Don't Learn This Too Late: Ways to Stay Connected After Kids: Episode 411
EmPowered Couples with The Freemans
Aaron & Jocelyn Freeman
5.0 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marriage after kids can feel like survival mode. Once out of the immediate chaos, it can settle into a state of function. Between diapers, school runs, shuttling to sports practices, your work, and endless to-do lists at home, it's easy to put your relationship on the back burner. But here's the truth: your kids don't just thrive on how well you care for them—they thrive on how connected YOU are as a couple.
In this episode of the Empowered Couples Podcast, Jocelyn & Aaron ("The Freemans") share practical, real-life ways to stay emotionally and physically connected after kids. You'll learn how to move beyond just "functioning" as roommates and bring back fulfillment, intimacy, and spark in your marriage before it's too late.
If you've ever felt the distance growing, this conversation will give you hope and concrete steps you can implement today.
From this episode you'll walk away with:
- How to make daily emotional check-ins that go beyond "How was your day?"
- Why non-sexual touch matters (and how to bring it back without pressure)
- Simple ways to make family dinners and daily routines bonding moments
- How to prioritize weekly and yearly quality time as a couple
- Why your kids benefit most when YOU thrive together
Don't just survive marriage after kids—reignite the connection that makes everything else in family life easier. Not only is this for your own satisfaction, but critical for what you then model to your kids.
Want to reignite the spark and feel truly connected again? Join the Best of Us 30-Day Couples Challenge—a proven path to bring back emotional closeness, intimacy, and joy in your marriage. Enrollment only opens a few times per year, so don't miss this round: https://mycoupleschallenge.com/best 👈
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Episode Topics Timestamp:
00:08 – Why putting your relationship on the back burner hurts your kids too
00:09:50 – The emotional wall couples feel after building the "dream life"
00:10:38 – Why dissatisfaction peaks around the 10-year mark (and how to avoid it)
00:13:37 – Connection is what makes parenting and life easier
00:14:00 – Step 1: Daily emotional check-ins (not just logistics)
00:19:18 – Step 2: Non-sexual touch & physical affection
00:23:59 – Why kids need to SEE your love, not just receive it
00:25:02 – Special edition: The Best of Us 30-Day Challenge
00:28:11 – Step 3: Make family dinners intentional & device-free
00:32:57 – Step 4: Weekly marriage nights (beyond TV time)
00:34:44 – Step 5: Yearly getaways & bucket list adventures together
00:37:24 – The danger of drifting apart slowly
00:39:34 – Kids notice everything—why your marriage is their model
00:41:26 – Final encouragement & invitation to reignite your spark
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Empower Couples podcast. We're here you get modern, non-boring |
| 0:06.5 | relationship advice for you and your partner to communicate like pros, fight smarter, and stay on the same team. |
| 0:12.7 | No matter the challenge that you face, I am one of your host, Aaron Freeman. |
| 0:15.7 | And I'm Jocelyn Freeman, but you all just know us as the Freemans. |
| 0:18.6 | Now imagine something for a second. Imagine waking up in the home that you dreamed of, with the kids that you dreamed of, |
| 0:25.6 | and a career you worked so hard for, and you're married, which was at one point just an idea, |
| 0:32.6 | something that you longed for. |
| 0:34.6 | But now imagine having all of this, yet feeling an emotional wall between the two of you, |
| 0:41.2 | not feeling connected. How could this be? How could we have created this beautiful life together, |
| 0:47.4 | but not feel that vitality, that connection, that spark between the two of us? If you resonate with any of that, you're not alone. |
| 0:57.6 | We promise that we hear this time and time again, and that's why in this episode, we will be |
| 1:02.9 | covering ways to stay connected even after having kids. Because here's the thing. So many couples experience the most strain in their relationship, |
| 1:15.1 | especially when they're in the trenches with young kids. In fact, one study found that marriage |
| 1:21.8 | dissatisfaction peaks at 10 years together. We're about to approach our 10-year wedding anniversary. And it's interesting |
| 1:30.3 | because at 10 years is often coinciding with raising young children. So we are going to unpack |
| 1:37.9 | how to make sure that even when you're in the trenches, even when you have a lot on your plate, |
| 1:43.1 | you stay connected. Because here's the thing. The problem is when you're in the trenches, even when you have a lot on your plate, you stay connected. Because here's |
| 1:45.3 | the thing. The problem is when you put your relationship on the back burner, when you say, |
| 1:52.1 | we don't have time for us, we'll work on us later, we can talk about things about us when the kids |
| 1:57.9 | are older. It's so easy to forget that your kids thrive and |
| 2:04.0 | benefit from you to being connected. It's easy to forget that your marriage, your relationship |
| 2:11.1 | is the foundation of your family. So it doesn't do the two of you or your kids any justice to put your relationship on the |
... |
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