Rule #5 of my 10 rules to divorce-proof your marriage.

If you haven’t read the first four rules of this series, you can find them here:

• Rule #1: Define Marriage Properly
• Rule #2: Become Someone Worthy of Marriage
• Rule #3: Marry the Right Person
• Rule #4: Find Your Marriage’s Authority

Rule #5 Embrace Parenting with Hope

Couples that have children together are more likely to stay together. It can also give you a shared sense of purpose, joy, and pride that can bring you and your spouse closer together. However, new parents are also more likely to report lower rates of marital satisfaction than their childless peers, a finding that’s most pronounced for mothers.

So, will having kids improve or worsen your marriage?

Probably neither.

Having kids will give you far more opportunities to highlight the strengths and weaknesses that already existed in your relationship. In other words, if you have a strong marriage with the necessary ingredients to be great parents, becoming parents is likely to improve your experience of being married.

If your relationship is on the rocks, you’re both focused primarily on increasing your own personal happiness, or you don’t have strong communication and problem solving skills, having kids is likely to make you less satisfied in your marriage.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but probably less than you would think.

For those who know they want to become parents, are already parents, or are on the fence about becoming parents, you deserve to know all the ways having kids can bring an unparalleled, unique richness to your marriage.

Let’s look at some of those ways now. Having kids:

• Gives you a shared purpose
• Makes you more appreciative of your time with your spouse
• Highlights your complementary strengths
• Gives you a concrete reason to work on yourself and your marriage
• Gives you something to look forward to together for the rest of your life
• Creates limitless joy

I want to touch on a few of these in a bit more detail as they’re so often overlooked in the conversation about having children.

Having kids gives you a shared sense of purpose

Few things draw two people closer together than a shared purpose. That’s part of why it’s powerful to treat the marriage as if it’s a separate entity from you and your spouse, the union you two chose to form, rather than just as a way to refer to two individual people who are spending their lives together. Your marriage is a huge purpose. It’s also somewhat intangible as it exists in the space between you and your spouse.

Children are another purpose but couldn’t be more tangible, as any parent who’s had a grabby infant try to pull her hair out can tell you.

Most people tend to agree that the most meaningful parts of life are inextricably linked with challenges. Perhaps that’s what creates meaning: accomplishing something, baring something, embracing something that requires strength. In other words, doing things that either not everyone can do or, at least, not everyone can do as well as you did.

Parenting is no different.

While most people can become parents, fewer are choosing this path because of the associated difficulties. And, they aren’t wrong.

Parenting is very difficult.

But, if the greater the challenge, the greater the possibility of meaning in the pursuit, parenting is one of the most meaningful things we can do with our lives.

Having kids highlights your complementary strengths

Something interesting happens to a relationship when you become parents. In an unparalleled way, you realize that equal doesn’t have to mean identical.

Before kids, two spouses could reasonably be expected to contribute to their life together a similar amount financially, emotionally, and logistically. They aren’t identical people, but their output is similar enough that the differences can mostly be ignored.

But, when the wife gets pregnant, that changes completely.

Only women can get pregnant. Only women can breastfeed. And, the vast majority of the time, due to hormones during pregnancy and the early months of parenting a newborn, our interests and our temperaments, women are also more suited to care for small children.

So, dad takes over part of what used to be mom’s responsibility. Statistically speaking, men work more hours and earn more money once they become parents. They’re also called to greater emotional stability and dependability out of their wives’ need for support through the unavoidable challenges of pregnancy and caring for a new baby.

This fundamentally changes the marriage, and for the better if you and your spouse can appreciate the stark shift as a reflection of your complementary strengths rather than as a disruption of your pre-kids lifestyle.

This isn’t just speculation on my part. It’s a consistently repeated statistical fact across the globe that spouses’ contributions to the marriage fundamentally change in consistently sexed ways after they have kids.

Some view this trend as unfair, an undue burden on mothers to take on the brunt of the childcare responsibilities at least when the kids are young. We could see it as unfair, or we could see it as a reflection of the reason marriage makes us more capable together than we could ever be apart.

After all, once two spouses become parents, their love swells beyond the emotional and psychological into the physical, material world. Their love externalizes by producing another human being.

What’s cooler than that?

Having kids gives you a concrete reason to be better

No good deed gets done without the proper incentive. And, for most people, there’s no greater, more consistent incentive for self-improvement than knowing that your choices and lifestyle have a direct and significant impact on your children.

Parenting is an unparalleled responsibility. Many people view significant responsibility as a burden, something that ties us to a specific place or lifestyle.

But, we don’t choose goodness without a reason. That may be the greatest heartbreak of the day: so many people living without a reason to strive.

You’ll never live another day without a reason when you become a parent. It becomes obvious, sometimes painfully so, that every good and bad thing about you radiates like as the guide for your child’s introduction to the world.

That may sound intimidating, but it may be the case that no one is worthy of being a parent until the day you become one and choose to be better, to be more worthy of the gift of your child for your child’s sake.

Having kids creates limitless joy for everyone involved

Having children brings families together. It heals old wounds, fosters new relationships and strengthens old ones.

Children bring out a goodness, a hopeful energy in other people that you’d never expect.

You can see it in the eyes of the women you pass on the street with an infant strapped into the baby carrier on your chest. Toddlers excitedly point out your baby to their parents. “Mama, look! A baby!” Even dogs love children. I’ve never been so thrilled to watch someone else be the center of attention as when I would catch people smiling at my infant son.

But, out of everyone in the world, you and your spouse will absorb the most joy from a life of supporting the flourishing of another’s life.

Precisely because you are most responsible for your children as you grow, you will be most joyful about every victory, every new friend, every opportunity granted to your child to live out the human experience.

I’m not convinced that any beautiful sunset, work of art, grand cathedral or majestic animal could make us appreciate the beauty of life more than the face of your child, the face you helped create.

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Today’s Challenge

• If you know you want kids: How can you start planning for your future family with your spouse? What do you want to know before becoming a parent?
• If you’re not sure you want to have kids: If you ask yourself honestly, what’s at the heart of your hesitation about becoming a parent? What would you need to know, do, or see in order to feel like
• If you already have kids: How can you reflect more frequently on the gift of being a parent? How can you let your kids know you’re thrilled to have them around and let your spouse know you wouldn’t want to be parenting with anyone else?

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Wishing you hope, 

Cameron

Marriage therapist & founder of HITCHED

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Marriage is hard. It’s also worth the fight. HITCHED can help you fight as a team for the relationship you’ve always wanted. To get access to your own personalized, evidence-based guide to lifelong marriage, check out HITCHED here. I’m excited that we’ll be rolling out some awesome guidance and resources on the app over the next few months. So, if you have kids already, are planning to start a family soon, or are on the fence about it, I think you’ll find this content to be particularly relevant.