How Do I Balance Work & Family? // Hump Day Q&A

Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's hump day. Q and A time.

Hump day, Q and A. Hump day, Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in. I work a full time job to provide for my family and I'm trying to start my own business. This means I have to work on that during evenings and weekends. I'm always tired when I get done working and most nights fall asleep before even thinking about having sex with my wife. I feel like I'm not being a good husband or father. My wife and kids are superstars. How do I juggle my work with my marriage and my family and. Great question. And so many folks who are listening are in that busy season of life, you know, where you're trying to juggle work and raising kids and you're just, you're in those years where it seems like there aren't enough hours in the day, there isn't enough energy to do everything that you need, you need to do. And, you know, what does it look like to make sure? And I appreciate this guy's honesty and his question of saying, I want to put my family first, make sure their needs are being met. But I also, I don't know how to do it while still doing these other things to prepare and provide for them long term. So what does that look like?

You know, I do, I admire his honesty in this and I can tell he's weary and, you know, he's trying to. I'm sort of starting his own business. It's a dream he has for the family and he's doing this. He has good intentions. But I know, you know, working a full time trying to start a business and also be a present husband and father is really tough. So I would tell him, you know, as far as it comes, I'm just gonna address the sex aspect of this really quick. You know, you have a lot of things on your calendar right now that you're trying to meet. And I would say you need to put sex on the calendar and make that a priority because it's just right now your life is so busy, it's not gonna be able to happen unless you make it a Priority. And that sounds. So. I know we've said this before on the podcast and it seems very like, it doesn't seem romantic and it seems kind of like weird, but I'm telling you, in those busy seasons, what you put on the calendar is what happens. And if you want it to happen, put it on the calendar. And you know, it's hard in the midst of raising kids and having a full time job and starting a business to be spontaneous, let's just be honest, but put it on that calendar and prioritize maybe a date night and make sure that you're regularly. It's gonna look different for everybody. But regularly having sex. And I would even venture to say to this husband that it's probably gonna help you feel better and you'd probably even sleep better like on those nights when you make that a priority, because I can tell he's very weary here. And that's a great way to connect with your wife. But it's about so much more than sex. You know, it's about looking in her eyes and really seeing what's going on in her life and engaging with your kids. And so I wanna tell you this too, and I know this is really tough. We talked about monitoring and adjusting earlier. I want you to look at your schedule with your wife and say, what on here do we need to remove? Cause it could be all good things, like I said, and we've had to do this many times in our marriage. I mean, it's a perpetual thing that you have to do because life is always changing. But say like what on here can we remove? Can we take off this one thing for a season while I'm starting this business? Because I feel like I literally don't even have time to love on my wife and kids. And you both decide what can go for a while shelf it. And then you use that time to prioritize your marriage and time with your family. And I think you're gonna feel so much better and your family is gonna. Because I know what you're doing is important, but you don't wanna lose sight of your family in the midst of it. And I can tell that's your heart and that's why you've written us. And I appreciate that. And I know that your heart is the heart of so many moms and dads and husbands and wives listening and watching. And so I really appreciate your transparency with this because it is a tough situation, but there are things you can do to help it.

Yeah. Yeah. And in every busy season, there are certainly times we're working more than others. But we also have to be careful that that busy season doesn't turn into a lifestyle where we're putting our kids and wife on the back burner. Because those are really the priorities. If we forget what we're working for and work can take over and he.

Doesn'T want to do that. Clearly. Clearly, he has the right intentions.

He has the right intentions. So just a few practical things I'd add to what Ashley said is, like, with each of your kids, carve out maybe like 15 minutes per day per kid to say, I'm gonna take that time individually, one on one, with each kid to do something they wanna do, to connect with them around something that's gonna be meaningful to them. And it could be throwing a ball with your son, it could be reading a story with the daughter, it could be whatever kind of they're into. And hopefully it's more than that. But to just say, as a starting point, every day per child, one on one, uninterrupted, I'm gonna spend that time just with them and then also with my wife, like every day uninterrupted, at the end of the day, I'm gonna have an hour with my wife to just hang out. Maybe we're watching a show or whatever, but we're talking, we're together, and we're making sure that we're connected. And just kind of write those things into your calendar as if they're the most important thing, more important than any meeting you've got or any other agenda item that you have for work. So even though it might not right now be as much time as you want it to be, it's the most important thing on the calendar. And you're going to keep building on that. And I think that those consistent deposits in the love bank of your family will help. It'll help you. It'll help you have more peace of mind. It's certainly going to help them because they need that consistent presence from you. So it's good to work hard. But remember, the greatest gift that we as dads can give our families, the gift of our presence, the gift of ourselves. And yeah, we need to be providers and all that too. But I think that where we tend to get off balance is looking at the provider part as the only role. And this guy's got it right because he's saying, I don't want to just be a provider in terms of money. I want to be a provider in terms of my love and my presence and all of us moms and dads. We need to remember that and make sure we're doing that.

Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit your question right there. Or you can follow us on Instagram avanashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.