•Carol Bruess, PhD
• Co-author of What Happy Parents Do, professor of interpersonal and family communications, St. Thomas
• Married 17 years
Have you childproofed your marriage? The question sounds ominous, but author Carol J. Bruess, a professor of interpersonal and family communications at St. Thomas in St. Paul, wants parents to make sure their unions can withstand the stress and strain kids can put on a couple. In her new book, What Happy Parents Do, Bruess and co-author and fellow St. Thomas professor Anna Kudak interview real parents to find out how they maintain their marriages through daily loving rituals.
Which is your favorite ritual in the book?
One I repeatedly come back to because I love the lesson is the one we called “Theatrical Smooch.” Each night when Dad gets home from work, he moves past the dog and the noise and the kids to give his wife a big theatrical smooch. I love that story because it captures everything we’re trying to promote, that by putting your marriage first, you’re doing your kids a great service because you’re modeling what it means to have a loving adult relationship.
Is it hard to convince parents to put more focus on their marriage?
We are a child-centric culture and in some ways that’s great, but in other ways, it’s not great because it takes a toll on some things that should be priorities in our lives, like our marriages. I think it’s easy to ignore marriages because they don’t scream out for attention like our kids. We know based on all the best research that marital satisfaction tends to be at its lowest point during those years when we’re parenting. And there’s no mystery in that really; kids take all of our attention. So it can be hard to convince parents to reserve a good deal of that energy for their marriage.
How can parents apply some of these ideas to their own marriage?
Couples can start by looking back at the history of their own marriage and the things they used to do and used to enjoy, and more often than not something they enjoyed doing slipped away because they turned the attention to their kids, so it’s a chance to re-ignite or renew one of those rituals you might have let go. We have to force ourselves to be a little bit more intentional. None of this has to cost any money and doesn’t take that much energy, just a little bit of thoughtfulness and a change in behavior.
You have two kids and have been married for 17 years. What’s your ritual?
Actually, our ritual is in the book. We got married on Friday the 13th, so 13 is our lucky number. On the 13th of each month, we see who can say “happy anniversary” first, or sometimes I’ll leave 13 cents out on my husband’s dresser, or if we see a football player with the number 13 we root for him. It’s a daily or weekly way of connecting for us.
