Marriage more important than children?

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Children’s physical needs come before spouse’s emotional needs. But the children’s *needs *must NOT be confused with the children’s wants. 😉 The spouse’s emotional *needs *come before the mere *wants *of the children.

In any case, who can have a good heart-to-heart with their spouse while the baby is crying because she’s hungry, wet, cold, or lonely? Or when a child is sick and needs parental nurturing, who can decide that’s a good time to leave him with a sitter to go out for a romantic dinner with the spouse instead?
 
paradoxy said:
Guys, what you’re saying is making sense. I’d just never heard this opinion voiced before and it confused me. Also, I have a 7mo baby, and it sounded horrible from that point of view - I imagined it meant sex or conversations with my husband were more important than feeding or cuddling my baby.
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Yes, I can imagine how it must have felt if you heard it for the first time, voiced absolutely and without any disclaimers. It does sound cruel, the way you figured it first. This especially shows in how you put emotional needs of the husband vs the needs of the children.

Cuddling, conversation, having quality time, is not something that can be forced. No one can force you to put away the baby and cuddle the husband instead, for example. However, putting the marriage first (still sounds a bit wrong) in a healthy way doesn’t impose any obligation to show your children some disdain or distance to prove yourself as a good wife, devoted to your husband. None of that. In fact, “servicing” people’s needs in such a way doesn’t do any good to anyone or anything. One just can’t command people to hug him or sue them into that or I don’t know… those things just can’t be forced. But the fact they can’t be forced should make us sensitive enough to give people the attention they deserve. I can imagine a spouse (be it the husband or the wife) longing for any attention, but knowing the other won’t be happy being forced into it, that he won’t be happy with forced attention, anyway, so ultimately those needs will go unfulfilled. Sometimes people may be inclined to focus on the children entirely, with the exclusion of the spouse. But thing is, we don’t marry people just so they could help us have babies, it’s only one dimension of it. The needs of the children are one thing, the needs of a parent (as parent) are another thing, the needs of a spouse (as spouse, not parent) are yet another. I would say the needs of the children, such as proper food, clothing, safety, what it takes for their proper development, are not negotiable or relative, but in all the fascination with children, one should remember the person those children were begotten with. 😉
But what about women who always have a baby around, whose children don’t all grow up before she’s well into menopause?
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Well, I suppose she makes decisions together with her husband, not? Truth be told, I think there’s always some time to be found for the spouse, it’s just some people fall totally into the mode of caring for children or providing for the family and won’t touch anything else. It’s not true that there’s some obligation for the husband to make himself invisible and spend every second on improving the economy, or for the wife to spend every second on the children and pretend the husband doesn’t exist. That’s taking it too far. There’s no need to go to such extremes.
 
We are commanded to Love the Lord with all our heart mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself.

I have never found in the CCC or the Bible where “neighbor” was stack ranked in order of importance.
 
A healthy marriage is the only place you can raise healthy children. If the marriage is neglected and not nurtured, the children will suffer.

Putting one’s spouse first does not mean you let your child sit in a dirty diaper while you get your husband a beer. It means that both spouses respect and support each other first in all things, even the understanding that sometimes children do have needs that are immediate. But the sacrament of marriage must come first, it is what the family is built upon. A house divided falls.

~Liza
 
It’s been years since our last “Well Child” checkup, but I’ll relate a little story…

My wife took our son in for his checkup. All was well with him, but our Pediatrician sensed some tension/stress with my wife! After doing his obligatory “download” of my son’s exam, he blindsided my wife with:
“How’s the Marriage going?.. You two OK?.. Doing some things together?..”

This man’s incite, his exposure to 100’s of kids/moms/dads daily… he just KNEW to ask if the parents were taking the time for themselves.

I’d say the Marriage comes first… how’d the kids get here in the 1st place without them? (societal dysfunctional implications aside)
 
I can only say it’s a different street travelled. A husband who can’t put his own children first is a husband who shouldn’t BE first. A husband who’s priorities are in line is treated with a different respect and love than the children. Meaning when he has a real need and a want, it comes first…but not at a REAL need of a child.

