30| Wife First Then Mother, Keeping Marriage the Foundational Relationship in the Family

In this heartfelt episode of Intentional Motherhood, Kelsey Redd opens up about a topic many moms struggle with but rarely discuss—how to keep marriage strong in the middle of the busy, exhausting co-parenting years. Drawing from her personal journey of over a decade of infertility followed by the whirlwind of raising four little ones (including twins), Kelsey shares why your relationship with your spouse must remain the foundation of your family.

You’ll hear insights from marriage expert Matt Townsend, including his stages of marriage—yearning, earning, and enduring—and practical ways to nurture your relationship even in the trenches of motherhood. Kelsey highlights the importance of daily, weekly, and yearly rituals that help couples stay connected, avoid drifting apart, and model a healthy partnership for their children.

This episode will encourage you to:
 ✨ Remember that your marriage came before parenting—and will last after it.
 ✨ Create simple rituals that strengthen your bond with your spouse.
 ✨ See your relationship as the greatest gift you can give your children.

If you’ve been feeling stretched thin, disconnected from your spouse, or unsure how to prioritize your marriage without neglecting your kids, this conversation will give you hope, perspective, and practical steps forward.

Connect with Kelsey:

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@creating.intentional.mothers

Episode Transcript

Kelsey Redd (00:08):
Welcome to Intentional Motherhood, the
podcast for real moms like youand me who are just trying to do
our best to raise the amazingkids that God has given us and
really want to enjoy motherhood.You're in the right place if you
know that you have a God givencalling and purpose in this life

(00:30):
to raise amazing families andyou want to find ultimate joy in
this calling and purpose ofyours. I'm your host, Kelsey
Redd, a mental health counselorturned stay at home mom of four
little kids, twins included, allsix and under. And today we're
talking about marriage, thecouple relationship. As you may

(00:54):
have guessed from the title,we're going to talk about why
it's so important to keep thisrelationship as the foundation
of our families.
I've been hesitant to talk aboutthis subject because I don't
necessarily feel like it's anarea of expertise for me,
although I have spent many yearsworking with couples in my
clinical practice. But I justdon't feel like I can keep

(01:17):
moving on talking aboutmotherhood and how we can do our
best be the best version ofourselves in motherhood without
addressing the marriagerelationship. Buckle up, lets
get started. Thanks so much forbeing with me today. And I hope
that we can have a really goodconversation about why and how

(01:43):
we can keep the marriagerelationship as the foundational
relationship, the foundation ofthe family, because that is so
critical in creating a healthy,stable environment for our
children.
And not to mention, we need tohave this relationship at the
forefront of our mind becauseit's actually the relationship

(02:04):
that's going to outlast our busymotherhood phase of life that
we're in now. Eventually yourkids are gonna grow up, your
kids are gonna move out of thehouse and you'll be left with
your spouse. And so many coupleshave a hard time during this
transition because they havelost the sense of themselves and

(02:26):
as a relationship as a coupleduring the co parenting years.
And now they're meeting thisessentially stranger twenty
years later and having torebuild a new relationship with
their spouse. I called thisepisode Wife First and then
Mother because I think it'sreally important to remember,

(02:50):
assuming we're talking withinthe context of a traditional
family system where a husbandand wife are married for the
first time to each other at ayounger age and then they
develop a family together.
Obviously there's exceptions tothat rule and that may create
some different family structuresand different chronologies in

(03:14):
the family system. But speakingfrom this general context of
this traditional family, weenter into a relationship first
with our spouse. And then as theyears progress, we move into the
phase of marriage that MattTownsend, a renowned marriage

(03:36):
expert that I really enjoy histeachings and I recommend you go
look him up. Calls this stage ofparenting that we're in now with
these little kids, the coparenting stage. And it's a
really challenging stage ofmarriage.
So I want to give you a littlebit of context into my life and

(03:56):
my experience. My husband and Iwere married very young, and we
expected to start our familyquickly after being married. But
as God would have it, we endedup spending over a decade
without any children in ourfamily. We were trying to have
kids for most of that time, butit's just not the way it worked

(04:17):
out. We were able to build avery solid foundation in our
marriage.
Of course, it wasn't without itstrials. And I will tell you that
infertility takes a toll onevery aspect of your life and
your relationship. And thatcreated some really difficult
and challenging years for us aswe navigated the grief and the

(04:43):
longing and the treatments andall the things that go along
with infertility. But we wereable to spend over a decade,
which is more than a lot ofcouples have, building a
relationship, a partnership witheach other. And then we entered
the co parenting stage ofmarriage and I think there was a
little bit of a honeymoon phaseof that new stage for us because

(05:06):
we had wanted and longed for ourchildren for so long that we
were just kind of in thisblissful heaven with our
children for a little while, afew years maybe.
But as the years go by and asmore kids come to our family, we
are definitely in the trenchesof the co parenting phase. And

(05:27):
it's difficult to keep ourmarriage as a high priority.
It's like, I kind of compare itto the example of someone who is
really into fitness and exerciseand who has maybe some fitness
goals or body goals, and theywork for years and they have a
plan and they put so much timeand effort into reaching their

(05:51):
lifting goals or their BMI goalsor their race time goals, and
they finally hit this goal andthey think, Oh, I've made it.
I've achieved all of my fitnessgoals. Now I can stop working
out.
Well, they're not going be ableto maintain those goals, right?
Like, of course, that's not theway it works. You don't just

(06:11):
stay in that perfect state onceyou reach that. And that's kind
of how marriage is. It's like weare spending so much time, we
have the ability to put all ofour resources and our energy
into our marriage relationship.
And if we just stop at somepoint, at whatever point that
is, whether there's kids or notinvolved, we can't maintain.

