Harried marrieds

Like ships passing in the night. That's the way Mira Kirshenbaum describes the increasingly distant relationship she and her husband developed after years of balancing child-rearing and demanding careers. "We were so busy we couldn't connect," she says. "We just didn't have the feelings of love we used to."

It's a familiar lament in a time-short culture. Of the 110 million married people in the United States, about 85 percent are living what Ms. Kirshenbaum calls "the weekend marriage." With only scattered moments to share on weekdays, these "harried marrieds" hope to carve out time together on Saturday and Sunday. But even that is often a tenuous dream. There are always errands to run, children to chauffeur, houses to clean, bills to pay.

The results are sobering. "The weekend marriage is now the most important and least understood reason why couples end up getting divorced," says Kirshenbaum, a couples therapist in Boston. "Neglect is how you kill a relationship. How do you solve problems that come up between you if there's no time to talk?"

Parents exacerbate those time deficits, she finds, by making too many unnecessary sacrifices for their children, whose lives are often overscheduled. She urges adults to consider their own well-being, too.

That was the reasoning behind Nancy and Michael Twigg's decision to spend an hour together each morning after their daughter goes to preschool. They work from home, she as a writer and speaker, he as an engineering consultant.

"We were getting to a point where we were not having harmony in our marriage," says Mrs. Twigg, of Knoxville, Tenn. So they set priorities. "It's a matter of figuring out how to draw the line," she says. "We've got to have family time, work time, and couple time."

Their activities vary during their hour together. "Sometimes we go out for bagels and coffee, sometimes we just stay home and do chores together," says Twigg. "Sometimes we talk over any issues that need to be resolved."

After 10 years of marriage, Roger Darnell and his wife, Beth, of Boone, N.C., found that everything changed with the births of their children, now ages 4 and 18 months. "Whenever we try to have the simplest conversation to catch up at the end of a day, the din of our kids quickly escalates until we have no choice but to turn our attentions to them," he says.

The Darnells' coping mechanisms include making time for conversation every evening after the children are in bed. They also go out for a weekly "date night."

Marty Friedman, who writes and speaks on marriage and relationships, sees men and women taking different approaches to the problem.

"Men tend to think that their marriages will run on automatic," he says. "Increasingly, men want to be involved and caring fathers, so their parent time is very important to them in the evenings and weekends. I often see men who are in a 'parenthood' but not in a fulfilling marriage. A healthy, loving marriage is more important to children than anything else."

Couples should agree not to talk about the children when they go out, or to keep it to 10 minutes for the evening, suggests Mr. Friedman, author of "Straight Talk for Men About Marriage." He encourages them to limit children's organized activities and to get away with their wives for at least a day every three months.

Polly Franks, a child advocate in Richmond, Va., faced a moment of truth when her husband saw her making out her daily list of things to do. "He asked me to put him on the list," she says.

Now they shop for groceries together as one way of carving out moments as a couple. They also set aside several hours for a dinner out, even if only once a month, so they have uninterrupted time to talk.

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