by EK Wills
When your heart skips a beat for a prospective partner, all you care about is your feelings for each other. You probably think a little further to what it would be like to have a baby together and even what sort of parent they would make.
But do you both share common goals for the future? Are you both prepared to make sacrifices to achieve those goals? And what are those goals?
How many children do you want to have? Do you want to raise your family in the city? Is one of you allergic to cats but the other one wants a litter?
Fairytales and movies all spruik the importance of finding love and your soul mate but what they don’t follow up with is the need to have common goals.
Over the years I’ve found a few ways to address this.
Short term and long term goals
This sounds like a business plan and it kind of is.
Essentially you are both in the business of raising this family and keeping it afloat so you need to know what you both expect on this ride and how you are going to get there.
It could change but at least you’ve thought about it, discussed it and planned which direction it will follow for the time-being.
This covers aspects such as where you want to live and what you want to be doing. Do you want lots of children and one parent to stay home with the kids until they leave school? Or is it important to provide for the family which may necessitate a two income household?
Too often this happens by chance and then one day you may realize that it wasn’t actually where you thought you wanted to be.
What about schooling for the kids: is it public or private? What planning needs to go into funding for this?
Maybe you both are more laissez-faire or free from regulation and plan to wing it? As long as both of you are happy with this approach, it has a better chance of success.
Many things can be ironed out along the way but this requires clean communication and open lines to discuss them because as we grow, we change and we may move in separate directions to our chosen partner in life if there aren’t regular check-in moments.
If the love of your life likes to talk everything to death while the you quietly muse over things but don’t share your thoughts, this can be a recipe for disaster… learnt from experience – can you guess who does the in-depth discussions in our household?
Here are some things you can do to regularly have the opportunity to discuss these things, especially once you start your family and time is precious.
1. Date night
One tip that is often given is the importance of date night. We didn’t do this one regularly and it was a missed opportunity. At regular intervals, say weekly, take the time to talk over a meal and not allow domestic items to come up.
It can be hard to talk about other things than children when they dominate your waking hours but it is necessary to keep shared experiences about other things.
And when the kids don’t need your input on everything, you will have something to talk about.
2. Turn off the screen distractions
If your evenings are spent in front of the goggle box then there is no time left to muse over different topics. Conversation dies when there is colour and movement as well as noise to draw your attention. And if it doesn’t, then it gets shushed!
We all know that no quality conversation can progress in the ad breaks alone!
If you like watching TV, you could allocate one night a week to no screens (when there is nothing on that night anyway or the Netflix series can wait). This time is set aside for things that have come up during the past week and allows venting rather than festering.
3. Family meetings
I know I’ve mentioned family meetings before but they really are a great way to share information.
You don’t need an agenda, it can be conducted over family sit down dinners (at the table with no screens). Or you can plan weekly meetings, depending on your family’s preferred style.
The planned, shared time means everyone knows there is a time and place for discussing family items and teaches them how to talk about these things.
In a time when our lives are increasingly dominated by individual activities, these techniques help to bring the family together regularly to share ideas, plans and conversations that are relevant to all involved.
Best of luck for the future.
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