Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 339 | Connecting After Kids are Down

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Ep. 339 | Connecting After Kids are Down · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  I think it's really important though to differentiate that from, yeah, I have a little energy to connect, but I just want to do what's easy.
• 0:11
  What's up, guys? Welcome back to Five Into Fatherhood. So in our online homeroom community, this is where we throw out a challenge every single month to the 3,000 or so people in homeroom to help build their family teams. Rebecca, we have lots of questions people ask. It's basically a giant think tank for family teams. And so it's so awesome to hear these questions. But just today, we got this question from Rebecca. She says, my husband is not a reader at all. He likes to watch
• 0:41
  Sean and Gus are hilarious, but not every night. I find sitcoms boring and a waste of my reading time. When I don't watch TV with him, I feel disconnected from him. We've tried schedules, watching TV three nights a week and reading the other nights. We've tried me reading a book aloud, so it gives us something to discuss and talk about. Didn't work.
• 1:02
  I'm just kind of at a loss as to what to do now. And so I can't, I'm imagining some large percentage of guys listening to this and I'm definitely in the camp. You're home, you're tired, you know, it's eight or nine o'clock at night and there is so much good stuff to watch on Netflix or wherever. And you find yourself just night after night after night zoning out. And in this case, you know, this, you know,
• 1:29
  This, um, this dad has an amazing wife who wants to like connect with him and doesn't feel like binge watching is, is the way to do it. So, uh, yeah, Jeff, what do you think of this one?
• 1:42
  Yeah, I think, oh, this is a really good one. And I like it because me and Alyssa have dealt with his exact same thing in a little different ways. Like Alyssa likes her Hallmark movies, you know, and but but but in this but she's actually similar to Rebecca where she wants to connect at night to sometimes. So here's how we've navigated it. I think that's been really helpful is first set expectations really well. Right. What is that nighttime for?
• 2:07
  Right. Because it starts colliding and hurting when when you have when either of you have expectations that you've never, ever said like I explicitly want, you know, the nighttime to be my veg time where I'm alone, where I get to watch YouTube videos and where I read. That's like my what I see it as. Right. I read I read books and I'll like watch steak videos on YouTube.
• 2:25
  That's my nighttime. And Alyssa is very similar, but with like a show or something like that, but then wants to connect a couple of times too. So a couple of ways that we've solved that is, you know, I've noticed that time at night becomes a drag on both of us, like meaning like where we feel like, man, we're not connecting. We're not, we're kind of just ships in the night. When we're not getting that other places in our, in our, in the day,
• 2:52
  if that makes sense. So basically, basically I'm trying to say is we've put that connecting time at other places when we're not as tired and when we don't want to veg out and we actually do want to connect. And then, and then it's like, then when we get to the nighttime, we both kind of say, Hey, love you. Love you. Like go do your thing. You know what I mean? And we, and we enjoy it that way, but it feels very, and it feels, it does take on a spirit of disconnection.
• 3:11
  Be of like, oh, they're just like in another. There's something about it psychologically. You know what I mean? When every night you're like, whatever, when you don't have that somewhere else. So make, so just put it somewhere else, put it somewhere else. Or I would say we kind of do a blend where we put it somewhere else. You know, we make sure we are always connecting in a strong way once a day, usually in the morning or afternoon. And.
• 3:30
  And then we have like more of a date night once a week at night. And so that those cover us where then the expectations are set and we're actually filled up enough where then the nighttime is just like, hey, we just need to rest. It was a long day. Kids, toddlers work. And so that's kind of kind of done it for us. But it took a while to get that equation. So I would say mess with the equation and set expectations very clearly and kind of say what you need and see if you can get what you need. Not in that time. That's what I would say. What would you say, Jeremy?
• 4:00
  Yeah, I agree totally that a lot of this is just an energy problem. Some guys just literally, they don't... There's kind of two different problems that I've... I try to differentiate these two. So the first one you described, is it just you're... By 9 o'clock at night, you're done. You can't fall asleep. You just can't think. You can't talk. And the only thing you can think to do is veg out in front of something on TV. I think it's really important, though, to differentiate that from...
• 4:27
  yeah, I have a little energy to connect, but I just want to do what's easy. And so you have to be really honest with yourself which one you're doing. And for me, it almost depends on the night. And so what I've learned is probably around eight or nine o'clock at night, I will kind of check in with myself and try to be really honest with myself. Like, I'll always want to just veg out in front of something. I mean, 100% of the time. Yeah. But I will try to ask myself the question, you know, am I doing this because I'm really, really tired and I just need to veg out?
• 4:56
  Or do I have a little more relational energy left that I can give? And if I do, I'll try to lean into something else, reading, hanging out with my kids, talking to April. Of course, she might be checking out too. I've done this thing the last couple of weeks. It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing, but all of our kids, I can text now except for Kyra. And so we were...
• 5:22
  I was feeling a little extra energy one night and I was going to write, grab a drink and come hang out with me in my office. It was like nine o'clock at night. And then I decided to brand it Drinking With Dad. So a couple people grabbed drinks. They come into my office. We have this amazing conversation. So I've been doing that a few times. It's really good to have a...
• 5:46
  a go-to thing you do when you have relational energy left, sending out a signal to your wife like, hey, by the way, I'd love to talk, or hey, can we just have a deep conversation? Let's grab some hot tea, let's grab a drink, let's go talk about the day. And again, if you're doing that when you have that relational energy, then hopefully she'll give you all the grace
• 6:10
  when you need to just veg out. And there's definitely times where, you know, we're all just tapped and it's understandable. We just need to relax. So yeah, those are a couple of tips, Rebecca. Every marriage I know has to navigate this dance.
• 6:27
  Um, and, uh, and so continue to try to, to, to figure it out. I don't think anyone's going to maybe figure out the ultimate answer to this, but, uh, but, but definitely keep, keep trying to figure out what works for you and within your marriage.