June 30, 2025

It Takes a Miracle

When sandwiched, it tends to take a miracle to get a day off and forget about a date night or getaway weekend with the one you love without moving heaven and earth. If you have kids and aging parents, I’m sure you know.

If your relationship can withstand the stress of raising kids and advocating for parents all at once, then you’re both likely putting in a lot of effort to be intentional about the things that matter. That is not easy and it is not automatic. If it feels like it is, you’re probably not truly in the thick of it with your kids and parents all at once or you’re the exception.

There’s plenty of research about relationships out there and I honestly have not had the time to look up what is out the on relationships while sandwiched, but I will say that I am thankful that I am about to celebrate 20 years of marriage and 26 years together overall and not trying to navigate the dating world right now with everything else I have going on.

But even on a night when my in-laws have the kids with their cousins, we were cleaning up from an extended family gathering and my husband decided it was too late to watch the movie we were planning to watch because he had to work the next day and I had to spend 8 hours with his sister and family in town as we only get to see them twice a year and our kids were ready for some quality cousin time with parents and grandparents. So, in fairness, we were too tired for much. And it was worth it; we’d hosted an epic gathering with many local members of both sides of my husband’s extended family at our generous neighbor’s backyard pool and seeing the kids playing together in bliss, dozens of second cousins who rarely see each other, instantly friends again. Totally worth it. But often there isn’t time, there isn’t energy, and there isn’t much for the kids to do in our absence.

Sometimes we let screens save the date while our 15 and almost 13 year old put on the movie and watch with the youngest two and we hope for the best with my parents while we escape to our room or, very very rarely (we’re talking once a quarter if that) escape to a restaurant or a movie very close by. Other times we swap dropping off our kids with others while we take their kids another time. My husband’s work took us away as a couple to a sales meeting two years in a row and both dear friends and my in-laws helped, but the packing, the labeling, the lists, and the swapping is all part of it. There are joys in some of it and my mom-in-law and mom friends do Everything possible to make things easier, but it’s just not.

We spent over an hour today talking about plans for Thursday for our 20th anniversary that wasn’t yet planned. My husband named a special restaurant important to us in the past that had crossed my mind and we were both happy he made the reservation. And we realized our youngest has a birthday party she can attend while we are out and my parents are around for major emergencies, our neighbors are amazing if the worst comes up, and between my 15 year old and almost 13 year old we have a semblance of one pretty active babysitter who can get us through. But we asked a lot of questions about timing, about planning dinner for them ahead, quite frankly about managing our expectations in general.

We’ll likely get out to dinner, but my husband took off the whole day to consider spending it together and we realized we have swimming lessons to run to, we cannot think of much to do locally during a day out on a Thursday, so the planning continues and tends to feel less fun with every extra planning conversation and effort required.

I like to tell young parents expecting their first child, “Leave the house at random times carrying as little as possible as often as you can right now, just because you can.” I should also urge them to seize those spontaneous dates while they still can. We may spontaneously date again in retirement, but I don’t imagine it will be the same. Comedies at home are a favorite of ours to laugh together and break the ice of an era that threatens to consume us or maybe already has. There are certainly bright spots of course, but we know all too well that it’s complicated. Not much is just us right now. We would not ultimately trade the ones we love to streamline it, but yet we also sometimes wish we were like the few couples that find a way to make each other a true priority. But there are honestly times where there isn’t time.