DINK (Dual Income No Kids) life is a culture that my husband, Brandon, and I have been a part of for our 15+ years of marriage.
Much respect to DINKS by choice, but our DINK life origin didn’t begin that way. The way we see it, we didn’t choose DINK life. DINK life kind of chose us.
Having children was part of the plan for us some time ago. We tried to grow our family for the better part of a decade, the natural way, without help from fertility specialists. No offense to those who choose the fertility support path. We just knew it wasn’t the route either one of us wanted to take. We experienced one miscarriage in 2017 that we were public about and got a lot of love and support through. We healed and carried onward. At the time, we accepted that should pregnancy happen, we would welcome the parenting life. And should it not, we would also be at peace with it. We’d check in with each other over the years to make sure we were still on the same page. Here we are years later, still at peace with it.
While we didn’t necessarily plan to DINK along our married life, we’re enjoying and embracing every bit of it. In fact, we recently decided to be intentional about making sure life stays this way for us. DINK life allows for freedom and flexibility that we happen to love and enjoy very much in our very full, busy, and content lives.
As 40+ year old people, both of us business owners, our life has brought about ups and downs at work and in our personal lives much like any other lifestyle. In our world, we happen to like coming home to a quiet, kept home. We enjoy making plans with our loved ones on a whim, taking off on a trip as we’re able, turning a work trip into an extended weekend should it allow, and not worrying about another human under our roof to care for. The one living being we’re responsible for is our fur baby, Arya, our 5-year-old kitty who is pretty self-sufficient and one sweet cuddler.
Being DINKS doesn’t mean we’re anti-kids. In my experience, some people seem perplexed at why we haven’t “actually tried” to have children aka gone the fertility route. Others cheer us on and say, “good….don’t have kids!” Listen, we know we have options to build a family. We also know we already have a family in each other and the people we choose to be welcomed in it.
We feel lucky to have opportunities to spend time with young ones in our lives when we want to. I’ve had and still have the opportunity to mother in different ways and we both mentor formally and informally one hundred percent by choice. We’re not anti-kids. We’re happy exercising the right and option to not intentionally pursue the parenting lifestyle for ourselves.
As DINKS, every night can be a date night for us. We choose if we want to spend time together or apart. We choose if we want to spend it with others or sit around at home in our comfys.
What will this week bring beside our work duties? Whatever we want it to. We decide…last minute if we want to.
This past Sunday on the ride home from church, our single and good friend Chris called to invite us to meet him and a friend for brunch. His invite out in the open playing over the Bluetooth in the truck cabin sat briefly awaiting our response. Brandon looked over at me to see me nod in agreement to the brunch idea. A decision was made in a matter of seconds. Brandon told Chris we’d be there shortly, made a U-turn and we met them at Jekyll & Hyde in Matthews, one of our local faves. We enjoyed a lively conversation with them and made loose plans to go off roading at the beach soon.
DINK life.
Why DINK in the city?
DINK life is often a story that goes untold. There are far more people that are married with children or single people living their dating or non-dating life. Married couples without children are far and few in between.
DINK in the City ™ will tell a DINK story. From the social aspect of our lifestyle to the harder conversations we’ve had to process such as legacy conversations and preparing our wills. DINK life glamour to getting comfortable with relinquishing societal expectations of a married couple. It’s the beauty in the simplicity as well as the complexities that come with our chosen lifestyle. Brandon, nods proudly at DINK life. He believes DINK life takes a special kind of commitment. It’s a choice to be together, not for the kids or other potentially complicated tethers, but for the life partner we made commitments to and the continued choice we make on a daily basis to stay together.
I invite you to follow along. May it entertain you.
#DINKintheCity