How Putting Your Kids First Harms Your Marriage (Marriage & Family Series)

If you have children, have you been told that putting your kids first is the noble thing to do? Most parents have struggled with finding the balance between taking care of their children and nurturing their marriage. This is why this conversation is for you. If you’re Christian, you’ve likely heard of that J-O-Y acronym. Jesus. Others. You. So many of us were raised with this whole idea that you always come last. Everybody else is first. When you get married, your spouse is first. But then when you have kids, (we don’t say this, but we do this), we end up putting our kids first even before our spouse. So in many families, this is how it looks. Your kids are first. Your spouse might come in there second. Friends, neighbors, responsibilities, jobs. Third, if you have a relationship with the Lord. He’s probably third or fourth in there, somewhere in the mix. And then you are, like, on the bottom, bottom, bottom of the totem pole. And somehow that’s supposed to make us feel like we’re great parents. That is so lopsided, and it’s so destructive to you and to your family. 

Boundaries in Parenting and Marriage

So if you all know me, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know that I am really big on boundaries. I was having a conversation with my oldest son. He didn’t go on vacation with us, which was really sad because this is the first year that he’s not been on family vacay.  We were sitting outside and we were talking, and I said, “You have to live a boundaried life. You have to put boundaries around yourself.” I live this way. You all it’s not something that I just teach. It is who I am. I’m a very boundaried person. And it doesn’t make me feel like I’m being squeezed in or like someone’s taking something from me. It actually gives me freedom because I know what I can do and when I can do it. Not what I can’t do and why I can’t do it, but it actually gives me freedom.

When you put boundaries around your relationship with your children, it also provides them safety. It provides them with expectations, and it gives them freedom. They know how they can interact with you and then how they cannot interact with you when it’s just a free-for-all. And your kids just have unfettered access to you at all times, regardless. That is not healthy. When Shaun and I had kids, which if y’all know if y’all have been listening, you know that Chris was six weeks old when we got married. So we got married with a child, okay? So we knew this we were young and dumb, but we at least knew this little baby that we just created. We love him. He’s so cute. But he cannot live in our bed with us. We are newlyweds, and we need to be free to be newlyweds without a baby lying next to us. So Chris, from day one, had his own room right next to ours. He wasn’t going to die. We had a baby monitor. 

What Boundaries Teach Your Kids

We had three other kids after Chris and the same thing. We’ve never had children take up residence in our bed. Now, some parents, love the co-sleeping thing. It works for them. If it works for you and your marriage is not suffering because of it, then great. I’m not telling you that have to abandon that if it works for you. But what I am saying is that this notion of putting your kids first and allowing your children to have access to every single part of you and every single part of your life and your relationship and your marriage leaves them not knowing where they end and where you begin. They don’t have a clear boundary line. That’s literally the definition of a boundary. It’s where you begin and where I end. So for us, we just made it very clear to our kids that you end in your bedroom at night. And Mommy and Daddy, we have a whole other life that’s separate from you guys. And that worked for us. 

A Kid’s Super Power: Find the Weakest Link

As they grow up, your children have a superpower called “Let’s find the weakest link.” They look at Mom, they look at Dad, and they’re trying to find out who is the weakest link. And then they’re going to go attack that link. If you all never seen this in person. I’m telling you, you think your kids are nice and sweet. They’re plotting on you! Oh, yes, they are. So this is what I see a lot of times, said child will go to the weakest link parent. That’s usually the parent who isn’t going to say no. It’s the parent who they know they can get their way with. It’s the fun parent who lets them get away with everything. They’re going to go to that parent. And I’m not saying weak like you’re a weak person. I’m just saying in a kid’s eye, you’re the one they’re going after. Okay? So the kid goes to that parent and they ask for something. Oh, daddy. Oh, Mommy, I love you so much. Can I have some dessert? I know it’s after midnight, and I know I should be in bed, but please, oh, just one more cup of juice, please. That’s kids, right? 

So that parent unsuspectingly says, “Oh, sure, go ahead.” And then they meet eyes with their spouse who is not very pleased and is like, “What are you doing? Why did you tell that kid that they could have ice cream? It’s midnight. They’re supposed to be in bed. You know they’re going to pee in the bed. You know they’re going to be up all night.” They’re going to have energy, whatever it is, right? And so that causes this now conflict between the spouse and the kid is over there eating their little ice cream lee not caring that now you guys are disagreed. So if you guys listened to last week’s episode, Shaun and I actually were on together. If you haven’t taken a listen to that, go ahead and listen. It’s episode 157, and we were talking about what do you do when you disagree on how to discipline your kids.

This is exactly what I’m talking about right here. You disagree on what the rules should be, on what the consequence, if needed, should be. And kids have a way of getting in between parents when it comes to the whole discipline rule structure thing. But let’s talk about something else, because when I’m doing premarital coaching, one of our most important sessions is on this whole topic of parenting.  And I do this with every single couple unless they just absolutely do not want to have kids, then okay. So all of the couples that I have done premarital coaching in, whether you’re a blended family, whether you are an older couple that’s getting married, or whether you are 20-something-year olds, you’re newlyweds, or about to be newlyweds, we are going to have this conversation about parenting because it’s so important. I teach couples that putting your kids first in marriage is a big no-no. And this is what I always say. Your child, when they’re about three or four years old, is going to figure out that they are not the most important thing in the world. I don’t know when it happens, but it’s like they just figure out, like, oh, there’s a whole other person in this house with me, and it’s a mom or it’s a dad. It’s not me. I’m not the center of the world. 

