Is it better to put more energy into your marriage, or should raising your kids properly be your first concern? If you think pouring your everything into your little munchkins is the best way to do things, then this episode may be a bit of an eye-opener for you. We’re going to unpack the relationship between happy marriages and happy parenting and happy kids. And it may not be what you expect to hear.

Think of Your Family as a System

Let me start with a little bit of psychobabble here but I’ll keep it simple. I want you to think of your little family unit as a system. In other words, it is made up of some moving parts and some groups of parts. The whole family, dad, mom, and children, are one system. But there are subsystems within it. And these subsystems interact and influence one another and the family as a whole. For example, your marriage is a subsystem of your family system. The mother-son relationship is a subsystem.

The reason why we need to talk about systems is because it helps us understand that one system can affect another, as well as the family as a whole. For example, the marital relationship can affect parenting relationships, and vice versa[i].

Since the whole family is one system, emotions and actions displayed in one of its subsystems can spill over into the others. For example, a husband who is good at attending to his wife’s needs will naturally be better at looking after his kids too, since similar traits and actions are involved. Equally, a husband who dislikes spending time with his wife and is hostile towards her will tend to be more hostile to his children too since the anger and resentment spill over[ii]

For that reason, it’s impossible to think about looking after your kids without also making your marriage a priority.

Marital Satisfaction = Parenting Satisfaction

Here’s a quote from one study: "A satisfying marital relationship is the cornerstone of happy family life, leading to more positive parent-child relationships and more congenial sibling relationships.[iii]".

Another study confirmed a strong link between marital satisfaction and "sensitive, warm and responsive parenting"[iv] (Pedro et al, 2012). This link is one way: marital satisfaction causes good parenting and good parent-child relationships, not the other way around.

In other words, you cannot improve your marriage by improving your parenting. But you can improve your parenting by improving your marriage.

I really think this is countercultural to a lot of what we see today where there is so much emphasis on pouring all the effort and investment into the children. What this research is showing, and we’ll learn more about this as we proceed, is that pouring effort into the marriage results in real benefits to the children.

The reverse is also true: low marital satisfaction leads to poor parenting. Emotionally distant spouses are often less supportive of their children and display less warmth, while marriages high in conflict often lead to more anger directed at the children[v].

Where this is particularly tricky is if you kind of give up on your spouse and pour effort into your children hoping you can redeem things there. I get why folks do that but if it is at all possible, the marriage is what needs your attention.

Stepfamilies Are a Slight Exception

There is one exception here. Yes, normally good parenting flows from a well-functioning marriage. But in step-families, the relationship actually runs both ways: marital satisfaction leads to better parenting of step-children but forming a healthy relationship with the step-children also creates a healthier marriage.

This is because in stepfamilies the step-parent typically does not have a pre-existing relationship with the children. Consequently, she or he has to work at developing a workable relationship with those children in the first stages of the marriage in order to create a stable household. We did a full episode on blended families a while bac...