We caught up with a couple of Chris’s friends separately before heading over to Chris’s cousins’ house for our last family get-together before leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, and as I was chatting with his best friend, we watched his three-year-old son play in the children’s play area of the mall we were having coffee at. He said that although he loved his son, he was looking forward to time away from him in March for our California wedding, and even more so if his wife would be able to come, since her attendance was still pending due to employment uncertainty. He said he’s been spending a lot of time catching up with a mutual friend of his and Chris’s, who has been with his wife for years now, and they have a few children together. He was troubled when his friend said to him that without the kids, he wouldn’t know what he would talk about with his wife. That made me feel troubled, too, just hearing that. It seems to be a common thing with new parents, forgetting why they got married in the first place and having their children be their number one priority in their lives, before even each other. Children should of course be the priority of their parents, but the parents can’t forget about each other as husband and wife, wife and wife, life partner and life partner – whatever the pairing is. I don’t think most of us get married thinking that our number one reason for getting married is procreation – at least, I hope it isn’t. I don’t think it’s a selfish thing for married couples to want to have time away from their children and just be together; if anything, I think that is a human need. And those types of needs should not be ignored.