So what they do is they will try to weasel their little way in between you guys and between you mom and dad. Every kid does it. So if you allow them to do that, you have just sent a very powerful message to that child that they come before your husband or your wife. And I’m going to say this to step families, blended families, because a lot of times there’s a lot of guilt because you feel like, well, technically, that kid and that parent, they had a relationship before I came on the scene, so who am I to get in that mix? And listen, it’s messy, it’s tricky. I get it. But if you’re in a blended family, you still cannot put your children before your spouse. Your children have to know that they are the kid. They’re not the number one priority. No, not even in a blended family, they are not the number one priority. Because guess what? Whether you’re in a blended family or whether this is your organic, natural family, those kids one day are going to grow up and move out. 

The 20-Year Itch Marriage & Divorce 

What’s going to happen is you’re going to be left with your spouse. And if you have spent 20 years, 25 years putting these kids first, their needs first, their desires first, then guess what’s going to happen with you and your spouse? What’s going to happen is what happens to a lot of spouses that are in what they call the 20-year itch marriages. 20-year itch . . . go look that up, where couples rapidly get divorced. What happens after 20 years? Oh, my gosh, that’s like two decades of time invested. Why would you leave a marriage after two decades? Why people leave marriages is because they look up and they’re like, who are you? I don’t even know you. I’m so disconnected. And this is why so much, you guys. I talk about that partner quiz that you heard about probably in the promo of this episode. If you haven’t, then you can go to Danache.com/partner quiz because I want you to learn not only how disconnected you are as spouses, but how to reconnect. 

That’s really what this is all about is how to stay connected as husband and wife, as partners after you have children. Because if you neglect your spouse for the sake of your child, what’s going to happen when your child leaves the house is you are so disconnected, you have no more relationship. And many couples are like, yeah, okay, I’m not needing to be in this marriage anymore. It’s time for me to move on to the next thing. When you see problems arise in your marriage, you need to be able to address those immediately. So what happens when you put your kids first is you focus on soccer. You could focus on football games, you can focus on basketball games, fundraising, PTA vacations, even family vacations. You can focus on all of that stuff. Meanwhile, your marriage is deteriorating. It’s rotting away before your very own eyes. But you don’t have time to deal with it because you’re so wrapped up in your kids. So when the kids are no longer there to provide that buffer, now you’re faced with husband-wife marriage problems. And, for too many, couples, that seems too much to bear and they don’t make it. 

Putting Your Kids First Builds Resentment

I’m going to tell you another reason why putting your kids first actually harms your marriage, and is it because it builds resentment. There are so many men, and I’m going to speak up for my fellas here because some of you all ain’t saying nothing to your wives. But you say stuff to me. You say it in coaching and you say it in emails and you say it in DMs. You feel neglected because your wife goes hard for her kids, but she doesn’t go hard for you. Your wife gives all of her time, energy of focus and attention to your children, but she gives none of that to you. So you want to know what happens? Wives, these men, they become resentful.

I just want to give you some information, though, some wisdom that if you are neglecting your husband and it could be the opposite, maybe husband, you’re neglecting your wife. This isn’t very common, but it could be because of your children, then you are building resentment in your spouse because it used to be you and them before your kids ever came along, it was you two. Now, again, maybe you’re thinking, well, I’m in a blended family, I’ve always had kids. But you still were together before you introduced your children into the mix. Even if you are a blended family, does that make sense?

It’s Time for a Paradigm Shift: Stop Putting Your Kids First 

What am I saying? Prioritize your connection. Above all else, keep your marriage the main thing. I think that it’s so important that we understand what we are teaching our kids. This is why I started off this whole podcast series, this marriage and family series with the seven lessons that your marriage is teaching your kids. Your marriage is literally setting an example for your kids. So if you teach your child that they come first in everything, they’re going to get out here in this big, bad world, and this world is going to be like, no, you don’t come first. You are not the center of the universe. And your kid is going to be shocked because that’s all they grew up in, is thinking that they were the center of your world, but that’s not how it works in the real world. And then they’re going to marry someone, potentially, who they think they now have to put themselves last for and put their own kids first. So now we’re just repeating the cycle.

The Value of Self-Care in Parenting

You all mental health is a real thing because they have neglected themselves for so long. I’m a huge advocate in self-care, and self-care doesn’t mean selfish care, it means take care of yourself, go for a walk, eat healthy. Eating healthy is self-care. Mind your attitude, forgive. That’s all self-care. That’s the self-care nobody wants to talk about because people really do at our core, y’all, we really do tend to be selfish. So sometimes self-care can be taught as just don’t worry about anybody else, just care about yourself. That’s not how I teach it. I teach self-care as making sure that you are the best that you can be inside so that all of these other relationships outside really do matter. You can give yourself, you can give the best of yourself to those. That’s how I teach self-care. But you need to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. And then like I said, you need to make sure that you’re nurturing that marriage. If you are not taking care of yourself, you’re not going to be able to nurture your marriage. If you’re not nurturing your marriage, then you’re not really going to have a successful parenting family life. So when we get this out of balance, everything suffers.

So I want to end this episode by really challenging you to do something practical today to make sure that you are honoring your marriage before you are honoring your children. Make sure that you prioritize your marriage before you prioritize your children and stop putting your kids first in your marriage. 

These show notes are an abridged version of the transcript of the podcast. To hear the full episode, be sure to listen in!

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

Episode 157: When You Disagree on How to Discipline the Kids

Take my Free “How Connected a Partner Are You” Quiz

Episode 155: Why Your Kids Need You to Get a Room

7 Lessons Your Marriage is Teaching Your Kids

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