Slippery slope…it makes sense in ym family – but our children do not suffer AT ALL for our love for each other. It’s very difficult to explain. It’s a factor of different kinds of love, but each one weighing-in as equally important. My husband gives me a kind of love that the kids do not receive, naturally, and a “priority” but yet, at the same time, if I were a ****** mother he wouldn’t tolerate it. I think it’s the healthy balance of marriage/children that has to be in line for it to work out.

Sadly I see what you mean by men being bigger “babies” than their own BABIES. Including not getting their butts off the couch and letting their pregnant wives work, clean the house, do all the laundry, cook – AND send their toddlers off to daycare. Uhm no, if you are out of work, you become Mr. Mom – IMO. (I am referring to HEALTHY men who have no reason NOT to work. I am not talking about injured, ill, or disabled men.)

I have not read the whole thread. So what made you ask about it?
 
lizaanne said:
A healthy marriage is the only place you can raise healthy children. If the marriage is neglected and not nurtured, the children will suffer.

Putting one’s spouse first does not mean you let your child sit in a dirty diaper while you get your husband a beer. It means that both spouses respect and support each other first in all things, even the understanding that sometimes children do have needs that are immediate. But the sacrament of marriage must come first, it is what the family is built upon. A house divided falls.

~Liza
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Ding ding ding…we have a winner!

The Marriage is primary to the foundation of the family…BUT,

Children’s needs are often more immediate. An adult understands that the child’s needs must come before his or her own. The spouses love for each other is reflected in their love and service to their children. A husband and wife know that their needs can wait until after a child has been fed or had a diaper change or gone to sleep.
 
If anything is most important it is first God, then marriage, then children. Even with that, if marriage is your vocation you’ll probably just need to give God the least time, the marriage the next, and the children the most, but on the other hand, being faithful to your marriage, the time spent with the children is apart of that. Then with God, the time spent on your vocation of marriage and parenthood is giving time to God. The time spent with God, should help put you on the right track for marriage and children. The time spent on the marriage should put you on the right track for the children.

That might be hard to follow, so to put it more simply, marriage is more important, but for two responsible adults acting as they ought it should still mean the bulk of the time is spent tending to the children. To make sure there is still an emotional connection and to ensure the spouse that it is secure, it shouldn’t take a whole lot of time compared to what the children need.
 
jman507 said:
If anything is most important it is first God, then marriage, then children. Even with that, if marriage is your vocation you’ll probably just need to give God the least time, the marriage the next, and the children the most, but on the other hand, being faithful to your marriage, the time spent with the children is apart of that. Then with God, the time spent on your vocation of marriage and parenthood is giving time to God. The time spent with God, should help put you on the right track for marriage and children. The time spent on the marriage should put you on the right track for the children.

That might be hard to follow, so to put it more simply, marriage is more important, but for two responsible adults acting as they ought it should still mean the bulk of the time is spent tending to the children. To make sure there is still an emotional connection and to ensure the spouse that it is secure, it shouldn’t take a whole lot of time compared to what the children need.
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That makes a LOT of sense, thank you!
 
I used to think that marraige was mor important but I am beginning to wonder. My marraige is struggling a biand I have relly had to focus on the kids needs to make up for the fact that the marrsige is putting stress on us all.
 
paradoxy,

The husband and children are not in competition, which is the way you’ve framed your question.

The family is the basic unit of society, it is also referred to by the Church as the “domestic church”. Within the family, we have the same relationship as between God and the Church.

I suggest you read some of the excellent church documents on marriage and family:

Casti Conubii/ On Christian Marriage by Pius XI
Familiaris Consortio by John Paul II
Arcanum/ On Christian Marriage by Leo XIII
 
A husbands first priority is always his wife. She is his very flesh. And vice versa. Obviously we don’t neglect our kids for our spouse. But making your spouse the first priority is good parenting by example. Children who see parents devoted to each other don’t tend to settle for someone who is not devoted to them in the same manner when seeking spouse.
 
CatholicSam said:
Children’s physical needs come before spouse’s emotional needs. But the children’s *needs *must NOT be confused with the children’s wants. 😉 The spouse’s emotional *needs *come before the mere *wants *of the children.

