I hear that. And I want to sit with it for a second before I say anything, because “no time for relationship with kids” is one of those things that sounds like a logistical problem but is almost never actually a logistical problem.
Here’s what I know from sitting across from parents for sixteen years. The couples who come in and say “we have no time” are usually couples who made a very deep, very sincere commitment to their kids. Like, they are IN it. They show up. They sacrifice. And the price of that showing up is that the couple, the “us,” gets quietly starved in the background.
I worked with attachment parents who never spent a night away from their kids. And they said it themselves: there is a price. A big, big price. They felt it most during the pandemic, when they were primary parents AND school teachers, all day, every day, no air. And what they described when they finally got a little space, a walk, the ocean, was just relief. Like coming up for breath.
That’s where I want to start with you. Not “how do we find more time,” but: when did you last come up for air? Even a little?
Because here’s the thing. If you and your partner are both pouring yourselves into your kids and there’s nothing left, you’re not actually modeling a loving relationship to your children. You’re modeling two people running on empty who happen to live together. Kids feel that. They absorb it.
The relationship IS the parenting. That’s not a nice idea. That’s clinical reality.
Think of it like oxygen masks on a plane. You put yours on first not because you’re selfish, but because you can’t help anyone if you pass out. Your relationship is your oxygen mask.
So I want to ask you something directly: is it that there genuinely isn’t time, or is it that the relationship has slipped so far down the priority list that it now feels like it would take too much energy to tend to it? Because those are two very different problems with two very different solutions.
If it’s truly time, we’re talking about fifteen minutes after kids are in bed. If it’s energy, we’re talking about something deeper. Something that says “this relationship doesn’t feel worth the investment right now.”
And if that’s what’s happening, your kids are watching two people who used to love each other go through the motions. That’s not protection. That’s a slow leak that eventually floods the whole house.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
