Life after marriage and children

Married.  Married with dog and/or cat.  Married with dog and/or cat, and children.  Married with dog and/or cat, with children, with job, with bills, with in-laws, with, with, with…

An odd way to describe the typical married life, but nonetheless, true and familiar – it’s our American way.  To paraphrase Brian Flanagan’s Uncle Pat in the movie Cocktail, one fine day every man wakes up one morning and finds a wife and kids; where’d they come from? They weren’t here yesterday?  Yet there they are, for all the moments: belly laughs and teary-eyed boo-boos.

Now you find yourself settled-down and settled into a routine.  There’s not much more to, to what? 

Exactly, it seems that’s it, whatever it may be.  But we still long for something else, the next step to take in our lives that doesn’t lead to divorce or lampshade pictures plastered all over the internet.  So, we take our hobbies a bit more to heart and welcome distractions from wherever they may come, just so they come and we can take advantage.

So it’s time to rediscover what we’ve already experienced and that’s where we go from here:  leaving aside our experiences and not placing unobtainable expectations on occasions yet to come, those new to our children or those new to us.

Where to go from here is not about a destination or an achievement, it’s about guidance and teaching – learning through new eyes what we’ve long seen and seen in a different way.  It’s the wonderment of having children, getting to relive our own childhood but this time around, reliving it with us leading the way, with us in charge and with a bit of nostalgia that makes it memorable with whole new memories to recall and stories to tell.

The most incredible thing anyone will ever get to experience is being given the chance to see and live life from an entirely different prospective, with an entirely different attitude.  Being given another start, a second chance at one life doesn’t have to come after some tragedy or disaster – it can come through different occurrences, like having a wife, a marriage, being married with children.

--Balance for Dads 

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