(06:35):
There will be no, it won't justmagically stay a perfect
relationship just because weused to be there. So bringing
this back to Matt Townsend'sstages of marriage, he talks
about the yearning stage, whichis when we are first meeting and
dating and the chemicals and thechemistry is really high and
active, and you're just veryattracted to each other. That's

(06:58):
what leads to marriage andprocreation, right? Then we
enter the earning stage wherenow instead of the love being
maintained by our chemicals, ourlove has to actually be earned
through actions and choices andbehaviors.
And this is where the coparenting stage lies, is within

(07:18):
this stage. And he talks about,Matt Townsend that is, talks
about the concern of so manycouples where the kids have
taken priority over the marriagerelationship. And he makes some
really great suggestions forwhat to do about this and how to
keep the earning of love and thechoosing of love and the service

(07:42):
within the marriage alive sothat the connection can stay
strong even through these coparenting years. So that when
you get to the end of the coparenting years, you're not
married to a stranger that youhaven't dated in the last
eighteen to twenty years. SoMatt Townsend suggests having
rituals.

(08:03):
He suggests that you have two tothree little daily rituals.
These can be rituals about howyou greet or leave each other,
such as with a hug and kissevery time you greet and leave
each other. He also recommendshaving one to two weekly
rituals, and these might be adate night or a movie night. It

(08:25):
doesn't have to be somethingbig. It might even just be
knowing that you're going tohave a cuddle and watch a movie
weekly so that you have someconnection to look forward to
throughout the week.
And he also recommends havingone to two yearly rituals where
you really celebrate yourmarriage and your relationship,

(08:46):
maybe celebrating anniversaries,or making a big deal of some
birthdays or other importantdates in your family, so that
there are these rhythms andrituals that carry you through
the child rearing years and keepthe love growing and earning and

(09:06):
staying in touch with yourspouse. And by the way, the last
stage that Matt Townsendrecognizes in relationships is
the enduring stage, which hedefines as a mature love and
partnership rooted in trust,choice, and shared history. And

(09:31):
I think that's the goal. That'swhere we all want to get. And I
don't think we have it's notlike we don't get to it until
after the co parenting stage.
I think it can be something thatis kind of a foundation within
the stages that we're in. But itdefinitely doesn't happen
without effort and energy. Andit's so easy, especially for us
moms, to put all of our energyand emotional and physical

(09:56):
energy into our children. Andit's hard not to when they kind
of rely on us for life or deathand we have to just do certain
things to keep everyone in thehouse alive. But we will be
doing our children a disserviceif we don't demonstrate to them,
show them through our example,and teach them that their

(10:19):
parents' relationship is themost important relationship in
the family because it is thefoundation of the family.
And it is the relationship thatwill teach all the children what
to look for in their futurerelationships. That's so
important to realize is that theway they see their parents

(10:39):
interact is what they willexpect and think is normal when
they enter into their ownmarriage. And as we've mentioned
before, we actually will spendmore of our lives knowing our
adult children than we will everknow of our children in their
childhood. And on the flip side,we will spend so many more years

(11:04):
in a partnership of just ourspouse than we will as co
parents raising a house full oflittle children. Of course,
we'll always be children once wehave those kids born to us.
But as far as the nitty gritty,in the trenches raising of the
children, that phase is such ashort part of the overall

(11:27):
marriage relationship. So wehave to keep that in
perspective. We have to keep inperspective that these children
will move on. These childrenwill move out. These children
will find relationships of theirown.
And they will not look to us astheir most important
relationship anymore at somepoint, but they will remember

(11:49):
what I demonstrated was the mostimportant relationship in my
life, which is the marriagerelationship. So a couple
takeaways for you from today'sepisode. I want you to remember
Matt Townsend's threerelationship stages: the
yearning, where the chemicalsare in charge, the earning

(12:10):
stage, where we demonstrateservice and mutual effort into
the relationship, and enduringthe mature partnership that's
rooted in shared history and theconstant choice to choose each
other and to stay committed inour relationship. And also

(12:31):
remember his ideas to introducesome rituals into your
relationship. Maybe this weekyou and your partner can take
some time to identify a coupleof daily rituals that you can
incorporate every day and maybeone weekly ritual that you can
do this week.
Get started and plan on doingregularly so that you can keep

(12:52):
your marriage healthy andvibrant so that it can set the
foundation for the family sothat you can be the best mom you
want to be, and your husband canbe the best dad that he wants to
be, and your family and yourkids can have that stable,
healthy relationship to imitatelater on in life. If this

(13:15):
episode has been at all helpfulto you, please share it with a
friend who might also benefit.Post it on your social media,
write a review, or just text itto a friend. Thanks for being
with me today, and I will seeyou next time on Intentional
Motherhood.