You could always make a sex tape
Bring that spark back!
and I can see that it will take some time and energy to reconnect as all of our time and energy in the marriage has been focused on the kids. At the same time, we’ve changed along the way as well.
How does a couple let this happen? Yes, kids are an enormous time/money/energy suck, but you are married to someone forever (supposedly) and it would seem to be pretty important to maintain that marriage every day. Parents should not be two individuals, but a team that works together to do the job.
(speaking as someone coming up on 21 years of marriage, one daughter a rising college sophomore, and one a rising HS freshman)
And failing to keep the marriage relationship strong is also failing to raise the children correctly. As children mature into teens, they look for that relationship as a template for how their relationships will be in the future. If they see unhealthy relationships, they will adopt them as their own, extending the failures into the next generation when their kids see their parent failures. My parents had an unhealthy relationship as my father was not faithful to my mother and a mean drunk who enjoyed scaring both his wife and his children, and my mother accepted that until she had no other choice but to leave him.
I would have had that for an example if not for an aunt and uncle who did have a strong relationship, and exhibited their love and friendship for each other in front of me when I spent summers in their house. I chose to use the two examples as one to pattern my own relationships on, and the other as what NOT to do in my relationships. That has been a successful choice, once I overcame a few problems that were not related to how I treated my partners.
First, there’s all kinds of science that concludes children of married couples do better on a variety of levels. Second, it’s stupid to suggest that the kids not even enter into the decision. And that’s the only way to ensure you aren’t staying together for the kids. “Yeah, we had kids, but fuck it if their well being is going to enter our minds when it comes to such an important decision.”
For me it would actually be the other way around. Staying together for the kids is – by default – the best decision for the kids unless you’ve got extreme circumstances that would warrant a different decision. In other words, unless you were getting divorced for the kids.
Look up the research and/or books by Judith Wallerstein
Yes - an intact and great marriage with two loving parents with great communication is the best situation.
Surprisingly to many, a not very good situation is when the parents stay together for the kids. The parents THINK it helpful - but the long term negative consequences of this on the kids can be particularly not very good.
Kids fair reasonably to very well in the, “good divorce” - very similar to the fully intact marriages. But a “good divorce” may be one of the hardest and most challenging things you have ever done - believe me, I went through it. What kept me going was ALWAYS putting the needs/feelings of my son first and having my Ex act/behave in the same manner ( I was rather lucky in this regard - I know it’s not always the case), and keeping in good, open and honest communication with her*. We both had to give-up a lot of things. We both had to put other things aside. We both had to bury some pretty strong and powerful emotions, and move forward. It was hard!
*The problem with divorce, and if you want one of those good divorces is that when there are kids involved, the post-divorce communication, actually has to INCREASE - both in the amount of communication and the quality of it and it has to stay that way for YEARS!