The Super Couple by Christine Bacon

Author:Christine Bacon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633932012
Publisher: Koehler Books
Published: 2015-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Career, Children, and Other Subverters

Before I move from this topic of priorities, I’d like to add two more factors that commonly contribute to our misalignment of priorities: children and careers. Women often make children the center of their world and many men place career and “significance” at the center of theirs. Regardless of gender, what is imperative is that in both examples the spouse is no longer central.

I wish to illuminate the insidious threat to Superness that each of these can be. If you are anything like me you may be thinking “Well of course my children are my first priority. They need me and cannot survive without me. My spouse can.” While it is unquestionable that our children’s basic needs must be a priority for both parents, their relational needs—your relationship with them—must be second to your relationship with your spouse. Numerous marriage and family experts have agreed the best gift you can give your children is to love their other parent. In this sense we mean providing our children with their basic physiological needs but also their needs for emotional security as well. Watching mommy and daddy love one another makes me feel so secure in my own life that I can focus on being a kid.

For twenty years I maintained the rationale that if I were in a sinking boat and I could only save my spouse or my children I’d undoubtedly save my children. And why wouldn’t I? Looking back, my children made me much happier than did my spouse. Or was it that I focused more attention on my children than my spouse (thus relegating him to a non-central position in my thoughts and actions) that resulted in my closer relationship with my kids? I didn’t fight with my children. (For the sake of this illustration, let’s just skip past those attitude-ridden teen years when I actually wanted to throw them over the boat.) I had fun with them, we went to events together, and they adored me. At the end of their days it was me who they came home to, shared their hurts with, and trusted to make things better. Summed up: my children made me feel as if I was the center of their world and it felt good. The above example does not refer to the excessive hovering of helicopter parents but rather that there were no conditions to their love for me, nor mine for them. Thus those relationships were nurtured. The one with my spouse, sadly, was not, though neither of us realized it.

A priority is defined as “higher in importance, rank or privilege.” As with our money when we place spending as a higher priority over saving or vice versa, we realize we can’t both save and spend without dividing our resources between our financial priorities. If we are saving for a house we focus, for a time, on saving for that house. We eat Ramen noodles more often in order to deposit more into the house fund. Once purchased, we can reassess our priorities and reallocate our resources.

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