend 21% more time caring for their children than they did back then! Dads are stepping up, too: though they still spend less than half the time caring for kids that moms do, they've doubled the amount of time they spend since Leave it to Beaver was the gold standard. How can this be? Aren't we all CrazyBusy?!

Well, we do a lot of multi-tasking now. We eat take-out. We don't iron our sheets. We spend less time with our friends and family and-you guessed it-SPOUSE. Which brings me back to my point here: prioritize your relationship with that co-parent of yours, even if you aren't married, because your relationship with your children's other parent is very important for their happiness.

John Gottman, my favorite relationship researcher, has a three-part prescription for strengthening your "marital bond". If you aren't married to your children's other parent, I challenge you to follow this prescription anyway (save the 5 minutes of sexually charged grabbing: though it might make you nostalgic for days gone by, it could also land you a court-order).

ONE: Start building fondness and affection, pronto.
A good friend of mine is a pro at doing this with his ex-wife. Yes, you read that right: his EX-wife, the mother of his son. He's always talking up his first wife's great qualities as a mother, and when he talks to her on the phone you can hear the appreciation and fondness in his voice-even though they are just discussing the logistics of school pick-ups and Saturday games. It isn't that Marc is still in love with his ex (in fact, there is a lot that she does that bugs him and he's happily remarried to someone else); he just recognizes that she is doing a good job raising their son, and he appreciates it.

TWO: Be aware of-and responsive to-what is going on in your co-parent's life.
The best predictor of a wife's marital satisfaction, according to one study of couples with young children, was her husband's affection and attentiveness. Note to husbands everywhere: gift-giving on Valentine's Day is not just a Hallmark plot to make you feel cheesy, guilty, or inadequate-it is a symbol of affection and a sign of attentiveness. Show her that you know her well enough to pick out something she'll like.