I have the good fortune of being married to the love of my life. Brian is my best friend, my soul mate, my partner in all that we do. We just celebrated our ninth anniversary and I have to say, I am just as much in love with him now, as I was on the day we said “I do”.
Now let me just add that life does get in the way of this love. Its been a long time since we were able to go out on a “date” to celebrate “us”. We gave up going out to movies and dinners on the weekends and exchanged it for putting babies to bed and making snowmen with them, an exchange that I think far outweighs what we gave up! Our roles our now first and foremost parents and the role of wife and husband comes in a distant second. Its what we feel is important and we make the best of this. We put the babies to bed, pull out the china and have our very own dinner and a movie in the comfort of our own home! This of course doesn’t happen on that regular of a basis as let’s face it, being parents to three active young children is exhausting! But, we are stronger parents because we make sure that as a couple we nurture our commitment to each other.
Are you a parent that’s focus is on keeping up with your children? Do you often fall into bed exhausted without so much as a kiss goodnight to your partner? It happens, I know, I’ve been there frequently! So my question to you is this, how do you celebrate the love you share with your spouse? How do you put aside your parenting differences, your exhaustion from dealing with your job and life in general and dedicate time to your partner?
When I have families come to me for family portraits, I ask the parents, when was the last time you had a picture of just the two of you? The reply is always “at our wedding”. This, I want to help rectify. At your wedding, you celebrated your love, just the two of you. Now its you, him and all of the kids. How do you celebrate the love that the two of you share now? How do you remember what its like to share in each other’s time when there are constant interruptions? Why not get a portrait of just the two of you? Hang it in a room the two of you find yourself in alone frequently so that you can look at it and remind yourself of the fact that first there was your love, and then everything else followed suit.
When I have a family come to me for portraits, I work at getting portraits of them together. When the kids have tired and are ready for a new activity, I have Brian get them playing. Then I turn my focus to Mom and Dad. I take a few portraits of them so they can, even if its only for an instant, have time to reflect on what started their family story. Look at this photo of Karla and John, taken during their family session. Karla is a mom of two busy boys, John is self-employed and has to work a lot, but look at their expression. After eight years of marriage, I can still see the love that they feel for each other. This photograph will remind them of that!
