Tag-Team Parenting: Do You Have a Weekend Marriage?

Keeping Connected as a Couple in the Era of
Tag-Team Parenting and the Weekend Marriage


By Marie Wolf


Article Contents
A Tale of Two Couples |  Date Night | Reversing the Disconnect | Weekends | Balance | More Play | Resources



Let the games begin!





Of the 110 million married people in America today, 85 percent have a relationship that qualifies as a "weekend marriage," Kirshenbaum says, based on her analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures and various time-use studies. That means 93 million Americans are currently in a weekend marriage.

Monday through Friday life is a marathon for most American couples with children. Mornings are a mad dash to get the kids up, dressed, fed and off to school or daycare. Parents then head to the office, or to run errands and maintain the home.


In the evenings, most of us function on auxiliary power, putting dinner on the table, helping with homework, doing laundry and - finally - collapsing in front of the TV.


Life is busy, filled with deadlines, after-school activities and maintaining a household. Even the quest to put healthy meals on the table and exercise is high on our to-do list. Why? So we can stay fit, and continue to do all of the above.


What suffers in all of this is time for moms and dads to focus on their relationship. Today, more often than not, the time a couple has with each other is spent sharing the tasks of daily life. There's not much time left for sharing anything else. Indeed, a 1998 poll conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit group that advocates for work-family fairness and balance, found that 64 percent of Americans believe the time crunch for working families is getting worse.





Healing the Hurts Quickly


Weekend-marriage couples don't have the luxury of time to analyze and dissect every disagreement that arises. "So decisions don't get made. Problems don't get solved," psychotherapist Mira Kirshenbaum writes in her book The Weekend Marriage.


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