In any case, who can have a good heart-to-heart with their spouse while the baby is crying because she’s hungry, wet, cold, or lonely? Or when a child is sick and needs parental nurturing, who can decide that’s a good time to leave him with a sitter to go out for a romantic dinner with the spouse instead?
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This is very good post! (So are a lot of the posts here!)

Now, as far as the Ezzos are concerned (which apparently is:) what brought this on in the first place): Their philosophy is pretty much that:eek: the **needs **of the children can (& should) be sacrificed for the wants of the parents.
I have not read the thread which inspired this one, & I have been having too much trouble with my blood pressure lately to do so now…But this I know: Not one of the Ezzos’ now-grown children are on speaking terms with their parents.
Not one of them. The family has essentially collapsed, because of the parents’ emotional (& to some extent, at least physical) neglect of the kids when they were at home.
Furthermore, the Ezzos (parents, I mean) have been excommunicated from three different churches, for various offenses, not the least of which as been an attempt to repeatedly try to force their own ideas of parenting on others in these churches, despite the express objections of their pastors.

**They are not **anyone, IMNSHO, to be giving parenting advice to anybody.
 
Your spouse is you. You have to love and take care of You 1st. You children are a part of You. It is all equal.

Now these people who put their kids on a pedistal and forget the spouse, that is wrong.

I posed this senario.

My kids and I are hanging off a cliff. My wife is holding them in one hand and me in the other. The weight is way to much, she has to let go of one hand or the other.

Which one is she going to let go of?

Hard question eh. I wwould hope she would not know who to let go of and debate, but me hanging there, would make her let me go as I would give my life for my family.

I love my family equally. How can you love one more than the other, love is love, how would love be measured?
 
I realize this thread hasn’t been active in a number of years, but the title and the overall context hits close to home, as there is a troubling situation going on in my social circle that brings this prioritization of marriage vs. children to the fore in a slightly different way than discussed earlier in the thread. I was hoping some of you might have some insights that I could share with the couple.

In particular, I have been thinking and praying over how this prioritization comes into play when one of the spouses feels that the psychological stress that accompanies the raising of a special-needs child (for example, one with Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy) is more than they are capable of handling. It has gotten to the point where they see themselves heading for a mental breakdown, in spite of therapy and medication, and are in a place where they think that giving the child up for adoption is the only way to go, because for the sake of their mental well-being they can’t stick it out in the long run. (The alternative to adoption would be to leave their spouse and child, but they are sickened by the thought of it coming to that.)

The other spouse is not on board with either idea, being that (as others have mentioned in this thread), their Catholic wedding vows included a commitment to accept children as a blessing from God, which was unqualified as to the health of the children. They are fully supportive of seeking additional help with caretaking to ease the burden on their spouse, or even halting their own career (they both work) to focus on being a primary caregiver, but these aren’t necessarily feasible long-term solutions.

Putting it mildly, they are at something of an impasse. There may yet be some opportunity for prayerful marital/family counseling to resolve the situation, but the way things are headed for now, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before an ultimatum is issued: “you can have me, or have the child, but not both.”

Obviously, this is not a choice anyone can easily make (along the lines of the cliff analogy in the last entry), and it’s gotten me thinking, which would be the moral choice for the spouse who wishes to continue parenting?

(1) Agree to place the child with another, intact family who is seeking a special-needs child in particular (they are out there!), perhaps in an open adoption to retain some level of contact, and then work to salvage the marriage relationship.

(2) Stand by the commitment to accept children without limitation, and weather the storm if the spouse decides to leave?

I have my own thoughts on this, but don’t want to muddy the waters with my possibly errant reasoning, so I’d like to hear from others what their views are. I’d prefer to hear about rationales for this binary choice (1 or 2) before any suggestions for other options, since this is the current “reality” and there are also details I’ve left out which might preclude it.

The only thing I will add since I think it might make a difference is that this is an only child – so no effects on siblings to consider.

Thank you in advance for your insights - in the meantime, I’ll keep praying for them :gopray:
 
Assuming that the child’s basic needs are met, absolutely the spousal relationship comes first.

If you pour all of your emotional and physical energy into your child and leaving nothing for your spouse, what are you left with when your child grows up and moves away?
 
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