In my Marriage and Disabled Children blog, I outlined the many challenges of keeping your marriage healthy when you’re parenting disabled children. So what’s a couple to do?

I am no marriage counselor. And maybe I’m writing this blog more as a reminder for myself than advice to others. But here are some things I have learned that I think help our marriage (or am learning and need to keep working on):

1. The art of asking for help. This is a tough one for me. It comes in the form of both asking my hubby for help and asking for help from those outside our marriage. I use the excuse of not wanting to “burden” anybody. But the truth is that asking our friends and loved ones to do something that seems “little” to them is often huge to me. Super Dad is a willing participant in household upkeep. But asking him specifically to do a task is something I’m bad at. I go around assuming he can see what needs to be done around the house in the same way I can. Actually he sees different things that need to be done. So if something is bugging me (like the front bushes)…I need to specifically request that they be trimmed.
2. The art of appreciating help. I’ve watched others struggle with this one, so I know I’m not alone. This may be the root of the complaint about what the other spouse has “done all day”. We get tunnel vision into our own trials and stressors and think the other person has it easier. Even our spouse, who is really in our same boat! The easiest way to get our spouse to keep doing something we truly want him/her to do is to express appreciation. (And to not criticize if he/she doesn’t do it EXACTLY as we would have done.)
3. The attitude of gratitude. As odd as it seems, the bigger your crises, the clearer the good things in life become. Crises have a way of stripping away everything except what is important. So in some ways it becomes easier to develop an attitude of gratitude. BUT, being grateful takes practice. The more you look for things to be thankful for, the more apparent they become. And the positive attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
4. Redefining your date/intimate life. It happens whether you want it to or not. The presences of a child who places many, many demands on your time and energy will change your intimacy. So, you have to be purposeful about this part of your marriage as well. And creative. We laugh about our “date to Eckerds” to pick up a prescription for LuLu several years ago. We left my mom in charge (after the kids were asleep) and realized while we were at Eckerds that Starbucks was next door. Be opportunists. Take the chance while you’ve got it!
5. Depend on humor. Our senses of humor were/are the basis of much of our relationship. And we use them to keep us cemented through the rocky times. We email jokes, clip cartoons for the refrigerator, and call each other with funny stories. Laughing several times a day, even in the midst of a devastating crisis…no make that ESPECIALLY in the midst of a devastating crisis…is our sanity tip. As Jimmy Buffett says, “If we weren’t all crazy we’d all go insane!”

Keeping your marriage healthy is hard and takes daily care. In fact, I’d venture to say that those who parent challenging children must be much more intentional about the health of their marriage than most other folks. We need each other! We really do. I can’t imagine going it alone in parenting LuLu, nor can Super Dad. We really need to be able to tag team her needs. And each of us brings our own unique strengths to the job. It takes more than one person to parent a special needs child (it takes a village, actually). But at the bare minimum and at the core it takes a strong marriage. And a strong marriage that holds up under this tremendous crisis is a great example to all your children…healthy and disabled alike.

Now…I’m off to practice what I just preached…

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