I am toying with whether or not I will post this one... It's very close to home, and yet it is part of the reality of fostering and adopting.
I miss my husband.
I work with the kids all day and he works for his company all day. I make dinner and he takes care of the chickens. I clean up the house and he takes the kids outside to play with and around him. I get kids ready for bed and he finishes a project in the workshop. We take turns tucking them in and kissing them goodnight. Sometimes I have items that need doing after kids bedtime. Sometimes he has items that need doing after bedtime. Sometimes we don't really need to do anything, but we are still ignoring each other for cellphones, laptops, and television.
On the weekends we have soccer and church and work projects to be finished. We make time for the kids. There does not seem to be time for us. We don't want to spend money foolishly on expensive babysitters and nights out. We stay home and we stick to the routine. Its better for the kids if we keep to the routine and its better for our budget.
Those little things... The irritations that you put up with because you love that man and the things that he puts up with because he loves you, they start to eat at your marriage. It is so hard for us to separate our minds from crazy town and just be those two kids who are best friends. It's easy to forget that we are two people who fell in love even though he is compulsive and I am forgetful.
I can see where I want to get to I am just not sure how to get there surrounded by babies who seem determined to sabotage any interactions not related to them. When we are there He says witty completely outrageous things and I laugh. I read his eyebrows and make up whole sentences to go with the expressive eyebrows and he laughs. We talk about things other than the kids. We have intimacy (not the same as sex) in our interactions.
I need a solution that works. It would be so easy to think the solution
is sending our foster boys away, but what if everyone took that route?
We need to learn to have us and them. I wish I could post how we will
do this, but I don't know those answers yet. I am determined to figure this out. God would not have called
me to this if he couldn't figure out that part of things too.
I guess I am deciding to post this one. My goal is to keep this real and this part of it is very, very, real.
I very much identify with your post. It is difficult to find time to be together as a couple when foster care is so demanding and time consuming. Foster care is very rewarding too, but finding a balance between foster care and time to just be a couple and have fun is hard. Having been in it for almost 8 months now I'm beginning to realize that I have to find that balance and find it soon!
ReplyDeleteThis was such a good post. This is so hard for me too. We don't have family close by and I really wish we did so that I would feel like I could leave my girls more often. I have people that would watch them, but I always feel guilty asking and there are so many times that I have to leave them for things beyond my control that to ask them for a date night is hard. I am looking forward to some warmer weather where we live and hoping to plan some backyard dates in the evening :) (Provided there is energy left at the end of the day...)
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog and am inspired. Our pastor this last weekend told us that he and his wife have "cereal dates" every week. After they put the kids to bed, they each get a bowl of cereal and just soak each other in, like a real date, but cheap/free and without needing a babysitter. We haven't done this yet, but I keep it filed in the back of my mind.
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