mabw wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:11 am
Greetings,
To married Buddhists here, I would like to hear how you live a Buddhist married life with kids.
I can only talk for my dad and mom. They are active in their local Buddhist societies again, after some break from raising young kids. They used to be active even as youths. They helped formed a new meditation centre when I was young, and I got into Buddhism via the Sunday Dhamma school. So part of being a Buddhist parent is to help propagate the Dhamma to your kids, spend the weekends for Buddhism, much like the Christians do.
Still, many arguments, etc part of the suffering of married life. It's not easy going for retreats with family, basically, when the kids are still not independent, have to take turns. It can mean sacrificing family holidays. Or can deposit the kids with grandparents and go to retreats together.
One of the harder part is to know how to let go of kids when they are grown up, by that time, it's very good to devote more time to your own spiritual practise.
As I see it, even long time married couple can abstain from sex cause there's no more romance in the relationship, and it's not an issue for divorce. It's just that if you're getting married to enjoy sex for life, be disappointed, it'll likely just last a few decades, that is if you married young and keep the marriage going.