Parenting - How Do YOU Do It?

If it makes you feel any better, you're almost certainly doing a better job than the British Royal Family: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prince-harry-royal-familyparenting-style/

Hey man. Keep the existing door/window casing and add a "back band". Then you don't have to rip the old trim off and you can do the new baseboards sooner. I banded some E36 M3ty 2.5" builder casing at my old house and it turned out awesome.

I was shocked at how expensive Flagstaff real estate is. We rented an airBnB there in March (the weekend it snowed 40" - skiing was great) and loved that place.

In reply to OHSCrifle :

That's true. A back band totally changes the look of any casing, and probably solves that problem. 
 

Good call. 

Another vote for the love languages. It feels kind of like a silly test that you'd find in an old Cosmo magazine, but it's really helps to clarify the most and least effective ways that you and your partner feel loved. It's not uncommon for a marriage counselor to suggest it.

If you do pursue counseling (I agree that you probably should based on what you're saying) I'd suggest looking for a Gottman certified counselor in your area. The Gottman Method is backed by decades of actual scientific research on compatibility and focuses on helping couples communicate more effectively. It appealed more to my analytical mind more than something else with less concrete foundation, and it sounds like you might be similar. There are some good  seminars  on YouTube that cover the basics of the history and science that has gone into the development of their method.

You and your wife sound fairly different. It's not easy for different people to stay engaged in a relationship for a long time, especially as careers and kids enter the picture (ask me how I know). I believe there's some research that indicates the first 3 years after having a child are typically the hardest on the parents' relationship, so it sounds like you guys may have been through the hardest part, and there's reason for optimism. It's going to take each of you working together to regain some of what may have been lost over time, and you need the right tools. That's what a good counselor will help provide. Once you have the tools, it's just about intentionally using them to make each other feel loved and appreciated. It will probably feel awkward and forced at first, but it becomes more natural the more you do it. As others have said, you're not the only couple that's been through these things. The issues you've mentioned all sound pretty common to me. Plenty of couples have come back from worse. It sounds like a really critical time in your lives for each of you to prioritize your family and try to resolve things before issues grow and get worse. Good luck!

It's tough balancing young kids, your careers, and doing major projects on a house.  We kicked off a major gutting and complete rebuild of the lower level in our previous house when my oldest was 6 months old.  Shortly after that, he became mobile, we had a second child 19 months later, and that remodel took  5 years :-)  My wife grew up with a father who was a general contractor for years, and who has literally built houses from scratch, done additions, and spent 20 years focusing on kitchens and baths, mostly in homes far nicer than ours.  So she has great vision for what's possible, but sometimes it's tough to balance that against what can realistically happen with 2 jobs and 4 school-aged kids.  I'll share some of what I've learned over the years, as much to remind myself as to help.  The advice is worth what you paid for it.

1) Course correction - a commercial airliner is actually slightly off course the majority of the time, but the pilot (or computer) makes small changes to avoid major course corrections.  The same applies to life - we will never have the right balance, it's a constant battle.  And sometimes you'll have to swing further in the other direction to make up for some of the recent past (or projects).  It's important to constantly have this conversation with your wife/significant other.

2) Farming stuff out - figure out the right balance of doing work yourself and farming it out.  In our old house, we got a quote to have it sheetrocked and it saved me 3 months worth of weekends, and the cost was about 20% more than what it would have cost me in materials.  Having it knocked out in the course of a week and a half was a huge burden that was lifted.  I've done just about everything once to know my skill level, so I can better decide if it makes sense to farm it out.

3) Right tools for the job - having (or renting) the right tools for the job can make a big difference.  I dug and leveled an area for a small above ground pool by hand last year. It took several nights/weekends, I was exhausted, and my bad knee was acting up by the end of it (requiring doctor/chiropractor visits). I would have been better off renting a bobcat at HD for 4 hours and being done with it.  I would have saved a ton of time, money, wear on my body, and stress if I had been smart and just rented the right tool for the job.

Like I said, I'm not even decent at this.  We currently have an almost completed basement remodel, a deck rehab, 8 windows coming in a week for me to install (thankfully with my FIL), and we're opening up our family room up into our screened in porch.  And I forgot a bunch of siding repair/replacement and painting.  I also have a million car maintenance/repair projects that usually slide to the bottom of the priority order.  So do as I say, not as I do :-)