Putting Your Spouse Before Your Kids Is Weird and Here’s Why
When it comes to marriage and family dynamics, the mainstream consensus is that “spouses should come before children.” I’ve heard this idea many times from different walks of life - from secular and non-secular people alike, across various religions, and even from academic voices. Most of the time, what people mean by this is that they would choose their spouses in all situations except for life and death.
This concept is easy enough to understand - by putting your spouse first, you can create a strong foundation on which to build your family. If done right, you, your spouse, and the kids all end up benefiting because your marriage is rock-solid. Far too many kids end up being the product of divorce, including me, so the idea of putting your spouse first to “save the family” is both tempting and refreshing.
For that reason, I didn’t question this line of thinking… until I had a child of my own.
Don’t get me wrong; I understand the important role spouses play in our lives, and I take marriage very seriously. It’s not lost on me that our children always leave us when they grow up (as they should), and our spouses are the people we will spend the rest of our lives with, assuming we can evade divorce or premature death. I’m a very strong believer in quality time between spouses that doesn’t involve the children. There have even been times when I’ve told my husband (during date nights, typically) that we should try not to discuss the children at all and that this time is just for us. It’s not always easy, but we manage to prioritize each other once in a while.
With that being said, would I put my spouse before our children? Heck no, and he wouldn’t want me to. Similarly, he would never put me in front of our children, and I wouldn’t want him to. Our first priority is to give our children the best lives possible and to see them through to adulthood in good health and happiness. Sometimes, that goal will come at our expense, and that’s okay with us. I think most parents can agree with that.
My husband and I are fortunate that we are on the same page when it comes to our goals as parents, but not everyone is as lucky. A lot of people out there marry people who end up becoming horrible parents, which is why it’s important to keep our children front and center in our hearts and minds.
Here are a few specific reasons to prioritize children over a spouse:
There will be many instances where your spouse is wrong and your children are right. Unfortunately, I have met more than a few people who have shitty spouses - the kinds of spouses that I would never want as my child’s other parent. The kinds of spouses who have personality disorders (such as Bipolar or BPD), and would not hesitate to become violent if it suited them. These types of people typically choose submissive partners who will enable their behavior, even at the cost of their children’s well-being. And the submissive spouses ultimately turn into the kinds of parents who would rather gaslight their children into the ground before admit that their shitty spouses are wrong about anything.
For example, I have a coworker who routinely tells me all about her degenerate husband (though I wish she would stop) and the arguments they have with each other, or the fights her husband has with their sons. If her husband happens to get into it with one of the sons, my coworker always takes her husband’s side, telling her sons that they’re “just making things worse” or are “goading him” or something to that effect. Her husband is accountable to no one. The psychological damage that can come from having one verbally abusive parent and one spineless parent has to be profound. Had my coworker prioritized her children over her husband, she could have removed them from that situation a long time ago.
But even in less extreme cases, where verbal and physical abuse aren’t present, it’s completely possible for your child’s other parent to be wrong, or for them to make choices that go against your better judgment. When my daughter was three months old, my husband was ready to put her in her room at night and let her “cry it out” whenever she had a hard time sleeping. I stood my ground and told him we would not be doing that. Bebe slept in our room (albeit in her crib) until I was comfortable moving her to her room, around 1 year old.
Nowadays, our daughter is nearly 2 and a half years old, and she mostly sleeps in her room, in her bed. However, if she happens to wake up in the middle of the night, I’m more than happy to put her to bed with us, despite my husband’s preference that we keep her in her room at all costs. If I were to put him first in this scenario, I fear our daughter would probably become fearful of bedtime to some degree. There is nothing wrong with receiving comfort from your parents when you need it. That’s part of what parents are for, in my opinion.
A shitty spouse will keep you from being the kind of parent you want to be. Your child only gets to have one childhood - and it’s in your hands. In the midst of “always putting your spouse first,” you will likely run into several situations where it causes you to not be able to meet your children’s needs, and that’s the worst thing we can do as parents. Ever since my daughter was born, I knew I wanted to be an affectionate and present mom, and I don’t think that would be fully possible unless I put her first always.
Partners, including spouses, may come and go, but your children will always be your children. And you will always be their mother or father - no one can truly replace you in their life. Imagine if you spent years, even decades, catering to your spouse and “putting them first,” just for them to leave you for someone else. This isn’t guaranteed to happen to everyone, but it happens often enough. That doesn’t mean we have to live our lives with the worst-case scenarios in mind, but it’s important to remember how breakable marriages can be, even if we give them our all.
Your children need you, and your spouse is a fully grown adult, capable of meeting their own needs. This last one is obvious. If you have small children, then their needs are going to be far more demanding than your spouse’s, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Luckily, though, kids usually only have high demands for about 10 years or so, depending on their maturity, and then they want to explore their independence. Once that happens, you will have more than enough time to re-prioritize yourself and your spouse.
XOXO, Alexis.